How many review sites do people check before choosing a local business?

How often do consumers read online reviews for local businesses?

BrightLocal's 2026 survey found that 97% of its 1,002 US adult respondents read online reviews for local businesses. 41% said they always read reviews while browsing for businesses.¹

The survey's six-site average therefore sits inside a wider pattern of review use. It describes the number of different sites consumers use when choosing businesses, while the 97% and 41% figures describe whether and how often respondents said they read reviews.¹

Which review details do people check?

In a separate BrightLocal survey of 1,227 US consumers who had searched online for a local business during the previous three months, 49% of people using review sites or business listings looked at review count. 48% looked at the star rating during their most recent local-business search.²

These percentages use a different panel and question from the six-site average. They show what people checked on review sites or listings, not how many sites each respondent visited.²

Which review and recommendation surfaces do consumers use?

BrightLocal's 2026 review survey reports that 71% of consumers used Google for local-business recommendations. The same page reports 83% for its 2025 comparison.¹

Google, AI and Apple Maps are recommendation surfaces in these findings. Their percentages cannot be added together to estimate the number of sites a person checks, because respondents may use more than one surface and the survey questions measure use of each surface rather than a sequential journey.¹³

The Google reviews guide covers the review surface on Google. The local SEO guide covers the wider set of business information customers use when deciding whether to contact a local business.

What do consumers do after reading a positive review?

BrightLocal's 2026 survey found that 54% of consumers said they visit a business's website after reading positive reviews. 66% said they do more research, while 34% said they are ready to buy or make a booking.¹

The source says respondents could select multiple actions. The 66% and 34% figures are therefore not two stages of a funnel and do not describe mutually exclusive groups.¹

Do people trust AI recommendations as much as reviews?

BrightLocal's 2026 AI-trust survey found that 42% of all 1,002 respondents trusted AI platforms as much as traditional reviews for local-business recommendations. Among the 455 respondents who had used AI for local-business recommendations in the previous 12 months, 64% trusted AI tools as much as reviews.³

The AI-user findings show that recommendation and review surfaces can work together. A person may use AI to find a business and then check native reviews before deciding.³

What do these review-site statistics not tell you?

• The six-site average does not show the order in which people visited sites or the number they checked for one specific business decision.
• The surveys record what respondents said they did, checked or trusted. They do not observe every search, visit, booking or purchase.
• The 1,002-person panels represent US adults. They do not establish the same percentages for every country, industry or customer group.
• The 1,227-person search-behaviour panel had searched for a local business in the previous three months. Its 49% and 48% findings do not use the same denominator as the 1,002-person review survey.²
• The percentages for Google, AI and Apple Maps describe reported use of individual recommendation surfaces. They do not measure market share, ranking position or the number of sites in a consumer's review journey.
• The 66% and 34% post-review actions are multiple-response findings. They cannot be combined into a conversion rate.¹
• Trust in AI recommendations and checking reviews are stated behaviours. They do not prove that either action causes a purchase or booking.

For a dated collection of review findings and source contexts, see the research index. The Google reviews guide explains the platform-specific review questions that these consumer surveys do not answer.