What each screen shows, what every number means, how to read the report we send you each month - and what actually moves you up on Google.
Everything here is measured from Google itself: your listing, your competitors' listings and the searches customers make in your area. We read it on a schedule and show it to you as it stands.
Go to /portal on the address we gave you and sign in with your email and password. Everyone on your account has their own login; ask us to add a person, or to set a new password if one is forgotten. If you registered yourself, your account opens once we have called to confirm the business is yours.
Your account has two screens: Leaderboard and Your company. Click a column heading on the leaderboard to sort by it; click it again to reverse.
Your market is the businesses of your trade in the area around you - the ones a customer near you could call instead. The four boxes at the top are the whole market: how many listings, how many Google reviews they hold between them, how many new reviews arrived this week (and how many businesses got one), and the average rating.
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| # | Your place in the market by total Google reviews - the order the table opens in. |
| Company | The business, its town and how far it is from you. Your row is highlighted and marked You. A burst tag means a sudden jump in reviews lately - worth watching whether it lasts. |
| Reviews · ★ | The lifetime Google review count and the star rating, as Google shows them. |
| This week | New reviews in the last review week (Saturday to Friday). |
| 4 weeks | New reviews over the last four weeks. |
| Per week | The average new reviews a week over those four weeks - the pace each business is building at. |
| Growth score | 0-100: how fast and how well a listing is growing - pace, growth against its own size, whether it is speeding up, and its rating. It is our measure of momentum, not Google's ranking. |
| Page 1 · Website | Our grades of each business's website: Page 1 is the homepage (with its loading speed on phones and computers), Website is every page the site has. A to F, with a score out of 100. |
Some listings are private and not shown by name; they are still counted, so every rank on the board is your true rank in the market.
Google reviews - your lifetime count and your place among every business in the market. Rating - your stars. This week and Last 4 weeks - what you added, and your pace a week. Growth score - your momentum, and where it places you in the market.
Reviews over time - your review count week by week. A steep line is a review system working; a flat line is a business that stopped asking.
Website - your Page 1 and whole-site grades, the date each was checked, and a link to the full report: every issue found, page by page, with what to fix. Top fixes lists the ones that matter most.
Newest reviews - the last ten, with the stars and the words. Read them; reply to every one (section 7).
When someone searches for your trade, Google shows three businesses on the map above everything else - the map pack. Most calls go to those three. Google says it picks them on three things:
Your Business Profile's category, your services and the words on your listing and website.
Nobody can change where they are. Closer businesses have the edge, which is why you can be in the top three on one street and not the next.
Chiefly your total number of Google reviews and your rating. Every review counts, old ones included - the total is what Google weighs.
A steady flow of reviews is how you close the gap on the businesses above you, and fresh reviews are what a customer reads first when choosing who to call. The pace sets the date you catch up; the total and the rating do the ranking.
That is why the report tells you the reviews it takes to reach the top three on each search, and the date you get there at your pace - never a promise of #1. Distance and the searcher's location still decide some searches.
Each month we send a report on your business. Page one is the whole story; the pages after it are the detail.
| Section | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| What moved | The month in a few lines: your reviews against your nearest competitors, your map position, anything that changed. |
| Where you are - where you can be | Your pace against the market's, the reviews it takes to reach the top three on each search, and the week you get there at your pace. |
| What it cost you | An estimate of the searches for your trade you were not shown for, and what those customers would cost to buy as ads. |
| What to do | Three actions, in order, each with the searches it opens up. Fixable means work on your listing or reviews moves it; structural means distance decides it. |
| The map - before and after | Your position for one search, measured from points all around your address: green is top three, amber is on page one, red is not showing. The same map from the same spot a month later is the after. |
| Reviews | The month's opening and closing count, net new, rating, where you rank on new reviews, and your weekly gains against the market's biggest businesses. |
| Terms | Every search for your trade: whether you are in the top three, who holds #1, and what blocks you. |
| AI Visibility | Whether ChatGPT and Google's AI answers name you when a customer asks who to call, and the questions competitors answer on their websites that yours does not (section 6). |
| Competitors | The top ten in your market by reviews, what each added this month, and who advertises on Google. |
Anything not yet measured says so rather than guessing. An estimate is labelled as one.
Page 1 grades your homepage - the page most customers land on - including how fast it loads on a phone. Website grades every page of the site. Open the report from Your company for each issue and how to fix it. A slow or broken homepage loses the customer your reviews just won.
More customers now ask ChatGPT or read Google's AI answer instead of scrolling the results. We ask those assistants the questions your customers ask - "Who is the best towing company in Columbus?" - and check whether they name you, and we read your website the way they do. The score is out of 100:
| Part | Points | What earns them |
|---|---|---|
| Named by AI | 35 | ChatGPT or Google's AI answer names you, or links your site |
| Questions answered | 25 | Your website answers the questions Google shows under "People also ask" |
| Structured data | 25 | Your site labels your business details, services and answers in the code assistants read |
| Answer boxes | 15 | You own Google's answer box, or hold the top three on the map |
The fix is usually on your website: a questions-and-answers section that answers what customers ask, in your own words, and the structured data that labels it. We give you both. An AI assistant's answer changes from one asking to the next, so we date every check.
The best time is when the problem is solved and they are relieved - not a week later. Every customer, every job.
A text with your direct Google review link gets far more reviews than "look us up". Your driver or technician can send it before they leave.
Thank the good ones by name. Answer a bad one calmly and offer to make it right - the next customer reads your reply more closely than the complaint.
Never pay or give discounts for reviews, never ask only happy customers, never post reviews for yourself. Google removes them, and can suspend the listing.
Watch the Per week column: it is the number that tells you the system is running. The leaderboard shows it for everyone, so you can see who is outworking you.
Review counts and ratings for every business are read at least once a week, and more often for active markets. Your own Google profile can be a review or two ahead between reads.
New reviews are counted on the day they were written. Google sometimes holds a review back and publishes it days later with its original date - so a review can appear on last week's count rather than today's. Nothing is lost: the daily counts and your total always add up.
Website grades and AI Visibility are checked about once a month; each shows the date it was checked.