How we rank Rochester flooring companies

The Roc Score formula

score = w1·googleRating + w2·googleCount + w3·yelpRating
      + w4·yelpCount + w5·bbbAccredited + w6·recency
      + w7·serviceAreaOverlap

Where (each factor normalized 0–1, weights sum to 1.0):
  w1 = 0.30  Google rating (stars ÷ 5)
  w2 = 0.20  Google review count (log-scaled — diminishing
             returns past ~500 reviews, so volume alone
             can't run away with the score)
  w3 = 0.10  Yelp rating (stars ÷ 5)
  w4 = 0.10  Yelp review count (log-scaled, same curve as w2)
  w5 = 0.05  BBB accreditation (1 if accredited, else 0)
  w6 = 0.10  Review recency (1.0 if ≤30 days old, 0.7 if
             ≤90 days, 0.3 if ≤365 days, 0 if older/unknown)
  w7 = 0.15  Overlap with our 10 target Rochester-area
             flooring suburbs (Pittsford, Brighton, Greece,
             Irondequoit, Penfield, Webster, Fairport, East
             Rochester, Park Avenue, Henrietta)

Final score = round(rawScore × 100), clamped to 0–100.

Rating alone doesn't decide the ranking — it's 40% of the formula (Google + Yelp rating combined), deliberately capped below half so a business can't buy its way to the top with a handful of five-star reviews from friends and family. Review count is log-scaled rather than linear specifically because flooring is a lower-frequency purchase than, say, a coffee shop: a company doing quality refinishing work in Rochester might legitimately have 40 reviews instead of 400, and a strictly linear count would punish that unfairly. Recency matters because a company's current crew, current subcontractors, and current quality control are what you're actually hiring — a glowing review from 2019 tells you less than one from last month. And service-area overlap exists because a five-star refinisher who never actually works in Rochester suburbs isn't useful to someone searching this directory, no matter how good their reviews are somewhere else.

Worked example

The first two rows show why a slightly lower star rating (4.7 vs 4.8) can still outrank a slightly higher one: the 4.7-star shop has a Yelp presence and 45 more Google reviews behind it, and both factors carry real weight. The third row is the more important lesson — a perfect 5.0★ average means very little on its own if the business has no track record in Rochester's target suburbs and no Google Business Profile at all. A thin, disconnected review history caps the score no matter how flattering the average looks.

Data sources

• Google Business Profile — primary source for review count + average stars + service area
• Yelp — secondary review signal where present
• BBB.org — accreditation status + complaint history (public records only)
• NY State business registry — verifies legal entity name + active status
• Business's own website — for service offerings + pricing where published

One caveat specific to flooring: several of the businesses in this directory are 1–3-person refinishing crews rather than storefront retailers, and a home-based refinisher is less likely to have an active BBB file than a showroom with a retail lease. We don't treat "no BBB record" as a red flag by itself — it's a 5% weight in the formula, not a gate — but it's worth knowing why a well-reviewed small crew might still show a modest BBB line on their profile. We update business data weekly. If you see something stale, email connormeador@gmail.com.

What we DON'T do

• Pay-for-placement — no flooring company pays to rank higher, and paying for a subscription elsewhere doesn't move the Roc Score
• Reciprocal-link schemes — no "link to us, we'll link to you"
• Scraped review text — we link to original Google/Yelp sources, we don't republish full reviews
• Fabricated certifications — we don't invent NWFA, EPA Lead-Safe, or manufacturer-installer credentials that a business hasn't actually earned
• AI-generated business images tied to specific companies — no synthetic "before/after" refinish photos presented as real jobs