For Online Reviews, Recency Matters

Online reviews matter. 92% of consumers say they look at reviews. 68% say positive reviews increase their trust.

In addition to looking for positive reviews, we now know that consumers also value recent reviews in far greater numbers. 85% of those surveyed say that reviews dated more than three months old are no longer relevant.

Recency matters, too. As many as 40% of those surveyed said they only look at reviews that are two weeks old or less.

Some other interesting stats about online reviews from BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Reviews Survey:

• The majority of reviews are read on mobile devices.
• Users read an average of 10 reviews
• The average users says they want businesses to have at least 40 reviews before they will trust the star rating
• 60% of consumers say they will not consider merchants with star ratings less than 4.