Adjusting the sort order

We have quietly been working on a number of enhancements to our website. One feature that we have spent a surprising amount of time refining has been the ranking when people sort by reviews. Should a provider with a single five-star review rank higher than a provider that has 20 reviews that average 4.5 stars? We think that for this particular case, the provider with more reviews (and still a relatively high average rating) should rank higher. But the considerations go far beyond simply comparing the volume of reviews. For example, more recent reviews should probably be given more weight than reviews that occurred in the distant past. We reviewed various ranking criteria and settled on one that has recently been released.

It used to be the case that the default sort order did not consider a provider's overall patient ratings, but a couple of providers wrote in suggesting that we change that; we agreed. Naturally, some providers will want to know how to rank higher on our site. For our default sort order, much of what we wrote about earlier still applies, but we have also factored in patient ratings. While we do not want to reveal the ranking criteria in detail, we can say that providers that consistently get five-star ratings will tend to be ranked higher. "Consistently" means that a single five-star review might not have that much effect, but also that one or two unfavorable reviews might also not have too much effect if the overwhelming reviews are positive.