How to Compare a Hotel's Reviews Across Platforms Yourself

You've found a hotel that looks promising. Before you book, you open Google, get one score, open TripAdvisor, get a different one, open Booking.com, get a third number on a completely different scale. Now what? Most people either pick whichever number looks best, or give up and just trust the first one they saw.

There's a real method to cross-checking a hotel across platforms properly, and it takes about five minutes once you know the steps. It's not complicated, it's just not something most booking sites walk you through, since none of them have a reason to send you to a competitor's reviews.

How do you compare a hotel's reviews across platforms? (Quick answer)

Open Google, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com for the same property, normalize the scores to the same scale, check whether the platforms roughly agree, then skim the most recent reviews on whichever platform shows the most detail. Agreement across platforms is a good sign. A big gap on one platform specifically is worth understanding before you dismiss or trust it.

The 5-step manual comparison method

Step 1: Pull all three scores side by side

Search the hotel's name plus "Google reviews," then separately on TripAdvisor and Booking.com directly. Write down or screenshot each score as you go, it's easy to lose track once you've got three tabs open. You're not looking for a single "correct" number yet, just gathering the raw data.

Step 2: Put them on the same scale

Google and TripAdvisor use a 5-point scale, Booking.com uses a 10-point scale, and none of them mean quite the same thing. Multiply Google and TripAdvisor scores by 20 to get a rough 0-100 comparison (a 4.5 becomes 90), and multiply Booking.com's score by 10 (an 8.5 becomes 85). This isn't a perfect conversion since each platform's underlying review pool and verification standard differs, but it gets you close enough to compare at a glance instead of mentally juggling three different scales.

Step 3: Check whether the platforms actually agree

Once everything's on the same scale, look at the spread. Scores within roughly 5-10 points of each other suggest a fairly consistent guest experience across different review pools, that's a good sign. A gap of 15-20+ points on one platform specifically is worth understanding rather than ignoring, it might mean that platform's review pool skews differently (tourists vs. business travelers, for example), or it might mean something changed recently that only shows up on the platform with the most current reviews.

Step 4: Weight each score by how many reviews back it up

A 95 built on 3,000 reviews means something different than a 95 built on 15. Low review counts are easy to skew, one bad group booking or one especially happy guest can move the average significantly. Before trusting any single platform's score, check roughly how many reviews it's based on, not just the headline number.

Step 5: Read the most recent reviews on whichever platform has the most detail

The score tells you the average, recent reviews tell you whether that average still holds. Skim the last 5-10 reviews specifically, not the top-sorted "most helpful" ones, which are often older. If the recent tone matches the overall score, you can trust it. If recent reviews are notably more negative or positive than the average, that's worth knowing before you book.

Where this gets automated

Doing this manually works, and it's a genuinely useful skill, but it takes real time across three separate tabs every time you're considering a property. This is exactly what a merged score does for you automatically: ReviewsMerger pulls Google, TripAdvisor, and Booking.com data for a property, normalizes it, and surfaces both the long-run Trust Rating and a Current Pulse showing whether recent reviews are trending differently from the average, the same five steps above, done for you every time you look up a property.

The bottom line

Three different scores on three different scales isn't a reason to guess, it's a reason to actually compare them properly. Normalize, check the spread, weight by volume, and confirm against recent reviews, and you'll catch exactly the kind of disagreement or shift that trusting a single platform's number would miss entirely.

Browse the best-rated hotels by city or top-reviewed restaurants near you, or see how the major review platforms compare. If you manage a property, here's how ReviewsMerger works for owners.

FAQ

How do I convert Google and Booking.com scores to compare them?

Multiply a Google or TripAdvisor score (out of 5) by 20 to get a rough 0-100 equivalent. Multiply a Booking.com score (out of 10) by 10. It's an approximate conversion since the underlying review pools differ, but it's close enough for a quick side-by-side comparison.

How big a gap between platforms is normal?

Roughly 5-10 points on a normalized 0-100 scale is common and not usually a concern. A gap of 15-20 points or more on one specific platform is worth investigating rather than dismissing, since it can indicate a differently skewed review pool or a recent change in the property.

Does a low review count matter even if the score is high?

Yes. A high score based on very few reviews is much easier to skew than the same score based on thousands. Check the review count alongside the score before trusting it fully.

Which platform's reviews should I trust the most?

None automatically, they each have different strengths. Booking.com verifies stays, Google has the largest volume, TripAdvisor offers the most category detail. Comparing across all three catches more than trusting any single one.

Is there a faster way to do this without opening three tabs every time?

Yes, a merged score that pulls and normalizes all three platforms automatically saves the manual steps. ReviewsMerger does exactly this, showing a combined Trust Rating plus a Current Pulse for recent-review trends.

Should I check recent reviews even if the overall score looks good?

Yes. An overall score is backward-looking by nature and can stay high for months after conditions change. Skimming the last 5-10 reviews specifically confirms whether the average still reflects what guests are experiencing now.