How We Rank Cape Cod Businesses
We built a ranking system that goes beyond raw star counts — because a newcomer with five perfect reviews shouldn't automatically outrank a beloved local institution with hundreds. Here's exactly how it works.
The Problem with Raw Star Ratings
A raw star rating tells you how much people liked a place — but not how much you can trust that score. Consider two restaurants:
8 reviews
8 reviews isn't enough to tell us much. Maybe it's genuinely great — or maybe it's friends and family.
340 reviews
340 reviews is a strong signal. That 4.3 reflects years of real customer experiences — it's reliable.
On Google, the first restaurant ranks above the second. On BestOnCape, it doesn't even appear yet — because we don't have enough data to place it fairly.
How Our System Works
Minimum review threshold
Every category has a minimum number of reviews required before a business enters the rankings at all. A restaurant needs 25 reviews; a home services business needs 10. Below that threshold, the business isn't ranked — not penalized, just not yet eligible.
Bayesian weighted rating
Once a business qualifies, we blend its actual rating with a category-specific baseline using a Bayesian formula. This pulls new businesses toward the average until they've earned enough reviews to be trusted on their own.
Monthly snapshot rankings
Each month, we refresh data from Google, recalculate weighted scores, and compute rank positions: overall, by category, by town, and by region. Rankings are stored as snapshots so we can show how businesses trend over time.
The Formula, Explained Simply
This type of calculation is called a Bayesian average. It's the same approach used by film databases and product marketplaces to produce fair rankings across items with very different review volumes.
Blue terms come from the business itself — its actual review count and rating from Google.
Yellow terms are category constants we set — a prior expectation based on how businesses in that category typically perform.
Worked Example — Restaurant
Rating: 4.8 | Reviews: 30 | Category: restaurants & cafes
Category weight: 120 | Baseline: 4.43 | Min reviews: 25
= ((30 × 4.8) + (120 × 4.43)) ÷ (30 + 120)
= (144 + 531.6) ÷ 150
= 675.6 ÷ 150
= 4.50 weighted score
The restaurant's 4.8 rating gets pulled down toward the 4.43 category baseline because 30 reviews is still a relatively small sample. As it earns more reviews, the weighted score will converge toward its actual rating.
Standards by Category
Different business types have different competitive dynamics. Restaurants generate far more reviews than home services businesses, so we calibrate each category independently.
Category Weight controls how strongly the baseline pulls against a business's actual rating. A weight of 120 means a restaurant needs roughly 120+ reviews before its rating fully dominates. A weight of 30 means a home services business earns that trust much faster.
Rankings You Can Actually Trust
When a business ranks highly on BestOnCape, it's because it has accumulated enough reviews across enough time to statistically earn that position — not because it opened recently with a burst of enthusiastic early customers.
This is deliberately different from Google. We're not trying to show you the most-reviewed business or the highest-rated one. We're trying to show you the most reliably excellent business in each category on Cape Cod.
For Business Owners
Common questions from owners about how rankings work.
My business has a 5.0 on Google. Why isn't it ranked #1?
A perfect 5.0 from a small number of reviews doesn't yet give us enough signal to confidently say your business is the best. Our system blends your rating with the category average until you have enough reviews to stand on your own. Think of it as a trust score that builds over time — it protects both you and users from outliers.
How do I improve my ranking?
The most reliable path is earning more genuine reviews from real customers. The more reviews you have, the more your actual rating drives your score — and the less the category average pulls it down. Quality and consistency are the only real levers.
My business isn't showing up at all. Why?
Businesses below the minimum review threshold for their category have a weighted score of zero and don't appear in rankings yet. This is intentional — it's not a penalty, it's a waiting period until we have enough data to rank you fairly. Once you cross the threshold, you'll appear automatically.
Where does your data come from?
We source business information, ratings, and review counts from Google Places. We don't independently verify every review — but we do apply our own weighting formula on top of that raw data to produce a more reliable ranking signal.
Can I pay to improve my ranking?
No. Rankings are determined entirely by the formula. There are no sponsored placements in our ranked lists.
How often are rankings updated?
We refresh data from Google and recalculate rankings once a month. We also track historical rank changes so you can see how your business has trended over time.
We built this system because Cape Cod deserves a reliable local guide — not just a mirror of a global platform. Questions or feedback? Reach out anytime.