How we rank Rochester driveway sealcoating companies

Every sealcoating and asphalt-repair operator in this directory gets a single Roc Score built from seven measurable signals — never a five-star average alone, and never a paid placement. We publish the exact weights and a worked example below so you can check a listing's ranking yourself before you call anyone about a driveway.

The formula

score = 0.30 × googleRating        (normalized 0–5 → 0–1)
      + 0.20 × googleReviewVolume  (log-scaled, caps near 500 reviews)
      + 0.10 × yelpRating          (normalized 0–5 → 0–1)
      + 0.10 × yelpReviewVolume    (log-scaled, caps near 500 reviews)
      + 0.05 × bbbAccredited       (1 = accredited, 0 = not)
      + 0.10 × reviewRecency       (1.0 ≤30d / 0.7 ≤90d / 0.3 ≤365d / 0 older)
      + 0.15 × serviceAreaOverlap  (share of our 10 target suburbs served)

Result is clamped to 0–1, then scaled to a 0–100 integer.
Formula version: 2026-05-17-v1 (src/lib/scoring/roc-score.ts)

Two weights are worth flagging because sealcoating specifically makes them matter more than they would for most local trades. Service area overlap (15%)is the second-heaviest factor after Google rating, because sealcoating crews run fixed suburb routes rather than driving out on demand — a Webster-based operator sealing driveways on a Tuesday route through Greece isn't necessarily going to quote a job in Mendon the same week, no matter what their website claims. BBB accreditation (5%)looks small on paper, but it's a meaningful signal in a trade with a well-documented door-to-door pitch problem — see our contractor red-flags guide for what that pattern looks like in practice.

Worked example

Business A wins even though Business B posted a flawless 5.0 average — the review-count log-scale, the missing BBB accreditation, and the narrower service-area coverage close the ratings gap in A's favor. This is the exact mechanism that keeps a first-season crew with five perfect reviews from outranking an established, insured operator on paper alone. Business C sits in between: solid multi-year numbers without the accreditation or full-county coverage of A.

A caveat specific to a seasonal trade

Rochester sealcoating runs roughly late May through early October — outside that window, reviews for even the busiest operators go quiet, because there's no work happening to review. The recency factor (10% of the score) reads that seasonal gap literally: a business you check in February may show a lower recency score than the same business would show in August, without anything actually changing about the quality of their work. Read a low winter recency score in that context rather than as a sign of decline, and check the actual review dates yourself if the timing matters to you.

Data sources

• Google Business Profile — primary source for review count + average stars + service area
• Yelp — secondary review signal where present
• BBB.org — accreditation status + complaint history (public records only)
• NY State business registry — verifies legal entity name, active status, and sales-tax registration (sealcoating is a taxable service in New York)
• Business's own website — for service offerings + pricing where published

Review-volume signals under-represent some legitimate small operators in this trade — a two-person crew with a full schedule from word-of-mouth referrals may carry far fewer Google reviews than a larger outfit that actively solicits them, without doing worse work. We update business data weekly. If you see something stale, or know a licensed local operator who isn't listed, email connormeador@gmail.com.

What we DON'T do

• Pay-for-placement — no business pays to rank higher
• Reciprocal-link schemes — no "link to us, we'll link to you"
• Scraped review text — we link to original sources, we don't republish
• Fabricated certifications — only verifiable industry credentials are mentioned
• AI-generated "sample of their work" images tied to specific businesses
• List operators with unresolved, documented quality complaints on file with BBB — one Rochester sealcoating business was excluded from this directory on that basis