Switching to newest first is one button above the list, the same on phone and desktop.
Reviews for a business on Google do not show up in the order they arrived. The newest one might sit fifth or sixth on the list, older ones stacked above it, and with a few hundred reviews searching for what people said this week is like flipping through a book with no index.
People search this five different ways: newest first, sort by date, sort order, latest reviews. The answer is the same for all five. Google does not sort reviews by newest by default, it sorts by what it calls relevance, and sorting by date is something you switch on yourself. The steps are identical whether you open the business on your phone through Maps or on a computer through search.
On a phone, open Google Maps, find the business, and tap the reviews tab under its name. You will see the star rating, the review count, a search-within-reviews field, and the list itself below it.
That search field is for finding a specific word inside the reviews, an employee's name or a word like "parking." It is a different tool from sorting: it does not reorder anything, it just narrows the list to reviews containing that word.
On a computer, type the business name directly into Google search. In the panel to the right of the results, click the review count next to the stars. That opens a reviews page where Google shows other sources as a separate tab next to its own. Reviews labeled as coming from Google are the exact same list you would see in Maps.
Above the list is a small button, and by default it reads Most Relevant. Google does not publish what exactly counts toward relevance, only that it is not a simple newest-first order. That is why a review from four months ago can sit above one from last week.
Google's own Business Profile Help never explains the sort control at all. It covers how to report a review, how to reply to one, and how the score at the top is calculated, but it does not mention the button above the list in a single sentence. Anyone searching the help center for instructions will not find them, which is the reason this page exists.
Opening a listing for the first time, then, shows reviews Google judged most relevant at the top, not the ones that arrived yesterday or last week. Those can sit in tenth or twentieth place until you switch the order yourself.
Tap that same button. A short menu opens, and one option sorts reviews by date, newest first, which is exactly what most people mean by "newest." A second option sorts by star count, lowest or highest separately.
The steps are identical on phone and desktop, because it is the same control above the same list, just at a different screen width.
Newest-first sorting is useful when you want to check quickly whether a new complaint showed up yesterday. Sorting by stars is useful when you want to read every one-star review at once, regardless of when it arrived, and compare them side by side.
The panel that opens directly inside Google search shows reviews alongside other sources and does not carry the same sort button as the Maps page. If you do not see it above the list, you are not on the wrong device, you are just on a different Google screen.
Anyone who needs to reliably switch the sort order, not just glance at reviews, should open the business directly in Maps rather than the search sidebar. That difference holds the same on phone and on desktop.
The reviews themselves read the same in both places, just with no assurance they are sorted the way you want. Maps is the reliable route to a chosen order; the search panel is fine for a quick look.
Whether you leave the default order or switch to newest, the number at the top of the profile, the stars next to the business name, does not move. Google describes it this way:
"The reviews score is the average of all the ratings a place or business received on Google."
Google Business Profile Help, read September 14, 2026
Not an average of what happens to be visible after switching, but an average of every review across the entire history of the listing. Anyone who switches to newest, averages the last ten reviews by hand, and compares that to the number at the top is comparing two different things.
There is also a delay that has nothing to do with sorting but tangles into the same consideration:
"When someone adds a new review, it can take up to two weeks for the reviews score to update."
Google Business Profile Help, read September 14, 2026
A new five-star review at the top of the list does not necessarily raise the average right away, even though you see it first.
Concretely: a five-star review lands on Monday, you switch the sort to newest on Tuesday, and the number at the top still does not move. Nothing broke. The up to fourteen days Google allows for the recalculation simply has not passed yet.
The order inside one business's own review list is a different thing from whether the business shows up in search results at all. Google describes what goes into local ranking, and one sentence in that description names reviews directly:
"This signal is based in part on the number of reviews of a business and how many websites link to it."
Google Business Profile Help, read September 14, 2026
That is review count as one input into one of three ranking factors, not a formula and not a promise that more reviews means a better spot. It has nothing to do with the order reviews appear in inside one business's own list, which is purely the button described earlier.
Google names three factors that decide where a business lands in results: relevance, distance from the searcher, and a third, less specifically named factor that Google says includes review count among other things. Reviews are one input into one of three factors deciding whether a business shows up at all, not the order its own reviews then display in.
Sorting reviews costs nothing. A Valtela license runs $599 a year, and the full breakdown is on the pricing page.
Anyone dealing with one specific review, not the order of the whole list, has their own steps on the replying to a review page. Anyone who thinks reviews vanished, rather than just being sorted differently, should read the disappeared reviews page. And anyone collecting reviews who wants to know what Google actually thinks about the rules around that finds it on the Google review policy page.
Every citation on this page comes from one of these pages. The link goes to the original source, not to our summary of it.
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