Beginning October 1, 2019, reviews more than 18-months old will no longer be factored into average ratings in the HT Score algorithm.

How will this impact my HT Score?

If you have reviews that are more than 18-months old your score may be impacted.  If you have a few bad old reviews you may see your score increase and if your only good reviews are from a lifetime ago and the only thing keeping your HT Score up you might see the opposite happen.  Lastly, if you have no recent reviews and your only reviews are from more than 18-months ago you will likely see your HT Score drop quite a bit.

How can I prepare for the update?

For most companies there is nothing you will need to do to prepare other than continue with business as usual making sure you have a sustainable review strategy in place to make sure you have fresh review content that is representative of your current product and service offering.  If you have old reviews that you want to make sure continue to count towards your averages you can also use the Premium 1-Click Review Update feature.

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Want more detail?

1. What problem will this update solve?
2. How will this impact my HT Score?
3. How can I prepare for the update?

What problem will this update solve?

Software companies and products are constantly changing with most having rapid update cycles as quickly as 2-week sprints.  Having recent content on profiles ensures that reviews, descriptions and scoring are relevant for the company's current product and service offering.  For this reason, we added the review recency variable to the HT Score.  While this helps give weight to ensure that profile content is recent and relevant, it doesn't factor in the fact that old content is less valuable and relevant.  Therefore a few bad reviews from ages ago can continue to bog down a vendor's HT Score even if their recent reviews and ratings are off the charts positive.  It is for that reason that the HT Score average ratings will no longer include aged reviews (ie. reviews more than 18-months old).  The two main scenarios this update is targeted at improving on are: 

1. Companies have positive client reviews from years ago but negative reviews ever since and yet are able to inaccurately remain in top positions above companies with outstanding raving feedback from clients for the last year plus
2. Companies with negative client reviews from a few years ago that are still being disproportionately weighed down by them even though all of their recent reviews from the past year plus are outstanding

How will this impact my HT Score?

If you have reviews that are more than 18-months old your score may be impacted.  If you have a few bad old reviews you may see your score increase and if your only good reviews are from a lifetime ago and the only thing keeping your HT Score up you might see the opposite happen.  Lastly, if you have no recent reviews and your only reviews are from more than 18-months ago you will likely see your HT Score drop quite a bit.

How can I prepare for the update?

For most companies there is nothing you will need to do to prepare other than continue with business as usual making sure you have a sustainable review strategy in place to make sure you have fresh review content that is representative of your current product and service offering.  If you have old reviews that you want to make sure continue to count towards your averages you can also use the Premium 1-Click Review Update feature.

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