Data Studies
Research on the map pack, Google Business Profiles and reviews. These studies measure what local businesses do on Google and what the ones that rank have in common: review counts, ratings and reply rates, profile completeness, categories and distance from the searcher. The data comes mainly from Google Business Profiles and the Google reviews on them, plus Google Maps results and Google search results for local searches, with Tripadvisor listings for restaurant comparisons. Use them to see which local signals are worth your time in your industry and city.
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47.1% of US local businesses have fewer than 10 Google reviews, and one in five has none at all. The median business has 12 reviews, so a steady trickle of honest reviews is enough to stand out in most categories.
The business Google ranks first on Google Maps has a median of 101 Google reviews, against 39 at position 20, and the three businesses in Google's map pack have a median of 79 against 47 for the rest of the top 20. Map pack businesses also post more photos and link a website more often, while their star ratings barely differ.
31% of US Google Business Profiles have no website link, so a customer who finds the business on Google cannot check its services, prices or booking page. Those businesses trail on almost everything else too: a median of 2 Google reviews, against 27 for businesses that link a site.
74% of local business websites have no local business schema, the code that tells Google in a fixed format what a business is, where it is and when it is open. Only 9% give search engines their opening hours this way.
81.7% of US local businesses with fewer than 10 Google reviews have not replied to any of them, against 20.5% of businesses with 200 or more, and 53% of all local businesses leave their 20 newest reviews unanswered. The businesses that do reply are quick about it: 3.9 days on average, and 86.1% of replies arrive within a week.
Local businesses reply to 30.4% of their one- and two-star Google reviews, so seven in ten complaints sit on the profile with no answer. Five-star reviews get a reply 42.4% of the time: owners thank their fans and leave their critics unanswered.
32.4% of US local businesses with Google reviews show a perfect 5.0 rating, and the average is 4.5 stars. Ratings are so bunched at the top that a 4.5 is simply typical, and a rating below 4 puts a business among the lowest 14.5%.
26.9% of US local businesses with 6 to 20 Google reviews got at least a third of all their reviews in one calendar month. Those businesses average 4.71 stars, against 4.39 for businesses whose reviews arrive at a steadier pace.
54.2% of US local businesses list only one category on their Google Business Profile and never add the secondary categories Google allows. Claimed profiles average 2.9 categories, more than twice the 1.4 of unclaimed profiles.
29.9% of US Google Business Profiles show no opening hours, so a customer checking whether the business is open gets no answer. For unclaimed profiles, the listings no owner has taken control of, the rate is 67.7%.
28% of US local businesses have never claimed their Google Business Profile, so nobody at the business can edit the listing, reply to reviews or fix wrong details. More than half of dentists (55.2%) are in that position.
79.4% of the businesses in Google's map pack have the service people searched for in their business name, against 67.4% of businesses ranked 11 to 20. Names that add the city as well are almost twice as common in the map pack as further down.
72.4% of the businesses in Google's map pack are within one mile of the location the search comes from, and the median is 0.4 miles. The number one result sits closest of all, and distance grows with almost every step down Google Maps.
Searching "plumber near me" instead of "plumber" changes the three businesses in Google's map pack 57.1% of the time. The exact same three businesses in the same order appear for both versions in 22.8% of searches, and for restaurants the map pack changes 83.5% of the time.
Yelp appears in Google's first-page results for 66.6% of "near me" searches and 40.4% of all local searches, usually just below the top three results. For plumbing searches the rate is 73.3%.
67.7% of local Google searches have at least one directory site, such as Yelp, Facebook or Thumbtack, among the first ten results. Directories take 15.4% of all first-page local results, and a quarter of the results on auto dealer and real estate searches.
Independent local businesses hold 93.3% of the spots in Google's map pack, and chains hold 6.7%. Being part of a national brand does not buy a place in the top three on Google Maps, except in a few services such as locksmiths, pest control and gyms.
80.8% of established small businesses got no more Google reviews in the last 12 months than in the 12 before, and their combined review count grew 2%. Counting newer businesses, review volume grew 39%.
Home service companies that hide their street address on Google have a median of 2 Google reviews, against 10 for those that show a full address, and 55.4% of them have never been claimed by their owner.
In 41.4% of small-town Google Maps searches for a plumber, at least one of the top three businesses is based in another town, against 17.9% across 20 local services. ChatGPT shows the same strain: it names 15.3% fewer businesses per answer in smaller cities than in large ones, and fewer of them check out.
42.8% of US Google Business Profiles have no business description, the one field where an owner explains in their own words what the business does. Among unclaimed profiles, 99.4% are blank.
30.4% of US Google Business Profiles show no wheelchair accessibility information at all, leaving customers who use a wheelchair to guess. Orthodontists list it 98.3% of the time; electricians 8.4%.
The typical local business in Charlotte, North Carolina has 44 Google reviews, the most of 26 large US cities, almost four times the national median of 12 and nearly 15 times the 3 of a typical Dallas business.
Local businesses in Utah average 4.62 stars on Google, the highest of 37 US states, ahead of Massachusetts at 4.59 and Connecticut at 4.57. Arizona businesses have the most reviews, a median of 45 each.
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