Benchmarking against competitors

Benchmarking against competitors lets you see whether your Google reviews are growing faster than rival businesses' — so you know if you're winning on momentum, not just total review count.

1. Go to Competitors. Navigate to /competitors to see all locations and their tracked rivals.

2. Add a competitor. Pick a location, enter the competitor's name (e.g. "Joe's Coffee Downtown"), then find their Google Place ID:

   • Open Google's Place ID Finder
   • Search for the competitor by name and city
   • Click their listing — a popup shows the Place ID (starts with ChIJ…)
   • Copy and paste it into the Google Place ID field — we'll verify it instantly
   • Click Add competitor

   You can track up to 5 competitors per location. New competitors show "Awaiting first run" until the next weekly snapshot updates them.

3. Read your numbers. Under "You (Google)" you'll see:

   • Your Google rating and total review count
   • Your weekly velocity (how many new reviews you gained this week)

   Each competitor card shows their rating, total reviews, and velocity gap — a badge that tells you if you're pulling ahead or falling behind in momentum.

Tips

• Review velocity wins momentum fights. A 20-year-old business always has more total reviews than a new one, but if you're gaining +4 reviews per week and they're gaining +1, you're winning. The velocity gap tells you this instantly.
• You vs. them = Google vs. Google. We only compare your Google reviews to their Google reviews — Facebook, Trustpilot, etc. aren't mixed in, so the comparison is fair.
• Demo mode. If you see a "demo mode" banner, your operator hasn't configured a real Google Places API key yet. All features work (add, remove, snapshots), but numbers are simulated. A paid API key is required for live data.
• Weekly updates. Competitor stats refresh once a week (Mondays UTC). If a competitor's data fetch fails (rate limited, invalid Place ID, etc.), its status badge shows why.