How the Journeyed Score and the rankings work

How the score is built

Formula settled-1.1-facts. Weights: facts 68%, proximity 15%, reachability 17%.

• Verified facts 68%: standard facts with a source, full credit for 180 days after the last check and none at 360 days, half credit when only the hotel states it.
• No reviews, by design. No review text and no review-site rating enters this number: it is built from facts with a source, distance and reachability.
• Proximity 15%: straight-line miles to the nearest landmark, full credit at 0 miles and none at 10 miles.
• Reachability 17%: website reachable 40%, phone checked 30%, hours stated 20%, profile verified 10%, each within 90 days.

What every score and rank is built from

No reviews, by design. Nothing on this site is built from reviews: no review text, no star rating copied from a review site and no sentiment drawn from them. Every score and every rank is built only from things a reader can check.

On record for Los Angeles: 13,216 sourced facts on 2,610 hotels, 472 hotel websites read and 84 recognized awards on 60 hotels from Forbes Travel Guide and AAA. Reader voting is open on every hotel page.

There is one published formula for every hotel, and no hotel can pay to change a score or a rank. Facts are re-checked on a schedule: each fact shows the date it was last checked, counts fully for 180 days and then loses credit until it is checked again.

• Facts the hotel states on its own website, each linked to the page that states it and dated. These carry the Journeyed Score.
• Contact details from open place records (name, address, phone, website), with the dataset named.
• Distances computed from open map data, as straight-line miles.
• Recognized awards read from the awarding body's own current list, with the list year. These count in best-of lists and are shown on hotel pages; they do not change the score.
• The hotel class of a brand, from the published chain scale. It counts in best-of lists only.
• Reader Yes or No votes on specific details, once enough people have voted. They move the detail ratings on a hotel page and count in best-of lists; they do not change the score.

The Journeyed Score

Every hotel gets one Journeyed Score from 0 to 100. It is computed by formula settled-1.1-facts from stored, sourced evidence and a fixed date, so the same evidence always gives the same number. Nothing is estimated by a language model and nothing is bought.

The score adds three parts, each measured from 0 to 1 and then weighted: facts 68%, proximity 15%, reachability 17%. It is rounded once, to one decimal, at the end. The score measures how much about a hotel is on record with a source; it is not a rating of the hotel.

• Verified facts 68%
• Proximity 15%
• Reachability 17%

What the words beside a score mean

Beside every Journeyed Score we print a short label for the range it falls in. The ranges are fixed and the label never changes the number, a rank or the formula.

A label describes our profile of a hotel: how much of it we have on record with a source. It never describes the hotel itself. The score counts sourced, recently checked evidence, so it rises as we verify more. A hotel page says how many of the 14 standard facts are verified and which come next.

• 80 to 100: Full profile. Our profile typically holds most of the facts the score counts, each with a source checked recently.
• 65 to 79.9: Detailed profile. Our profile typically holds a majority of the facts the score counts, each with a source.
• 45 to 64.9: Growing profile. Our profile typically holds contact details and some facts with a source; we are still collecting the rest.
• 0 to 44.9: Early profile. Our profile typically holds contact details from open records; we have read few facts from a source so far.

Verified facts

We check a standard set of facts for every hotel and give credit only for a fact with a source we can link to or a dataset we can name. Each fact counts fully for 180 days after we last checked it, then loses credit in a straight line until it counts for nothing at 360 days.

A fact stated only by the hotel itself counts 50% until a separate source agrees with it. Then it counts fully.

No reviews, by design

The Journeyed Score uses no reviews. A review cannot be traced to a source a reader can check, so reviews are left out on purpose, and no star rating from a review site is copied into any number here.

Reader opinion enters in one narrow, checkable way: Yes or No votes on specific details of a hotel (the Wi-Fi is free, the mattresses are firm). Those votes move the detail ratings on a hotel page and count as one published part of best-of lists. They never change the Journeyed Score.

Proximity

For the Journeyed Score, proximity is the straight-line distance to the nearest landmark we track in the market (airports, stadiums, campuses and similar), with full credit at 0 miles and none at 10 miles. On a question page it is the distance to the place the question names, within the radius that page states.

Distances are straight-line miles, never drive times.

Reachability

Whether a guest can actually reach the hotel. Each part counts when we checked it in the last 90 days. Verifying a profile is free for every business.

• Website reachable 40%
• Phone checked 30%
• Hours stated 20%
• Profile verified by the business 10%

The published variant with counted guest mentions (not in use)

A second published variant, formula settled-1.1, would add counted guest mentions from a licensed source: facts 40%, opinion 35%, proximity 15%, reachability 10%. It counts mentions per aspect, never review text, starting from a neutral prior worth 20 mentions so that 5 glowing mentions (60.0 out of 100) cannot outrank 500 mostly positive ones (88.5), with at most 200 per aspect and nothing older than 730 days. No market on this site uses it. If one ever does, every score there will carry that formula version.

Fit Score on question pages

Each question page ranks hotels by a Fit Score from 0 to 100. It uses the same three parts, measured against the facts that question is about, with weights that depend on the kind of question. Each page prints the weights it used.

A must-have in the question is a gate, not a weight. A hotel whose checked facts contradict a must-have is left out. A hotel where we have not yet verified the must-have is listed separately as not yet verified and is never ranked. Hotels outside the radius are not shown.

