How We Rank Providers
Every city and county page lists providers in a specific order. This page explains, in plain language, how that order is decided — and what a provider can do to improve their position.
What determines a provider's position
Position is based on two things: how strong a provider's Google reviews are, and how complete their profile is. It is not based on payment. There is no paid placement today — every provider on this site is ranked the same way, using the same public information.
If paid placement is ever introduced in the future, it will appear as a separate, clearly labeled section above the ranked list — it will never be blended into the list itself, and it will never affect this score.
Review strength does more than look at the star rating by itself. A 5.0-star rating built on 3 reviews and a 5.0-star rating built on 300 reviews don't carry the same weight. The fewer reviews a provider has, the more their score is pulled toward the current average rating across all providers, until they've built up enough of a track record for their own rating to speak for itself. A provider with a large number of reviews is judged almost entirely on their own rating.
A real example
On the Newport Beach page, Keppi Beaute (5.0 stars, 24 reviews) ranks above Beverly Hills Plastic Surgeons (4.8 stars, 98 reviews). Taken at face value, that 0.2-star gap looks larger than it actually is once review count is factored in — after adjustment, the gap between the two narrows to roughly 0.06. Keppi Beaute still comes out ahead, just not by as wide a margin as the raw star ratings alone would suggest. A high rating with fewer reviews can still beat a slightly lower rating backed by many more reviews — it just doesn't win as easily as the headline numbers imply.
Providers without a rating yet
Not every provider has a Google rating on file. A provider with no rating isn't penalized for it — they're placed at the current average rating across all providers, the same neutral starting point every provider gets before reviews are factored in. When two or more providers land at the exact same score, ties are broken first by review count and then alphabetically — never randomly, so the order stays stable and reproducible from one visit to the next.
How to improve your position
A small part of every provider's score also rewards a complete profile: a written description, published pricing, and a verification confirmed within the last 180 days. Today, very few providers have added a description or published pricing yet, so this part of the score isn't doing much for most listings right now — but as more providers fill in that information, it will start to matter more.
If you run a clinic listed on this site, the most useful things you can do are:
- Add a short description of your practice.
- Publish your pricing, even as a range.
- Keep your verification current.
- Encourage happy patients to leave a Google review — review strength is the single biggest factor in this score.
You can submit updates by finding your listing and using the "Claim this listing" link on your provider profile page.
Where the numbers come from
Star ratings and review counts shown on this site are sourced from Google, not collected by us directly.