How we rank
Top5.nz ranks New Zealand businesses using public data only. Rankings are determined by the data, not by payment.
Data source
Rankings are derived from publicly available business ratings and customer reviews. We collect this data on a rolling cycle and recalculate scores on each update.
How scoring works
Every business gets one score, built from six public signals using a consistent, published method. Rating carries the most weight, tempered by how much evidence sits behind it.
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Star rating
Counts most
The Google star rating is weighted most heavily of the six.
Rating confidence
A rating only carries full weight once a business has built a meaningful review count. A 5.0 from 3 reviews is treated more sceptically than a 4.8 from 80.
Counts most
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Review volume
Counts strongly
Volume counts, but on a logarithmic scale, so a business with 500 reviews does not simply steamroll one with 100.
Counts strongly
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Review velocity
Counts a little
Steady, recent reviews score higher than a large total that peaked years ago. This rewards businesses actively earning new feedback.
Counts a little
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Free identity verification
Adds 3 points
A small trust bonus goes to businesses that complete free identity verification, confirming a real operator stands behind the listing. Verification is free and open to any business, so it is not pay-to-rank: it rewards accountability, not spend.
Adds 3 points
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Proportion of 1-star reviews
Takes points off
A disproportionate share of 1-star reviews applies a compounding penalty that grows sharply as the proportion rises. The penalty eases as those reviews age, so a business that has since turned things around is not punished forever.
Takes points off
The score
The highest score ranks first, in every category and location.
What never counts
- Advertising or payments
- Manual editorial picks
Listing tiers
A page shows up to ten businesses in score order, in two tiers. Every position from 1 to 10 is drawn the same way, so nothing on the page styles one rank above another.
Top 5
The five highest-scoring businesses for a category and location. Purely merit-based and unpurchasable.
Also Recommended
Positions 6 to 10 by score. Merit-based. A page lists fewer than ten when fewer businesses qualify.
Why a business might not appear
A business needs a Google rating of at least 4.0 and at least 3 reviews before it is assessed at all, and its address has to fall inside the area the page covers.
Google's search finds businesses; it does not decide who leaves. A business already on the page is reassessed on every crawl even when the search happens to omit it, and it leaves only when its own record changes: its categories no longer fit the page, it has moved out of the area, its rating has fallen below the floor, or Google no longer returns the listing at all.
Beyond that, a page only lists businesses that actually do that kind of work. Many firms offer several services, so a business can be a genuine local name and still not belong on a specific list. We leave a business off a category page when two things are both true:
Its Google Business Profile
Does not list that category.
Its customer reviews
None describe that type of work.
Only when both are true is the business left off the page
If a business lists the category on its profile, it stays on the page even when reviewers have not written about that particular service. This is deliberate, since plenty of good businesses have customers who praise the result without naming the job. Where a business has only a handful of reviews we make no judgement at all, because there is not enough to go on.
One more check applies to a business that would enter a top 10 for the first time. If its main Google category is not the trade the page is about, for example a retailer or another trade that also lists the category, we hold it off the page until a person has confirmed what the business does. Most are cleared within a day or two. A business that does the work is never held once it has been checked.
A business whose website no longer resolves and that has had no Google review for six months is treated as dormant and left off the page until either changes. A dead website on its own is not enough: plenty of trading businesses let a domain lapse.
Nothing here is permanent. A business returns to the page automatically once its profile lists the category or its reviews start describing that work, and a held business is listed as soon as it has been checked. A dormant business returns with its next review or the day its website answers again.
Update frequency
Rankings are refreshed on a rolling daily cycle, and every category and location is rechecked about every two to three months. That gap gives the data time to reflect genuine shifts in customer satisfaction rather than individual review spikes.
A location with a subscribing business is rechecked every month, and the whole page updates with it. The subscription adds nothing to the score.
Editorial independence
No business can pay to influence its score, and no business is moved up or down by hand. The same scoring model runs across every category and location, and each ranking is published without manual adjustment.
This makes our rankings reproducible: given the same public inputs and the same version of the method, the system produces the same result. Each ranking is a dated snapshot of public data scored against a fixed model. Every change to that model is dated below.
Changes to the method
When the method changes, it changes for every category and location at once. Each page picks up a change at its next recheck, about every two to three months, so the month shown in a page's ranking history can be later than the date here.
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Who is listed
The search behind every page reads 100 results, not 20
Each page is built from the businesses Google Maps returns for the trade in that area. Until now the check read the first 20 results; it now reads the first 100, so a business that Google places further down its own list is assessed too. The scoring is unchanged. Pages pick the wider search up as they are next rechecked.
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Who is listed
Newcomers with the wrong Google category are checked first
A business that would enter a page's top ten with a primary Google category that is not the trade's own is held off the page until a person confirms it does that work. Once approved it is listed as normal; if it does not do the work it is blocked.
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Who is listed
Dormant businesses leave the page
A business whose website address no longer works and that has had no Google review for six months is left off until either changes. A dead website on its own is not enough.
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Who is listed
A business stays listed when Google's search misses it
A business already on a page is reassessed at every check, even when the search leaves it out. It leaves only when its own record fails a rule, or Google reports the listing gone or permanently closed.
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Review velocity
New reviews count on the check that finds them
Reviews found by a check used to reach velocity one check later. A check and any later recalculation of the same data now give the same scores.
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Who is listed
Category pages list only businesses that do the work
A business is left off a category page when its Google profile does not list the category and none of its reviews describe that type of work. It returns as soon as either changes.
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Free identity verification
A trust bonus for verified businesses
Businesses that complete free identity verification receive a small fixed bonus. Verification costs nothing, so the bonus cannot be bought.
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Review velocity
Velocity measured per month over six months
Velocity became the reviews a business gained per month over the past six months, measured from the first and latest check in that window. How often a page happened to be checked no longer changes the result.
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Proportion of 1-star reviews
The 1-star penalty eases with time
The penalty now scales with how many 1-star reviews arrived in the past 12 months. A business with no new 1-star review in that time carries none of it. Where there is no earlier check to compare against, the full penalty applies.
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Who is listed
Minimum rating raised from 3.5 to 4.0
A business now needs a Google rating of at least 4.0 to be assessed at all.
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Star rating
Less weight on the star rating
The star rating's weight was reduced, so between businesses with similar ratings the one with many more reviews now tends to rank higher. Rating still carries the most weight of the six signals.
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Rating confidence
Ratings from a few reviews are treated with caution
A rating is pulled toward the category's typical rating until the business has enough reviews to support it, so a 5.0 from 3 reviews no longer outranks a 4.4 from 29.
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Review velocity
Review velocity added
Businesses that are steadily earning new reviews score a little higher than those whose reviews have stopped.
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Star rating Proportion of 1-star reviews
More weight on rating, and a 1-star penalty
The star rating was given more weight and review volume less. A penalty for a high share of 1-star reviews was added.
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First version
Rankings begin
Scores built from star rating and review volume.
Each change is labelled with the part of the score it affects, or with “Who is listed” when it changes which businesses can appear.
For businesses
Your position is earned from public ratings and reviews, so there is no shortcut: the way to rank higher is to genuinely satisfy more customers. You can see exactly where you currently stand, and read our practical guidance on improving your position, on the pages below.