Ties are broken by the Journeyed Score, then by distance, then by a fixed id, so the same evidence always gives the same order.

• Near a place: facts 24%, proximity 60%, reachability 16%
• Has an amenity: facts 69.5%, proximity 15%, reachability 15.5%
• Kind of stay: facts 68%, proximity 15%, reachability 17%
• Who is traveling: facts 68%, proximity 15%, reachability 17%
• Going to an event: facts 33.3%, proximity 50%, reachability 16.7%
• Price: facts 68%, proximity 15%, reachability 17%
• General: facts 68%, proximity 15%, reachability 17%

When a question gets a page

A question gets its own page only when at least 5 hotels pass its must-haves and at least 20 verified facts stand behind them. Below that, the address sends readers to the landmark page (or the market page) instead.

If a published page later falls below the threshold, it stays up with a note for up to 8 weeks, then moves permanently to that landmark or market page.

Best-of lists

A best-of page ("Best hotels near a stadium", "Best pet friendly hotels") is its own published list, formula best-1.1. It never changes a Journeyed Score, a Fit Score or the order of any question page, and it is computed without any information about who pays.

Eligibility comes first. A hotel can be ranked only when it has a Detailed or Full profile (a Journeyed Score of 65 or more), or when it holds a recognized award. Every page says how many hotels were considered, how many can be ranked and why the rest are not ranked yet. A list is published only when at least 5 hotels can be ranked and at least 3 of its first 5 hold a recognized award or a hotel class above economy; a place without that has no best-of page yet.

Eligible hotels are ordered by points out of 100: recognized awards 30, hotel class 30, verified facts 15, reader votes 10 and distance 15. A market-wide list by need has no distance, so its 15 points go to the facts of that need (verified facts 25). A stadium, arena or airport list reaches at least 4 miles; every other list uses the radius of its landmark page.

Awards are read from the awarding body's own current list and shown with the list year and a link; a program counts only where its list is on record, and each page names the lists behind it under Sources. The facts counted differ by the kind of place (parking and check-in for a venue, the shuttle for an airport) and are named on each page. "Best" is always this formula; it is never a review, an inspection or an opinion of ours.

• Recognized awards, 30 points: the highest level a hotel holds on the awarding body's own current list. MICHELIN Guide: Three MICHELIN Keys 100%, Two MICHELIN Keys 90%, One MICHELIN Key 80%. Forbes Travel Guide: Five-Star 100%, Four-Star 85%, Recommended 70%. AAA: Five Diamond 100%, Four Diamond 75%.
• Hotel class, 30 points: luxury 100%, upper upscale 80%, upscale 60%, upper midscale 40%, midscale 20%, economy 0%, from the published chain scale of the hotel's brand, or from the awarding body's own definition of a level the hotel holds. A hotel with no class on record gets 0 here.
• Reader votes, 10 points: the share of reader Yes or No votes that confirm what the hotel states about its details, starting from a neutral 5 votes at 50%. A hotel with no votes yet gets half.
• Ties go to the higher Journeyed Score, then the shorter distance.

Paid placement

Money never changes a score or a rank. The scorer cannot see who pays: paid placement is stored apart and added only after the ranking is finished. A page shows at most 2 cards labelled Sponsored, above the ranked list and never inside it, only for hotels with a Fit Score of 60 or more on that question, each shown with its own unchanged Fit Score.

Formula versions

Any change in what a score means gets a new formula version. Scores from different versions are never compared or mixed.

• settled-1.0 (2026-10-01): First published formula: facts 40%, opinion 35%, proximity 15%, reachability 10%.
• settled-1.0-facts (2026-10-01): The no-reviews variant: no guest mentions are counted, and the weight published for them sits with facts and reachability.
• settled-1.1 (2026-10-02): Fit Score only: questions about what is close to a place weight distance 60% (was 30%), and questions about getting to an event weight it 50% (was 35%). The overall score is unchanged.
• settled-1.1-facts (2026-10-02): The same change for the no-reviews variant.

Detail ratings

Every hotel page has a section called Every detail, rated. Each detail is one specific claim, such as "The mattresses are on the firm side" or "Housekeeping tips of $3 to $5 a night are typical here". Travelers agree or disagree with it. There is no review text and nothing to write.

A detail's rating runs from 0 to 100, where 100 means everyone agrees. It starts only from evidence: a fact the hotel states on its own website (or in its verified profile) starts the claim at 85 when it supports it and 15 when it says otherwise, and a brand standard starts it at 75 or 25. Which fact can start which claim is a fixed, published table; a fact only counts when it states the claim directly.

That starting point is worth 5 votes. Each agree pulls the rating toward 100 and each disagree toward 0, as a weighted average. Votes fade instead of being reset: a vote's weight halves every 12 months, and votes older than 24 months no longer count. Each person counts once per detail, with their latest vote, and can vote on a detail once every 30 days.

Without evidence there is no number until 5 people have voted, and such a rating is marked Early until 20 votes. Every rating shows its basis and how many recent votes it rests on, and an arrow when the last 90 days differ from the long-run rating by 10 points or more.

Detail ratings never change the Journeyed Score, a Fit Score or the order of a question page. The scoring code cannot read them, and a test fails the build if it ever could. Reader votes do count, as one published part, in best-of lists (see Best-of lists above).

Sources

• Overture Maps Places · cdla-permissive-2.0 · checked September 23, 2026