What If Google Maps Showed You the Truth Behind a 4.8-Star Rating? ⭐📉

Google Maps tips & tricks
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A hotel has a 4.8-star rating. Would you book it? :star:

Most of us probably would.

But what if I told you that its average rating over the last 90 days was only 3.6?

Same hotel. Same Google Maps listing. Two very different impressions.

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And that’s exactly what got me thinking. :thinking:

I’m a Local Guide from Kuwait :kuwait:, currently exploring Sri Lanka :sri_lanka:. During my travels, Google Maps is one of the tools I rely on most when choosing hotels, restaurants, and places to visit.

But there’s one thing I believe could make it even more useful.

:light_bulb: My Idea: Let Recent Experiences Tell Their Story

A place can change over time.

A hotel might have new management. A restaurant might improve its food. A once-excellent attraction might no longer offer the same experience.

Yet its overall rating can still reflect years of past reviews.

What if Google Maps made these changes easier to spot?

:one: Show Recent Rating Trends

Imagine seeing this directly on a place’s listing:

:star: Overall Rating: 4.8

:date: Last 90 Days: 3.6

:chart_decreasing: Recent Trend: Declining

These figures are fictional and are used only to demonstrate the idea.

This wouldn’t replace the overall rating. It would simply add another perspective: how visitors have been rating the place recently.

A trend should only appear when enough reliable recent reviews are available.

:two: Give the Latest Reviews More Visibility

I also believe recent reviews deserve greater visibility.

A review written five years ago can tell us about a place’s history.

But a review written five days ago might tell us more about what to expect today.

Google Maps already offers ways to sort reviews, including by newest in some versions.

My suggestion is to make recent experiences easier to discover without requiring users to search for them.

Older reviews should absolutely remain available, and users should still have the freedom to choose how reviews are displayed.

:three: Show Improvements, Not Just Problems

This idea isn’t only about identifying declining service.

Imagine a restaurant that previously received poor reviews but has recently made major improvements.

Wouldn’t it be useful to see that its recent ratings are rising?

A business should have the opportunity to show its progress, just as travelers deserve to see recent concerns.

:globe_showing_europe_africa: Why I Believe This Matters

For travelers, it could mean more informed decisions.

For businesses, it could provide a clearer picture of their recent performance.

For Local Guides, it could make timely, honest contributions even more valuable.

And for Google Maps, I believe it could be another step toward making an already useful platform even more helpful.

:speech_balloon: I’d Love to Hear Your Thoughts

If a hotel had an overall rating of 4.8 but a recent average of 3.6, which number would influence your decision more?

And here’s my bigger question:

Should Google Maps give recent reviews more prominence and highlight whether a place is improving or declining?

I’d love to hear different perspectives from Local Guides, Connect Moderators, and anyone interested in making Google Maps better.

Maybe there are challenges I haven’t considered, and I’d be interested to learn about them too.

Because a great map doesn’t just show us where to go. It helps us decide where we should go. :globe_showing_europe_africa:

Greetings from Kuwait :kuwait:, currently traveling in Sri Lanka :sri_lanka:.

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You may want to check out these ideas to improve the Maps ratings.

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Thanks Morten! I had a look at the project and it’s actually a really good idea.

But what I meant in my post is that I’d like Google to add this feature directly to Google Maps. Not everyone knows about third-party tools, and most people probably won’t use them.

I think it would be much more useful if Google made it available to everyone.

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Since you’re a Connect Moderator, is there any chance you could help get this idea to the Google Maps team? I’d really appreciate it! :+1:

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Your proposal has a huge limitation. It only works for places with many reviews. The vast majority of places on Maps has so few reviews that it would make no sense to split them into earlier and recent reviews.

Over the years I have suggested several improvements but the truth is that very very few get implemented. So even if we had a way to bring this to the attention of the high-up-decitionmakers it is unlikely to be implemented. Sorry. But I came to understand that Google Maps is such a huge enterprise that has mostly very specialized developers. Their focus is not on fixing bugs and making small improvements. Rather they focus on integrating AI, making fancy new features like immersive view or increasing the number of icons and reaction types. And the attention to user feedback is very limited. Dialogue with users is not something Google Maps entertain.

Also, the complexity is overwhelming. Every time a new feature is introduced something else breaks. So it is not an easy task to make a change.

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Thanks Morten, I understand your point about places with fewer reviews, and I agree. Maybe this feature could only appear when a place has enough recent reviews to make the comparison useful.

I also understand what you’re saying about how difficult it is to get changes implemented. But I still think it’s worth sharing ideas, even if the chances are small.

I appreciate your honest feedback and your experience with this. :+1:

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I understand your idea @Abdulaziz.alsaeed, and statistically it makes sense. I’m not much into reviews, therefore not really qualified to respond from personal experience, but based on what I’ve seen written in other threads, this won’t work well in some countries. Apparently the defamation laws in some jurisdictions are so skewed in favour of the businesses, customers run the risk of prosecution if they give low ratings or write negative reviews. So the average will always look high, as only the 4 Star or 5 Star ratings get published.

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Thanks Tony! That’s a really good point, and I hadn’t thought about how different laws might affect reviews in some countries.

I agree that recent ratings won’t solve every problem, but I still think they could give people a better picture of how a place is doing now compared to a few years ago.

Appreciate you sharing another perspective! :+1:

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Terima kasih banyak ya sudah berbagi postingan yang bermanfaat ini @Abdulaziz.alsaeed :folded_hands:t2::cherry_blossom::heart::bouquet::deaf_woman:t2:

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Thank you so much! Really appreciate your kind words and support :blush::folded_hands:

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Baik Bapak @Abdulaziz.alsaeed , terima kasih kembali ya :+1:t3: :ok_hand:t3::heart::bouquet::deaf_woman:t2: