{"id":2123,"slug":"consumer-rating-thresholds-rising-brightlocal","title":"BrightLocal 2026 — 68% of consumers will only use a business with 4+ stars (up from 55%)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","candid-team"],"topics":["consumer-rating-thresholds-rising"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (**1,002 US adults via SurveyMonkey**):\n\n- **68% will only use a business with 4+ stars** (up from 55% in 2025).\n- **31% require 4.5+** (up from 17% last year).\n- **47% will not use a business with <20 reviews.**\n- **85% think reviews >3 months old are no longer relevant** (review recency now dominates).\n- Trust in reviews \"as much as personal recommendations\" fell **79% (2020) → 42% (2025).**\n- Google review usage was 83% in 2025 (down from 87% in 2023).\n\n**Source:** BrightLocal 2026 (vendor consumer panel survey).\n\n**Confidence:** Single-source / Industry-consensus.\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** The bar is rising fast. The widget's difficulty model should refresh consumer-threshold anchors annually — what counted as competitive in 2024 (4.0+, 20 reviews) is below threshold in 2026 for a large share of consumers.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-smb-widget-vertical-difficulty-june-2026","title":"Research brief: SMB widget vertical difficulty — two-axis tiering by industry (June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:04.849Z","updated_at":"2026-06-23T19:16:04.849Z"}