Local SEOJune 2026 · 4 min

Review velocity, and why a burst is worse than a trickle

Forty reviews in one week looks like a campaign. Four a week for ten weeks looks like a business people keep visiting.

Owners who take reviews seriously often start with a push: a round of texts to old customers, a week of asking everyone, forty reviews on the board. Then it stops, and six months later the profile looks abandoned again.

Two problems with the burst

Ranking systems read a sudden spike from dormancy as unusual, and unusual gets discounted

Customers read dates, and a wall of reviews all from one week reads as a favour called in

What steady looks like

A shop serving 200 people a month, with half seeing a QR at the counter and half of those posting, lands around 30 to 40 reviews a month without anyone chasing anything. The rate is the point, not the total.

The best review profile is boring: a few every week, forever.

How to keep it going

Make the ask part of closing the sale, not a monthly initiative. If it depends on someone remembering a campaign, it will stop. If it lives on a card by the reader and one sentence from staff, it does not.

Put a QR card on your counter this weekPaste your Google review link and your code is ready on the next screen. $19 a month, cancel whenever.Get started

Keep readingBehaviourCustomers are not refusing to review you. They are refusing to write.Local SEOWhat actually moves you into the three results people call

A QR card at your counter, a written review in twenty seconds, and direct feedback when something goes wrong.info@reviewgent.com

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