Key findings
6 numbers worth citingThe median Maps-visible business has 86 reviews and a 4.7★ rating — but the mean is 514: visibility is extremely top-heavy (p25 = 13, p75 = 415; 12.6% of businesses have 1,000+ reviews).
Measured · 157,580 profiles · Aug 8, 2026 sweepRatings no longer differentiate: 66.6% of rated businesses hold 4.5★+, 20.8% hold a perfect 5.0, and top-3 vs rank-21+ median ratings differ by just 0.1★ (4.6 vs 4.5).
Measured · 144,912 rated profiles · Aug 8, 2026 sweep15.4% of businesses ranking in Google Maps have no website — 34.8% of car wash listings, against 3.6% of personal injury attorney listings.
Measured · 157,580 profiles · Aug 8, 2026 sweepThe pack is stable on top, chaotic underneath: 77.4% of top-3 businesses held their spot week-over-week, yet 18.1% of top-10 results were new entrants and the median weekly rank move was 5 positions.
Measured · 56,812 week-over-week pairs · Aug 1 → Aug 8, 202646.0% of tracked businesses gained reviews in a single week (mean +2.4).
Measured · 56,812 week-over-week pairs · Aug 1 → Aug 8, 2026Metro competitiveness spans ~5.6×: the median top-20 business has 640 reviews in Miami vs 114 in Cincinnati.
Measured · top-20 results, 53 metros · Aug 8, 2026 sweep
How many reviews does the average local business have?
The median is 86. The mean is 514. 6 times apart, from the same 157,580 profiles — because a small number of businesses hold an enormous share of all reviews.
Source: SEO Bandwagon weekly Maps tracking · 157,580 profiles · sweep of Aug 8, 2026
Distribution of review counts
Share of businesses (%) by review count · n = 157,277
The five-star economy: local ratings in 2026
Two thirds of rated businesses sit at 4.5★ or above. A rating that once signalled quality now mostly signals presence.
Share of rated businesses by star band
n = 144,912 rated · 8.0% of tracked profiles are unratedA 4.5★ rating is now the middle of the distribution: 66.6% of rated businesses hold 4.5★ or more and 20.8% hold a flat 5.0.
Review benchmarks by industry
25 categories, ranked by median review count. “Category” is the business’s own primary category on its Google listing — the label on the profile, not the query we searched.
Review benchmarks by search category, 2026
SEO BANDWAGON.| Search category | n | Median reviews | p25–p75 | Median rating | % no website | % zero reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hotel | 2,756 | 922 | 384–1,626 | 4.2 | 8.4% | 3.7% |
| Mexican | 2,747 | 588 | 187–1,409 | 4.4 | 17.3% | 1.1% |
| Pizza | 4,591 | 468 | 216–917 | 4.4 | 5.8% | 1.4% |
| Grocery store | 2,360 | 372 | 45–1,317 | 4.2 | 29.7% | 3.0% |
| Restaurant | 4,595 | 365 | 104–948 | 4.5 | 10.0% | 1.5% |
| Bar | 2,317 | 268 | 85–603 | 4.5 | 17.6% | 1.6% |
| Veterinarian | 2,471 | 239 | 84–471 | 4.7 | 5.3% | 4.1% |
| Dentist | 3,340 | 224 | 29–498 | 4.8 | 13.0% | 7.4% |
| Coffee shop | 3,609 | 208 | 74–461 | 4.6 | 11.8% | 1.8% |
| Nail salon | 2,707 | 199 | 74–412 | 4.6 | 21.6% | 3.1% |
| Car washLow web presence | 2,383 | 160 | 29–522 | 4.2 | 34.8% | 5.5% |
| Barber shop | 2,906 | 92 | 29–218 | 4.8 | 29.4% | 7.0% |
| Apartment complex | 2,106 | 83 | 31–185 | 4.2 | 4.8% | 2.7% |
| Locksmith | 2,917 | 82 | 24–218 | 4.9 | 16.1% | 3.7% |
| Pest control service | 2,746 | 74 | 10–375 | 4.9 | 14.2% | 6.6% |
| Plumber | 5,443 | 73 | 16–323 | 4.9 | 17.3% | 3.4% |
| Hair salon | 2,117 | 72 | 29–166 | 4.9 | 16.2% | 1.3% |
| Garage door supplier | 1,922 | 62 | 17–229 | 4.9 | 12.5% | 3.3% |
| Personal injury attorney | 2,837 | 60 | 18–178 | 4.9 | 3.6% | 4.4% |
| Chiropractor | 3,023 | 59 | 14–191 | 5.0 | 12.4% | 6.0% |
| Roofing contractor | 1,961 | 44 | 10–117 | 4.9 | 13.2% | 7.3% |
| Real estate agency | 2,576 | 30 | 9–74 | 4.9 | 7.8% | 6.3% |
| Electrician | 2,487 | 20 | 5–72 | 4.9 | 25.8% | 7.6% |
| Dermatologist | 2,528 | 14 | 1–181 | 4.8 | 14.8% | 23.9% |
| Financial plannerThin data | 2,282 | 0 | 0–2 | 5.0 | 8.1% | 59.9% |
What the top of the map pack looks like
Businesses in positions 1–3 carry more reviews than those at 21+ — but the gap is smaller than the industry folklore suggests, and it is not a ranking mechanism.
