Key Findings
- Arabic reviews average 4.07 stars; English 4.50 — a 0.42-star gap.
- Arabic reviewers leave one-star reviews at 15.7% vs 7.3% — more than double.
- The gap holds in every category (0.39 to 0.44).
Introduction
At Raddod, we analyzed 120,000 written Google reviews left on Saudi businesses and split them by the language the customer chose to write in. The pattern that emerged was one of the clearest we have measured. Reviews written in Arabic average 4.07 stars. Reviews written in English average 4.50 stars. That is a gap of just over four-tenths of a star — about 0.42 — between two groups of people rating the very same restaurants, cafés, hotels and gyms, in the same cities, over the same period.
This is not a small difference. Of the 120,000 reviews, 87,211 (72.7%) were written in Arabic and 32,789 (27.3%) in English. The overwhelming majority, then, were written in Arabic — and that majority is the harsher judge. In other words, the loudest voice in the Saudi review market is also the most demanding. In this article we lay out the full numbers, offer possible explanations as hypotheses rather than conclusions, and explain what it means for the owner who reads their reviews every morning.
The Numbers: Arabic Is Harsher on Every Measure
The gap was not only in the average, but in the distribution of stars itself. The table below shows the full picture across both groups.
| Measure | Arabic reviews | English reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Number of reviews | 87,211 (72.7%) | 32,789 (27.3%) |
| Average rating | 4.07 | 4.50 |
| Share of one-star | 15.7% | 7.3% |
| Share of five-star | 67.2% | 79.0% |
| Average review length | 119 characters | 141 characters |
The most striking figure is the one-star share: an Arabic writer leaves a one-star review at more than double the rate of an English writer — 15.7% versus 7.3%. That means roughly one in six Arabic reviews is a single star, while only about one in fourteen English reviews is. In the other direction, English reviews lean five-star more often (79.0% versus 67.2%). The Arabic writer is not merely less enthusiastic; they are more inclined toward the harshest verdict of all.
Notice too the length difference: the Arabic review is slightly shorter on average (119 characters versus 141). It is a small gap, but it reminds us that a shorter text does not mean a softer judgement; Arabic is both shorter and harsher at once.
Consistency Across Sectors Is What Makes It Credible
Someone might argue the gap is a coincidence, or the effect of a single sector. But when we split the data by category, the same gap appeared in every sector, in the same direction, and by a similar magnitude. That consistency is the strongest evidence that what we are seeing is a real signal, not random noise.
| Category | Arabic (count) | English (count) | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants | 4.03 (24,927) | 4.47 (10,664) | -0.44 |
| Hotels | 4.02 (14,295) | 4.44 (5,136) | -0.42 |
| Cafés | 4.12 (10,207) | 4.51 (2,862) | -0.40 |
| Gyms | 4.09 (9,436) | 4.48 (2,680) | -0.39 |
Notice that the gap ranges only between 0.39 and 0.44 across four completely different sectors. When the same pattern repeats in a restaurant, a hotel, a café and a gym — with large sample sizes in each case, exceeding two thousand even in the smallest — it becomes very hard to dismiss as chance. Coincidence does not line up this neatly four times in a row and in the same direction.
What Does Not Explain the Gap
Before offering explanations, it is important to rule out one tempting but wrong idea: that Arabic writers are rating worse places. They are not, because both groups rate the same businesses — the same sectors and the same cities. The gap, then, is not in the quality of the venues being rated, but in the way they are judged. When two groups differ in rating the very same thing, the difference lies in the rater, not the rated.
Why Does This Happen? Hypotheses, Not Verdicts
It is important to be honest: this is a correlation, and the causes behind it are not established. What we have is the pattern, not a definitive explanation for it. Still, the data invites several reasonable hypotheses, each worth considering:
Hypothesis one: higher expectations of a familiar place
The local customer who writes in Arabic is often more familiar with the place and visits it more often, and those who know a place well hold it to a higher bar. When expectations rise, judgement becomes harsher automatically, because the comparison is made against the best previous visit rather than a first impression. The local compares you to yourself at your best; the visitor compares you to nothing.
Hypothesis two: a different reference point for the visitor
Many English writers may be visitors or expatriates comparing the experience against the standards of other markets or different travel expectations, which can make their judgement more forgiving. The yardstick each side measures by is different, and a difference in yardstick alone is enough to move the stars without the experience itself changing in the slightest.
Hypothesis three: the effect of writing in a second language
Writing in a second language may soften the tone. Someone writing in a language that is not their mother tongue sometimes reaches for simpler, less angry phrasing — not necessarily because their experience was better, but because the sharpest tools of expression are less readily at hand. Anger needs precise vocabulary, and that vocabulary is more pliable in one's mother tongue.
We repeat: these are explanatory hypotheses, and the data proves none of them. What the data proves is the existence and consistency of the gap, not its cause. These three factors may combine, and some may carry more weight than others, but all of that remains beyond what the numbers themselves can say.
What This Means for the Owner
The practical lesson is clear and direct: your Arabic reviews are your harshest and most honest signal. Do not treat them as mere complaints from hard-to-please customers. When you see your Arabic average sitting below your English average, you are most likely not looking at a problem with the customer, but at the sterner judgement of your core audience — the audience that knows you, returns to you, and forms the backbone of your business over the long term.
In practice, read your Arabic reviews first, and give them the greatest weight in your decisions. If a particular complaint recurs in your Arabic text, know that it cleared a high bar of expectation before it was ever written, and that alone makes it worth fixing immediately. The audience that rates you in Arabic is your true mirror, and whoever fixes what that mirror shows raises their rating with everyone, Arab and non-Arab alike. Do not let a comfortable English average fool you about a truth your larger audience already sees.
For more angles, see our article on why Saudis rate in five stars or one, and our article on the difference between Jeddah and Riyadh reviews.
Understand Your Own Reviews
This is the market picture, but what about your own business? Raddod is a Saudi AI-powered platform that reads your reviews in both Arabic and English, extracts the recurring patterns, and benchmarks you against your competitors in numbers, not guesswork. Get your free report from raddod.com and start today.