How “Recommended” works

Every city page on Dogs Mobile Grooming lists groomers in a default order we call Recommended. It isn't a black box and it isn't for sale — it's one simple score, computed the same way for every groomer in every city, from their real Google reviews. Here is exactly how it works.

One score, same for everyone

Recommended is not the same as Top rated. Recommended weighs both a groomer's Google star rating and how many reviews stand behind it — so a business with a slightly lower rating but many more reviews can sit above a perfect score with only a handful. Prefer a pure star-rating order? Every city page has a Top rated sort. The same method is applied to every groomer, and no one can pay to improve their Recommended position. For full transparency, it comes from a single quality score:

A perfect 5.0 based on two reviews provides less evidence of consistent customer satisfaction than a 4.8 backed by three hundred reviews. Review count matters, but it doesn't raise the score equally forever — early reviews have a greater effect, and each additional review adds a little less. That keeps businesses with extremely large review counts from automatically dominating highly rated newer businesses.

If we don't have a rating or review count for a groomer yet, it ranks as if that number were zero — that's a ranking default, not a claim about the business, and we never display a made-up “0 reviews” on the listing itself.

The signals we use — and the ones we never will

Who makes the list at all

Before any ordering happens, a listing has to earn its place on the page:

• Real businesses only. Every listing comes from real, public Google business data. We never pad a city with placeholder or invented listings — a short list is a short list.
• Actually mobile. We only list businesses with real evidence of mobile dog grooming — the van-comes-to-you kind — not every groomer in town.
• Actually local. Listings located more than about 75 miles from the city center are excluded from that city's page. If we can't determine where a business is based, we keep it rather than guess.
• No duplicates. The same business appearing twice in the source data is merged into one listing.

Re-sorting and filtering

Recommended is just the default. On every city page you can re-sort by Top rated (highest star rating first, more-reviewed first on ties), Most reviewed, or Price low to high (groomers with no published price sort last — we don't guess). Filters work only on details a groomer has actually published on their own website or menu; a groomer who hasn't published a detail is hidden while that filter is on, and comes right back when you clear it.

We don't sell placement today

Right now, nothing on any page of this site is paid for. There are no featured listings and no sponsored cards — no groomer has paid us for placement, and every position you see is the position the score produced.

If we ever do sell placement, the rule is already written, and it is simple. Only two clearly labeled things could ever be paid, and neither can touch the Recommended list:

• A Featured listing would be pinned above the regular order with a visible “★ Featured” badge. The pin would be paid; the score wouldn't be — featuring never changes any groomer's quality score, including the featured groomer's own.
• A Sponsored card would sit above the list entirely, clearly labeled, and never mixed into the Recommended results or your filters.

If a position is ever paid for, you'll see that it was. That's the whole policy — and it's wired into our publish checks, not just written on this page.

Fresh data, and how to correct it

Ratings and review counts come from public Google business listings and are re-checked on a rolling schedule — every city page shows a “Listings verified” date so you know how current its data is. Spot something outdated or wrong? Let us know and we'll fix it.