Rich Snippets (Rating stars) not showing up on website in search results

[BrianBotts.]

Hello,

I have All in One Schema.org Rich Snippets plugin installed on my WP websites for the star snippets to show up in google search results. I used the Item Review property in this plugin for the homepage and under Reviewer’s Name (added name of author), Item to be reviewed (added brand/business name) and Your Rating (of course 5 :)).

Now, the problem occurring is that instead of stars showing up in search results, the date when the respective page was published is showing up in search results. This is happening with all the websites I added plugin in.

Am I doing something wrong or what is happening. Please help as i want those stars to show up on the websites. Please help me with any plugin or useful info that can help me with this.

Thanks!

[BrianBotts.]

Hi Peter Nikolow,

Did you find something from the URL provided by me?

Thanks!

[BrianBotts.]

Hello again,

Okay, here comes the URL: yourlawoffice(dot)com

[Mobilio]

Brian,

i explain both ways as you may loose ratings in SERP. If you're sure that 1st isn't the case we're talking about then good for you.

The problem is N:2 data was shown in SERP using different methods. Example: http://www.mobiliodevelopment.com/pdf417-barcode-standard/ go in SDTT and look this url for rich snippets. There are 0 structured data except head metas. Now go back in SERP and look for "pdf417 standard" this article is maximum on 2-3 page if isn't on first. You can easy see "Mar 2, 2012 - PDF417 is a 2D barcode standard."

This is proof that you can have data w/o rich snippets. Now back on your problem. If you remember i talk about someone who lost his star reviews for year and they're back. I suggest this guy to go and ask here:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/webmasters
Guess? Nothing happens. And this was 11-10 months ago.

That's why you need to check and recheck your implementation just to see that everything is correct on your side. This mean technical implementation and logical implementation. Then you may looking for support in link above and prepare for waiting with patience.

PS: I can take a look too but need url to inspect this site.

[BrianBotts.]

Hi Peter,

I appreciate your response.

Firstly, you said incidentally click something somewhere - If it would be the case, then it should be the case with few websites not with all of them so I am pretty sure, I didn't do something wrong with the plugin or wp coding.

Second thing you said and I am already aware that rich snippets are not guaranteed even if you used the schema correctly. The tricky part I noticed is that google is showing the date when the homepage was published in search results instead where it shows stars for other websites. It made me think that schema is working fine from google point of view but it is focused towards showing date instead of stars. And this is working for homepage so I am not worried if homepage could be the issue.

Any other idea?

Thanks!

[Mobilio]

There are two ways so i can explain them both:

• you incidentally click something somewhere OR WordPress plugin/theme or core during some update now working different. That's why you always should have weekly backups and investigate changes between backups. This is first step that you should test with structured data testing tool.
• Google give you rich snippets for use temporary and they're not guaranteed. Even if your code is OK you can see them, then not: https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq-rich-snippets  http://www.searchenginejournal.com/rich-snippets-the-phenomenon/75095/ http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/the-rich-snippets-algorithm https://www.seroundtable.com/google-rich-snippet-penalty-20521.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-spammy-structured-markup-penalty-20509.html Also not that they can comeback w/o change anything - friend of mine have stars, then they removed from SERP for one year, and now they're back. Nothing in code was touched nor changed. Other friend of mine lost their stars from 2013 and they're still missing, but remain in code. You also need to check about issue called "rich snippet spam" too.

As you can see providing rich snippet in code isn't enough for showing them. In first link above there is line as "Google does not guarantee that Rich Snippets will show up for search results from a particular site even if structured data is marked up and can be extracted successfully according to the testing tool.". That's why you need to check and recheck is there issue on your website. And if there isn't problem then you just need to wait to appear.

BTW - review on homepage sound scary! Review is nested in schema.org and you should have something to bring reviews - book or movie for example. This was explained here: https://www.seroundtable.com/google-rich-snippets-homepage-19205.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-reviews-ratings-rich-snippets-19983.html https://www.seroundtable.com/google-rich-snippets-not-home-20645.html This mean that even if SDTT shows "Okay" this mean OK from technical point of implementation, but on logical there can be some issue.

[BrianBotts.]

To add something useful info in this thread: I checked the website in https://developers.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/ and it shows Okay.

Thanks!