Review velocity
The rate at which reviews arrive, and why steady beats a burst.
What is review velocity?
Review velocity is how frequently new reviews appear over time. It is a pattern rather than a total.
A business with 200 reviews all from 2022 and one with 60 arriving steadily over the last year are telling different stories, and the second reads better.
Why does the arrival pattern matter more than the review total?
Review velocity is read as a pattern rather than a score, so the shape of the arrivals is what carries meaning to a reader and to a platform. Two shapes are set out below: reviews that keep arriving, and reviews that arrive in one push and then stop, with what each of them reads as.
| Arrival pattern | What it reads as |
|---|---|
| Steady arrival | Steady arrival signals an operating business with ongoing customers. |
| A sudden burst followed by silence | A sudden burst followed by silence looks like a campaign rather than a practice, to readers and to platforms. |
Bursts also attract scrutiny. A sharp spike is one of the patterns platforms look at when assessing whether reviews are being solicited improperly.
How do you build review velocity compliantly?
Ask every customer, consistently, without conditioning the request on how happy they seem. No incentives tied to sentiment. No gating. The compliant version is slower and it compounds, and it does not put the asset at risk.
How do you check your own review velocity?
Open your profile and note the dates of your last ten reviews. Are they spread evenly, or clustered around one or two pushes?
A clustered pattern is survivable, and it tells you the request is an occasional campaign rather than part of how the job closes.
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