How we rank IT providers
Re-scored weekly-1 IT firms scored0 ranked lists0 paid placements in any ranking
Every IT firm gets one IFR Score from 0 to 100, built from 9 weighted factors and calculated separately for each service and city. Ranks come from that score and nothing else. Sponsored placements never affect rank.
The IFR Score in one line
Each factor earns a share of its weight; the shares add up to a score out of 100.
- 25%Reputation
- 15%Review volume
- 10%Recency
- 5%Availability
- 15%Service focus
- 5%Proximity
- 10%Claimed profile
- 5%Partnered
- 10%Client reviews
A factor we could not measure for a business is left out, and the score is worked out over the factors we did measure. The exact formula is in Formulas at the bottom of this page.
The nine factors
What each factor measures, why it counts, and where the data comes from.
| Factor | Weight | How it’s measured | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reputation | 25% | The Google star rating, adjusted for how many reviews stand behind it. A firm with no Google reviews scores zero here. | Google rating and review count |
| Review volume | 15% | Number of Google reviews, compared with the most-reviewed firm on the same list. Each extra review counts a little less than the one before. | Google review count |
| Recency | 10% | Share of the firm’s reviews posted in the last 12 months. | Review dates |
| Availability | 5% | Weekly open hours, open Saturday, open Sunday, and 24/7 support, counted equally. | Opening hours, Google attributes, owner-confirmed hours |
| Service focus | 15% | Google main category naming the service (full), a business name naming it (0.7), or an additional category (0.5). | Google categories and business name |
| Proximity | 5% | Based in the city scores highest; less the farther away, down to zero at the service radius (20 to 75 miles depending on the service). | Business address and city coordinates |
| Claimed profile | 10% | The firm has claimed its profile. Free and paid profiles earn the same points. | IT Firms Ranked accounts |
| Partnered | 5% | The firm’s website links to IT Firms Ranked with our badge, checked periodically. | Periodic check of the firm’s website |
| Client reviews | 10% | Average rating and number of client reviews we verified, pulled toward an average when there are only a few. | IT Firms Ranked verified client reviews |
25%Reputation
People judge “best” by rating first, but a rating resting on a handful of reviews is noisy.
15%Review volume
A large review base is evidence of steady work, without letting one huge company flatten everyone else.
10%Recency
A strong rating from five years ago says less about the team working today.
5%Availability
Whether you can reach them when you need them matters as much as how good they are.
15%Service focus
A specialist should outrank an IT firm that lists the service among many others.
5%Proximity
Nearby IT firms are easier to visit and to go back to.
10%Claimed profile
An owner who keeps their profile current is easier to reach and to hold to account.
5%Partnered
Putting its ranking on its own site shows the IT firm stands behind the facts we publish.
10%Client reviews
Reviews we verified can’t be bought or filtered, and they count separately from Google, never twice.
How the star rating is adjusted
A perfect score from 9 reviews should not beat a near-perfect score from a thousand.
An IT firm with few reviews is pulled toward the local average for its service. As its reviews grow, its own rating takes over. At 50 reviews, its rating and the average count equally.
Worked example, using an example average of C = 4.4: a 5.0 from 9 reviews ranks below a 4.8 from 1,049.
| Order | Business | Google rating | Reviews | Weight on own rating | Adjusted rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | Business B | 4.8 | 1,049 | 95% | 4.78 |
| #2 | Business C | 4.6 | 140 | 74% | 4.55 |
| #3 | Business A | 5.0 | 9 | 15% | 4.49 |
Businesses A, B and C are illustrations, not real companies.
When data is missing
We never fill a gap with a guess.
An IT firm with no Google reviews scores zero on reputation, review volume and recency, so it can’t outrank reviewed IT firms on missing data. That changes once it has 10 or more verified ITFirmsRanked reviews. Claimed profile, partnered and client reviews are always measured: no claim, badge or review yet means zero.
For any other factor, a missing input is left out rather than set to zero or to an average. The score is calculated over the factors we could measure, and each business shows its coverage: the measured weight out of 100.
In score bars a measured factor is solid. A factor we have not collected yet is hatched:
Example only: no review dates yet, so recency is hatched.
Who gets ranked
Some businesses are listed but not ranked; some are not listed at all.
- To be ranked for a service, an IT firm needs a confident service match (its Google category or its name names the service) and either 3+ Google reviews or a claimed profile.
- Everyone else who serves the city appears unranked in a compact “Also serving” table on the same page.
