Why 73% of Consumers Only Read Reviews From the Last Month

The Data

BrightLocal's 2025 Consumer Review Survey found that 73% of consumers only pay attention to reviews written in the last month. A further 50% said they wouldn't consider a business with reviews older than 2 weeks.

This isn't surprising when you think about it. A review from 2023 tells you what a restaurant was like two years ago. Staff changes, menu changes, ownership changes — a lot can shift. Consumers instinctively discount old information.

Why Recency Outweighs Volume

Consider two restaurants on Google:

Restaurant A: 4.5 stars, 380 reviews, but the most recent one is 3 months old.
Restaurant B: 4.2 stars, 120 reviews, with 8 reviews in the last 2 weeks.

Most consumers will choose Restaurant B. Recent activity signals that the business is alive, responsive, and currently delivering good experiences. Silence signals the opposite — even if the silence is simply because nobody happened to leave a review recently.

The Google Algorithm Agrees

Google's local search ranking factors include review recency. Businesses with a steady flow of recent reviews rank higher in the Local Pack (the map results at the top of search) than businesses with higher ratings but stale reviews.

This creates a compounding effect: recent reviews → higher ranking → more visibility → more customers → more reviews. The flywheel works in reverse too.

What This Means for Your Strategy

1. Consistency over campaigns

A burst of 20 reviews in one week followed by silence for 3 months is worse than 2 reviews per week consistently. Focus on building habits and systems, not one-time pushes.

2. Ask at the right moment

The best time to ask for a review is immediately after a positive experience — when the customer is still feeling good. For restaurants, that's right after the meal. For service businesses, it's right after delivery. A simple “If you enjoyed your experience, a Google review would mean a lot to us” works better than any automated follow-up email.

3. Monitor freshness

Track not just your rating, but your review velocity — how many new reviews you're getting per week. If velocity drops, you have a problem before your rating reflects it. Ansview's dashboard surfaces this data automatically.

4. Respond to everything

Responding to reviews — especially recent ones — signals activity. A business that replies to a review the same day it's posted looks engaged and attentive. A business that never replies, or replies weeks later, looks like nobody's home.

The Takeaway

Your lifetime rating is your floor. Your recent reviews are your reality. If you have a 4.5-star average but your last 5 reviews are all 3 stars, potential customers see a business in decline — regardless of what the average says.

The businesses that win at reputation management aren't the ones with the most reviews or the highest ratings. They're the ones with the most recent, positive reviews and the fastest response times. Everything else is legacy.