The answer is when Google My Business is aggregating and averaging out your reviews. In Google My Business math these nine different 5 star reviews average out to a measly 4.9.
For a company that has ~2,000 Ph.Ds in it’s employee, has written one of the most sophisticated computer applications in human history and is closing in on releasing a self-driving car you’d think that they would be able accurately represent a review average.
6 Response Comments
Slow news day? This has been like this forever and obviously indicates a more complicated algorithm at work that just =AVERAGE()
If only more complicated were qualitatively better.
Google takes other factors into account so 9 “5”s does not equal a 5 score.
“Score calculation
We calculate an overall rating based on user ratings and a variety of other signals to ensure that the overall score best reflects the quality of the establishment.”
Google recently told us even if you have all 5 star reviews, you will seldom ever end up with a 5 Star score. But I have all 5 star reviews and my score is 5. However that’s because I don’t have any reviews anywhere else that could pull that score down I guess.
Have them get more reviews. In my experience the score gets dropped if you don’t have enough reviews.
Interesting! Google also collect information “feedback” from other local directories as well, such as YP, Manta, and specially city search, so if you have a 3 star review there that might reflect your overall rating.
Nobody is perfect! That’s the message.