How we rank psychologists
Re-scored weekly-1 practices scored0 ranked lists0 paid placements in any ranking
Every practice gets one RP Score from 0 to 100, built from 8 weighted factors and calculated separately for each specialty and city. Ranks come from that score and nothing else. Sponsored placements never affect rank.
The RP Score in one line
Each factor earns a share of its weight; the shares add up to a score out of 100.
- 25%Reputation
- 5%Review volume
- 5%Recency
- 10%Availability
- 25%Specialty focus
- 15%Proximity
- 10%Claimed profile
- 5%Partnered
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 eight 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 practice with no Google reviews scores zero here. | Google rating and review count |
| Review volume | 5% | Number of Google reviews, compared with the most-reviewed practice on the same list. Each extra review counts a little less than the one before. | Google review count |
| Recency | 5% | Share of the practice’s reviews posted in the last 12 months. | Review dates |
| Availability | 10% | Weekly open hours, open Saturday, open Sunday, and round-the-clock or same-day availability where the listing shows it, counted equally. | Opening hours and attributes on the Google listing |
| Specialty focus | 25% | How clearly this is the practice’s specialty: its Google main category counts most, then a practice name that names the specialty, then an additional category. | Google main and additional categories, practice name |
| Proximity | 15% | A practice based in the city scores highest; one based elsewhere scores less the farther away it is, down to nothing at the specialty’s service radius. | Business coordinates |
| Claimed profile | 10% | Full points when the practice has claimed its RankedPsychologists profile. Claiming is free, and free and paid profiles earn the same points. | RankedPsychologists account records |
| Partnered | 5% | Full points when the practice links to RankedPsychologists from its own website with our free badge. We check the link periodically. | Badge check on the practice’s website |
25%Reputation
People judge “best” by rating first. Therapy clients post few reviews and psychologists may not solicit testimonials, so a rating resting on a handful of reviews is especially noisy here.
5%Review volume
Number of Google reviews, compared with the most-reviewed practice on the same list, with each extra review counting a little less. It carries a small weight because review counts mostly reflect practice size, not quality of care.
5%Recency
Share of the practice’s Google reviews posted in the last 12 months. Recent reviews say more about the practice as it is today.
10%Availability
Many clients can only attend before or after work or at weekends.
25%Specialty focus
Someone looking for a child therapist, a neuropsychologist or an eating disorder therapist should see practices that do that work first, not every practice that mentions it.
15%Proximity
Therapy usually means regular visits over weeks or months, so a short trip matters. Online sessions are not counted here.
10%Claimed profile
Full points when the practice has claimed its Ranked Psychologists profile. Claiming is free, and free and paid profiles earn the same points. A practice that keeps its hours, specialties and contact details current is easier to reach.
5%Partnered
Full points when the practice links to Ranked Psychologists from its own website with our free badge. We check the link periodically. It shows the practice stands behind the facts we publish about it.
How the star rating is adjusted
A perfect score from 9 reviews should not beat a near-perfect score from a thousand.
A practice with few reviews is pulled toward the local average for its specialty. 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.
A practice with no Google reviews scores zero on reputation, review volume and recency, so it can’t outrank reviewed practices on missing data. Claimed profile and partnered are always measured: no claim or badge 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 specialty, a practice needs a confident specialty match (its Google category or its name names the specialty) 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 | Practices affected |
|---|---|---|
| Weak specialty match (only a services tag names the specialty) | 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
Many practices also see clients online, but a city list shows practices with an office in or near the city.
Each specialty has a service radius. A practice 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 practice is based and how far that is.
| Specialty | Radius |
|---|---|
| Psychologists | 20 mi (32 km) |
| Therapists and counselors | 15 mi (24 km) |
| Child and teen therapists | 25 mi (40 km) |
| Couples therapists | 20 mi (32 km) |
| Family therapists | 20 mi (32 km) |
| Neuropsychologists | 50 mi (80 km) |
| Psychological testing practices | 40 mi (64 km) |
| Anxiety and OCD therapists | 25 mi (40 km) |
| Trauma and PTSD therapists | 25 mi (40 km) |
| Eating disorder therapists | 50 mi (80 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: practices that claim their profile can correct hours, specialties 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 a practice’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 specialty × city list is published and indexed with 10 or more rankable practices. 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 practices 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 RP Score, scored on a stated day.
What practices can and cannot pay for
Practices can pay for
- A Sponsored slot: a block labelled “Sponsored”, outside the ranked list, with at most 3 practices per page, rotated daily at an equal price
- Pro profile tools: photos, a website link and profile stats
- Leads from the consultation request form on a page where they hold a Sponsored slot
Practices can never pay for
- A higher rank, on any list
- A change to their RP 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 practice’s actual rank, so readers see where it really places. Sponsored practices 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 specialty in that city (a Bayesian average). Part = adj / 5. 0 when the practice has no Google reviews. |
| Review volume | 5% | log10(v + 1) / log10(V + 1), where V = the most Google reviews on the same ranked list. 0 when the practice has no Google reviews. |
| Recency | 5% | Reviews in the last 12 months / all reviews. Left out until review dates are collected; 0 when the practice has no Google reviews. |
| Availability | 10% | (min(1, weekly open hours / 60) + Saturday + Sunday + 24/7 or same-day) / 4, each sign 0 or 1. |
| Specialty focus | 25% | Google main category 1.0, practice name names the specialty 0.7, additional category only 0.5; the highest that applies. |
| Proximity | 15% | 1.0 when based in the city, falling in a straight line to 0 at the specialty’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 practice’s own website (or set by an admin after a manual check), else 0. |
- No Google reviews: reputation, review volume and recency are 0, not left out.
- Ranking needs specialty focus of 0.5 or more and 3+ Google reviews or a claimed profile.