Less so now than ever. I used to use Maps a lot. I see a lot of businesses lately offering deals for good reviews, so I've been to a few places with hundreds of reviews and 4.7+ stars that are mediocre at best. So I've started to read the 1 star reviews and look for reports of those deals and that helps some. Or the phrase "I don't understand all the 5 star reviews."
this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
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No direct correlation, no. Businesses are largely able to refute and remove derogatory reviews with a little effort. The correlation is in how much effort they are willing to put in to maintain their image. Often that willingness extends to the actual operation of their business, but not always.
If it is a local businesses it can give you some information. 5 stars based on 1 review? Don't trust it. 4.9 stars based on 100 reviews, split between 25 1-star and 75 5-star reviews? Don't trust it. But 2 businesses with believable amount of reviews one has 4.3 and other 4.7 stars? I'll definitely check out the 4.7 one first.
One trick on ratings is to sort by date. The most recent reviews are more likely to be reality, as opposed to the common bot-farm positive reviews. It still won't help you identify if customers aren't likely to leave reviews, however.
This is also generally good advice anyway, since a place can go from good to bad or bad to good over time. There is a gas station near me that has a pretty obvious point in which it went from pretty decent to utter shit, and it's when the current owner took over.
Yes and no. You should consider that businesses have the ability to ask Google to remove unfavorable reviews.
For a lot of businesses, typically the kind that most people don't generally review, a good rating doesn't really mean anything, a bad rating might if there's a few of them.
For restaurants, cafes and bars it depends where you are. Every area will have one or two sites/apps where most people typically review these kinds of business. So in some areas Google reviews are a pretty good gauge of things, in others they're basically useless.
The other thing to figure out is what "good" actually is for a given area, because a 4.7 in some areas could mean one of the best meals you ever have, and in others it could just be an average rating.
Whenever I'm traveling to a new area and looking for that kind of thing, I can usually find people talking about the above for a given area either on travel forums (or places like Reddit) or by watching a few travel vlogs focused on food options, where it often comes up as a topic.
Edit: clarity, don't just use "place" to mean area, business and website in every instance, kids!
This is especially noticeable in locations with lots of tourism. People tend to give higher ratings when they're on vacation, as opposed to locals who are more critical.
That has always been my feeling and has recently been confirmed by a study.
I notice this where i live. Reviews from non spanish speakers tend to be 4 or 5 stars and the locals tend to give 2-4 except for really good restaurants get 5.
Which business do you want a review on? I'll give you my personal opinion based on the facade of their building and my gut feeling.
I was mostly thinking of restaurants, so Not sure I want to hear your gutfeeling 🤓
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No
Why would they.
It’s web 2.0 junk. It was supposed to be great, but they forgot that bots exist and people leave stupid reviews.