# What is a star rating?

A star rating is the one-to-five average a review platform shows for a business. It is the single most visible number a potential customer sees, and because most platforms weight recent reviews more heavily, it reflects the last few months more than the whole history.

A perfect five is not the target most owners assume. A page with a flawless average and few reviews reads as either very new or curated, and a small number of critical reviews handled well is more persuasive than none at all.

Volume changes what the number means. Twelve reviews averaging 4.9 and four hundred averaging 4.6 are not the same claim, and customers read them differently even when they could not say why. Both numbers are public for any business with a Google profile, so a [free reputation scorecard](https://www.rumore.ai/tools/reputation-scorecard) can read yours back to you in about the time it takes to type the name.

## Related terms

- [Review management](https://www.rumore.ai/glossary/review-management): Review management is the routine of collecting reviews, reading them, and replying to them across every site where a business is listed. It covers the request that produces a review, the alert when one lands, the reply that answers it, and the reporting that shows whether rating and volume are moving.
- [Online reputation management](https://www.rumore.ai/glossary/online-reputation-management): Online reputation management is the practice of monitoring, influencing and responding to what people find when they look a business up. For a local business that means reviews, star ratings, business listings and public replies across Google, Trustpilot, Yelp, Tripadvisor and the sites specific to its trade.

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