Transparency is our core value. Unlike other review platforms that hide their algorithms behind trade secrets, we believe you deserve to know exactly how ratings are calculated and reviews are moderated.
Business ratings on Rate For All are calculated as a simple arithmetic mean (average) of all verified user ratings. If a business has received ratings of 5, 4, 3, 5, and 4, its overall rating is (5+4+3+5+4) / 5 = 4.2 stars. We do not apply any weighting, filtering, or adjustment to this average. There is no secret algorithm. There is no paid boost. The number you see is the real average of what real people reported.
All reviewers must create an account with a verified email address. This is the minimum barrier to ensure accountability. We use automated systems to detect suspicious patterns such as multiple reviews from the same IP address, identical or near-identical review text across different businesses, sudden bursts of reviews on a single business, and accounts created solely to post one review. Flagged reviews are held for human moderation before being published or removed.
Businesses can be added to Rate For All by any registered user. Business owners can claim their listings by verifying ownership. Claimed businesses can update their information and respond to reviews, but they cannot modify or remove customer reviews.
Our moderation is guided by two principles: protect honest reviewers and remove bad-faith content. We remove reviews that violate our Terms of Use. We do not remove reviews simply because a business disagrees with them. A negative review that describes a genuine experience is protected speech on our platform.
Business information on Rate For All comes from user submissions and publicly available data. We do not purchase business data from third-party data brokers. All reviews are original user-generated content submitted directly on our platform.
Our platform code is publicly available. This means anyone can inspect how ratings are calculated, how reviews are stored, how moderation works, and how data is handled. We believe this level of transparency is essential for a platform that asks people to trust it.