| Map position | Median reviews | Median rating | Has website |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | 307 | 4.6 | 90.4% |
| 4–10 | 270 | 4.6 | 89.1% |
| 11–20 | 235 | 4.6 | 88.5% |
| 21+ | 172 | 4.5 | 85.7% |
Descriptive, not causal — within a given query, review count is uncorrelated with map position (r = −0.021, n = 8,384, our rank study). The table above describes who is currently at the top; it does not say what put them there.
How much the local pack changes every week
Live data · rebuilt every FridayThis band moves the most between editions. Everything below compares two consecutive sweeps: Aug 1 → Aug 8, 2026, 56,812 matched query–business pairs.
This section is the seed of our Local SERP Volatility Index.
The most competitive metros for local search
Median review count of the top-20 businesses in each metro, from a single sweep so every metro is on equal footing. The spread between first and last is roughly 5.6 to one.
Most competitive
Ranks 01–05 of 53Least competitive
Ranks 53–49 of 53All 53 metros · median reviews and website presence
Questions people ask about this data
How many Google reviews does the average local business have?
The median Maps-visible business has 86 reviews. The mean is 514, pulled up by a small number of very large profiles — quote the median unless you specifically mean the tail.
What is a good Google rating in 2026?
4.5★ is the middle of the distribution, not the top of it: 66.6% of rated businesses sit at 4.5★ or above and 20.8% hold a flat 5.0. Below 4.0★ puts a business in the bottom 11.2%.
Do more reviews mean a higher Maps ranking?
Businesses in positions 1–3 do carry more reviews than those at 21+ (307 vs 172 median). But within a given query the correlation between review count and position is effectively zero (r = −0.021, n = 8,384) — the gap describes who is at the top, not what put them there.
How often do local rankings change?
Constantly, below the top three. 69.0% of tracked query–business pairs moved 3+ positions in a single week and the median move was 5 — while 77.4% of top-3 spots stayed put.
How this data was collected
Methodology colophon · edition week of Aug 8, 2026
Sample157,580 unique businesses and 411,215 observations collected Jul 24 – Aug 8, 2026.
CollectionGoogle Maps results to depth ~100 for tracked local queries in 53 US metros, from licensed SERP data. We publish aggregates only — no profile-level records.
Definitions“Category” is the business’s own primary category on its Google listing, not the query we searched — 1,764 distinct values across the corpus. Where a listing carries no category the query it was found under stands in, so the field is not purely one or the other: 32.2% of businesses carry a category string that also appears in our query set, and the two sources cannot be separated after the fact. Each business is counted once, in the headline figures and once in the category table.
PinningRank, metro and weekly-movement figures are pinned to the latest sweep (Aug 8, 2026); distribution figures use the full observation window. Every figure on this page carries the window it came from.
LimitsThis is a public-surface census, not a survey of business owners. It cannot see impressions, calls, or anything inside an owner’s dashboard, and it observes only businesses that rank for a tracked query.
Relation to prior benchmarksThe 2019 study this succeeds measured owner-side GMB Insights on 45,264 listings; this observes the public Maps surface at 3.5× the sample. A successor, not a like-for-like update — the two are not directly comparable.
Cite this report
Free to quote, chart, and screenshot with attribution. Suggested citation:
SEO Bandwagon, "Google Business Profile Benchmarks 2026," edition week of Aug 8, 2026. https://seobandwagon.com/research/gbp-benchmarks
About the data
SEO Bandwagon has run local search campaigns nationwide since 2010. This report is built from the same weekly Maps sweep that powers our metro ledgers — 53 metros, refreshed every Friday.
Aggregates only, published in full, with the method attached. If a number here is wrong, we want to hear it.
Want these numbers for your market?
Every metro in this report has its own ledger — median reviews, ratings and weekly movement for all 53 metros we track.