- Ties are broken by score, then weekly open hours, then profile completeness (website, photos, description and hours), then name.
| Rule | Effect | IT firms affected |
|---|---|---|
| Weak service match (only a services tag names the service) | Listed in “Also serving”, not ranked. | — |
| Fewer than 3 reviews and not claimed | Listed in “Also serving”, not ranked. | — |
| Permanently closed | Removed from every list. | — |
| Sponsored or any paid status | Never read by the score; never changes a rank. | — |
Service areas and coverage
IT firms support clients remotely and on site, so a city list includes firms based nearby that serve it.
Each service has a service radius. An IT firm based inside the city gets full proximity points; one based elsewhere scores less the further away it is, reaching 0 at the radius. Every card says where the IT firm is based and how far that is.
| Service | Radius |
|---|---|
| Managed IT service providers | 50 mi (80 km) |
| Cybersecurity companies | 75 mi (121 km) |
| IT consultants | 50 mi (80 km) |
| Network cabling and installation companies | 40 mi (64 km) |
| Business phone system providers | 50 mi (80 km) |
| Data recovery services | 50 mi (80 km) |
| Computer repair shops | 20 mi (32 km) |
Where the data comes from
- Google Business data: star rating, review count, review dates, categories, opening hours, coordinates and listed attributes.
- Business-submitted data: IT firms that claim their profile can correct hours, services and contact details. Changes are checked before they count.
A weekly job rescores the cities that were scored longest ago first. Scores are stored, not computed when you load a page, so an IT firm’s number is the same on its profile and on every list it appears in. Each list shows the date it was last scored.
When a page shows a ranking
- A service × city list is published and indexed with 10 or more rankable IT firms. With 5–9 it is shown but kept out of search indexes; below 5 we point to the state list instead.
- We don’t publish a separate page when more than 70% of its top 10 matches its parent list; it becomes a section of the parent.
- The top 25 IT firms appear in full; the rest of the ranked list appears in a compact table on the same page.
- Every “best” names its basis and date: best by IFR Score, scored on a stated day.
What IT firms can and cannot pay for
IT firms can pay for
- A Sponsored slot: a block labelled “Sponsored”, outside the ranked list, with at most 3 IT firms per page, rotated daily at an equal price
- Pro profile tools: photos, a website link, review invites and profile stats
- Leads from the consultation request on a page where they hold a Sponsored slot
IT firms can never pay for
- A higher rank, on any list
- A change to their IFR Score or any factor in it
- Removal of a competitor, or of facts they dislike
Claiming a profile and adding our badge to your website are free. Free and paid listings earn exactly the same points for a claimed profile (10%) and for being partnered (5%); paying for Sponsored or Pro adds nothing to the score.
Each Sponsored card also shows that IT firm’s actual rank, so readers see where it really places. Sponsored IT firms are left out of the ranked list’s structured data.
Found a wrong fact? Our editorial policy explains how to request a correction and how fast we act.
Formulas
The exact calculations behind the factors above, for anyone who wants to check our work.
| Factor | Weight | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Reputation | 25% | adj = v/(v+m)·R + m/(v+m)·C, with m = 50 and C = the review-weighted mean rating for the service in that city (a Bayesian average). Part = adj / 5. 0 when the IT firm has no Google reviews. |
| Review volume | 15% | log10(v + 1) / log10(V + 1), where V = the most Google reviews on the same ranked list. 0 when the IT firm has no Google reviews. |
| Recency | 10% | Reviews in the last 12 months / all reviews. Left out until review dates are collected; 0 when the IT firm has no Google reviews. |
| Availability | 5% | (min(1, weekly open hours / 60) + Saturday + Sunday + 24/7 or same-day) / 4, each sign 0 or 1. |
| Service focus | 15% | Google main category 1.0, IT firm name names the service 0.7, additional category only 0.5; the highest that applies. |
| Proximity | 5% | 1.0 when based in the city, falling in a straight line to 0 at the service’s service radius. |
| Claimed profile | 10% | 1 when the profile is claimed (free or paid), else 0. |
| Partnered | 5% | 1 when our badge is verified on the IT firm’s own website (or set by an admin after a manual check), else 0. |
| Client reviews | 10% | 0.6 · (q − 1) / 4 + 0.4 · min(1, ln(1 + n) / ln(21)), where n = the weighted review count (invited 1.0, email-verified 0.5) and q = (avg · n + 3 · 4.0) / (n + 3). 0 with no reviews. |
- No Google reviews: reputation, review volume and recency are 0, not left out, unless the IT firm has 10 or more weighted ITFirmsRanked reviews; then they are left out and the score is renormalised over the measured factors.
- Ranking needs service focus of 0.5 or more and 3+ Google reviews or a claimed profile.