Our methodology
How MiamiExplore scores and ranks every venue
Miami has no shortage of loud recommendations. What is hard to find is a signal you can check. This page explains the two numbers behind everything on this site: the score a venue earns, and the rank it holds in our lists. Neither is for sale.
How venues are scored
Each venue is rated on the five things that matter for its type. A restaurant is scored on food quality, service, atmosphere, value for money, and location. Hotels, attractions, and nightlife venues each have their own five, and every venue of a type is measured on the same ones. Those sub-scores combine into the single score you see on its page, using one formula that applies to every venue equally.
Scores are built from aggregated guest review data and each venue's own published information. Next to our score you will always find the venue's real Google rating and review count, so you can check our take against the broadest public signal in one glance. We do not host our own guest reviews, and we never score a venue we have no data for.
How venues are ranked
Our score is the biggest thing that moves a venue up a list, but it is not the only one. When you sort by MiamiExplore Picks, here is everything that can affect the order, from most influential to least.
1. Quality
The venue's score, weighed against how many guests stand behind it. A place with a dozen glowing reviews does not leapfrog one with thousands on rating alone. New venues earn their way up as real guests weigh in. For hotels, official star class is part of this picture.
2. Popularity and momentum
How many guests have reviewed a venue, and how fast that number is growing right now. We re-measure review growth four times a year from public counts, on a fixed schedule. Venues genuinely gaining attention rise, and ones fading drift down. Measured, never guessed.
3. Recognition
Major distinctions such as Michelin recognition add a small, capped bonus. Recognition can break a tie near the top. It cannot carry a venue that guests rate poorly.
4. Small tie-breakers
When venues are otherwise even, minor rules settle the order. They apply identically to every venue in the same situation, and none of them can lift a weaker venue over a stronger one.
Sometimes our editors hand-pick a venue to feature. When that happens it is labeled Editor's Pick, so an editorial choice never wears the costume of an earned rank.
That list is complete. Nothing else moves a venue up. Not payment, not a relationship with us, not how loud a place is on social media.
What money can and cannot do here
Venues can pay for clearly labeled placement, and an assessed program fee covers the cost of an assessment visit. That is the full list.
No venue can pay for a score, a rank, or a spot on a list.
Scores and rankings are generated by the same formulas for everyone, and they are not for sale. If a venue ever appears somewhere because it paid, it will say so right there.
When we get something wrong
A real person reads every correction request. If you run a venue listed here, you can have your information corrected, and if you want your listing removed, ask and a person will handle it. Visitors who spot an error can write to us at [email protected] and reach the same human.