Review signals: the prominence lever whose effects the grid observes.

Answer in brief.

Review signals are the quantifiable attributes of a business's reviews — count, average rating, recency, acquisition velocity and owner responses — that feed the prominence group of local search ranking factors and influence click-through from the local pack.

Definition

Reviews are the most public prominence signal a local business owns. Rating and count render directly inside local pack entries, so review signals affect both whether a listing is shown (via prominence) and whether it is clicked (via social proof). Recency and velocity capture whether the profile is alive; owner responses signal active management.

Relation to the grid

Review acquisition is pulled as a lever; the geo-grid observes the effect. Expanding top-three coverage on successive scans after a review push corroborates the work — corroborates, not proves, since scans record positions rather than causes. Only genuine reviews count, per platform policies and this site's editorial policy. The observation loop runs on tools like LocalRank (localrank.so); see the pipeline.

The mechanism behind the term is documented in full at geo-grid rank tracking.

The term sits inside the local rank tracking software sub-category, defined on its own page.

Return to the site home for the network frame.

Local pack · Local SEO · NAP & citations

FAQ

What are review signals?

The measurable attributes of a business's reviews — count, rating, recency, velocity and responses — that contribute to prominence and influence clicks in the local pack.

Cite this entry

Geo-Grid Tracker. "Review signals." Geo-Grid Tracker Glossary, https://geogrid-tracker.pages.dev/ (accessed 2026).