Key findings
6 numbers worth citingThe median Maps-visible business has 86 reviews and a 4.6★ rating — but the mean is 513: visibility is extremely top-heavy (p25 = 13, p75 = 418; 12.6% of businesses have 1,000+ reviews).
Measured · 164,241 profiles · Sep 8, 2026 sweepRatings no longer differentiate: 66.2% of rated businesses hold 4.5★+, 20.7% hold a perfect 5.0, and top-3 vs rank-21+ median ratings differ by just 0.1★ (4.6 vs 4.5).
Measured · 150,582 rated profiles · Sep 8, 2026 sweep15.6% of businesses ranking in Google Maps have no website — 35.0% of car wash listings, against 3.6% of personal injury attorney listings.
Measured · 164,241 profiles · Sep 8, 2026 sweepThe pack is stable on top, chaotic underneath: 73.9% of top-3 businesses held their spot week-over-week, yet 0.7% of top-10 results were new entrants and the median weekly rank move was 6 positions.
Measured · 67,823 week-over-week pairs · Aug 30 → Sep 8, 202645.8% of tracked businesses gained reviews in a single week (mean +2.3).
Measured · 67,823 week-over-week pairs · Aug 30 → Sep 8, 2026Metro competitiveness spans ~5.1×: the median top-20 business has 504 reviews in Greenville vs 98 in Pittsburgh.
Measured · top-20 results, 54 metros · Sep 8, 2026 sweep
How many reviews does the average local business have?
The median is 86. The mean is 513. 6 times apart, from the same 164,241 profiles — because a small number of businesses hold an enormous share of all reviews.
Source: SEO Bandwagon weekly Maps tracking · 164,241 profiles · sweep of Sep 8, 2026
Distribution of review counts
Share of businesses (%) by review count · n = 163,930
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 = 150,582 rated · 8.3% of tracked profiles are unratedA 4.5★ rating is now the middle of the distribution: 66.2% of rated businesses hold 4.5★ or more and 20.7% 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 | 2,877 | 914 | 376–1,617 | 4.2 | 8.7% | 4.0% |
| Mexican | 2,958 | 584 | 185–1,387 | 4.4 | 17.5% | 1.2% |
| Pizza | 5,092 | 460 | 213–879 | 4.4 | 5.6% | 1.4% |
| Restaurant | 4,838 | 367 | 106–958 | 4.5 | 9.8% | 1.4% |
| Grocery store | 2,529 | 356 | 44–1,325 | 4.2 | 30.0% | 3.3% |
| Bar | 2,452 | 266 | 84–598 | 4.5 | 18.1% | 1.6% |
| Veterinarian | 2,470 | 239 | 83–471 | 4.7 | 5.3% | 4.2% |
| Dentist | 3,450 | 224 | 29–499 | 4.8 | 13.2% | 7.4% |
| Coffee shop | 3,861 | 209 | 74–462 | 4.6 | 11.9% | 1.7% |
| Nail salon | 2,708 | 198 | 74–412 | 4.6 | 21.5% | 3.0% |
| Car washLow web presence | 2,488 | 157 | 28–515 | 4.2 | 35.0% | 5.5% |
| Barber shop | 2,906 | 92 | 29–217 | 4.8 | 29.4% | 7.0% |
| Apartment complex | 2,241 | 82 | 30–186 | 4.2 | 5.1% | 2.6% |
| Locksmith | 3,072 | 81 | 24–215 | 4.9 | 16.2% | 3.9% |
| Pest control service | 2,760 | 73 | 10–373 | 4.9 | 14.2% | 6.6% |
| Plumber | 5,845 | 71 | 16–310 | 4.9 | 17.3% | 3.5% |
| Hair salon | 2,110 | 66 | 27–158 | 4.9 | 16.2% | 1.4% |
| Chiropractor | 3,025 | 59 | 14–192 | 5.0 | 12.4% | 6.0% |
| Personal injury attorney | 2,901 | 59 | 17–176 | 4.9 | 3.6% | 4.5% |
| Roofing contractor | 1,978 | 43 | 10–117 | 4.9 | 13.1% | 7.2% |
| Real estate agency | 2,617 | 30 | 9–74 | 4.9 | 7.8% | 6.3% |
| Electrician | 2,499 | 20 | 5–72 | 4.9 | 25.8% | 7.6% |
| Real estate agent | 1,969 | 20 | 7–46 | 5.0 | 12.5% | 7.6% |
| Dermatologist | 2,531 | 15 | 1–182 | 4.8 | 14.8% | 23.9% |
| Financial plannerThin data | 2,283 | 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 | 269 | 4.6 | 89.0% |
| 4–10 | 228 | 4.6 | 87.5% |
| 11–20 | 219 | 4.6 | 88.1% |
| 21+ | 176 | 4.5 | 86.0% |
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 weekThis band moves the most between editions. Everything below compares two consecutive sweeps: Aug 30 → Sep 8, 2026, 67,823 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 5.1 to one.
Most competitive
Ranks 01–05 of 54Least competitive
Ranks 54–50 of 54All 54 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 513, 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: 66.2% of rated businesses sit at 4.5★ or above and 20.7% hold a flat 5.0. Below 4.0★ puts a business in the bottom 11.4%.
Do more reviews mean a higher Maps ranking?
Businesses in positions 1–3 do carry more reviews than those at 21+ (269 vs 176 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. 73.3% of tracked query–business pairs moved 3+ positions in a single week and the median move was 6 — while 73.9% of top-3 spots stayed put.
How this data was collected
Methodology colophon · edition week of Sep 8, 2026
Sample164,241 unique businesses and 585,595 observations collected Jul 24 – Sep 8, 2026.
CollectionGoogle Maps results to depth ~100 for tracked local queries in 54 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 — 1,791 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: 32.3% 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 (Sep 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 3.6× 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 Sep 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 — 54 metros, refreshed weekly.
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 54 metros we track.