Google has implemented significant updates to its Schema guidelines regarding how local businesses can markup the reviews they receive.
Alongside introducing new rules, Google has also prohibited some previously acceptable practices. For instance, businesses once had the ability to add markup to reviews garnered from third-party sites, which is now disallowed.
It’s still permissible to feature third-party reviews on your website, provided they are not marked up with Schema. Moving forward, Google stipulates that Schema markup should only be used on reviews “that have been directly produced by your site.” If the exact same review appears elsewhere, marking it up with Schema now constitutes a violation of Google’s guidelines.
If you are currently using or planning to use Schema markup on the reviews posted on your site, it is essential to review the new guidelines to ensure compliance. Here are the updated guidelines in detail:
– Snippets must not be written or provided by the business or content provider unless they are authentic, independent, and unpaid editorial reviews. Reviews should allow customers to express both positive and negative sentiments. They may not be filtered by the business or censored by the content provider based on the review’s sentiment before submission to Google.
– Reviews cannot consist of template sentences built from data or automated metrics. For instance, phrases like “Based on X number of responses, on average people experienced X with this business” are not acceptable.
– Reviews for businesses with multiple locations, such as retail chains or franchises, can only be submitted for the specific business location they pertain to. In other words, reviews for multi-location businesses cannot be syndicated or applied to all branches of the same company.
– Aggregators or content providers must have no commercial agreements, either paid or otherwise, with businesses to provide reviews.
– Do not include reviews that are duplicated or similar across many businesses or sourced from different platforms.
– Only include reviews directly produced by your site, excluding those from third-party sites or syndicated reviews.
Acknowledgment: Mike Blumenthal
