Facebook Reviews Now on a 1–10 Scale, Instead of 1–5

The other day, while we were helping a client craft a response to a recent review on Facebook, we noticed a new icon within the search results: a green circle depicting the “review score,” which was overlapping the page’s icon. However, there was a subtle difference—the score for the page was not 4.9/5 like it once was—it was now 9.8/10.

Facebook Reviews Before

Facebook Reviews Now

When did this change happen?

As soon as we saw this, we started checking our personal accounts, where we quickly realized this change was not quite fully deployed for everyone—several of our accounts were not seeing what our business account was seeing. We figured this could be because Facebook was going with another beta roll out. While we can’t say for certain that they are, we decided that, along with doing a quality check on client Facebook pages, we were going to do our own digging. So we began trading scores of hospitals we work with.

Facebook Recommendation Example

Our results show that the new score is calculated slightly differently from the old score.

On the previous 5-point scale, this was a straight average of review scores a hospital had received. Now, on the new 10-point scale, there appears to be more to it, specifically recommendations. You’ve probably noticed that you are receiving both reviews and recommendations. Recommendations end up in the same place as reviews, but with no score. This new feature also allows customers to not recommend a business. Ouch. We continued our search by clicking through more of our animal hospitals around the country, comparing the 5-point scale with the new 10-point scale. The results? See below:

• East Padden Animal Hospital: 4.5 vs 9.2
• Fanwood Animal Hospital: 4.7 vs 9.6
• Bramer Animal Hospital: 4.9 vs 10
• Hometown Veterinary Hospital: 4.9 vs 9.6
• Southwood Animal Hospital: 4.6 vs 9.6
• Hillsboro Veterinary Clinic: 4.7 vs 9.2

After comparing these and more results, we observed that Facebook did not necessarily just double the 5-point score to get the new 10-point ranking—Facebook is taking into account recommendations, not just reviews. Facebook has its own algorithm for calculating these newfound scores, however on the new review page layout, there are two things to note: below the score, it now says, “Based on the opinion of xxx people,” and “Recommended by xxx people.”

How does Facebook explain this?

Facebook’s explanation for these scores is cryptic. Their text reads: “What goes into this score? We’re testing a new score out of 10 to help people find great places more easily. This score is based on multiple sources such as the ratings, reviews and recommendations people share about Pages on Facebook. How can my Page improve its score? New recommendations are weighted more heavily, so you can continuously improve your score. If you see an unfair recommendation on your Page, please report the post. We will review it and remove recommendations that violate our Community Standards or are not relevant to your Page.” So, while this subtle change shouldn’t necessarily deter from the fact that these hospitals still have stellar scores, it is something that we will keep monitoring, as we continue to maximize Facebook’s usage as a business tool. Whatever changes occur, our clients can rest assured that we will not only adapt to new adjustments, but we will continually craft new ways to improve the social media accounts of our veterinary hospitals.