How and where to implement the AggregateRating schema?
-
I've been trying to wrap my head around marking up various bits of information for a local business website, and I want to make sure I understand a few things.
-
If I understand Google's schema guidelines, marked up reviews should only appear on the page of a specific product, not every page, and _definitely _not the homepage, correct? Does this also mean that the LocalBusiness schema that is on every page should **not **use the AggregateRating parameter? And if the AR is only to be put on certain pages, what page should it go on if the business in question provides a service rather than selling specific products? In other words, situations where the local business _itself _is the "product" being reviewed/rated.
-
Individual reviews cannot be taken from 3rd party sites (GMB, Facebook, Yelp, etc) and posted on your website with capital R Review schema (http://schema.org/Review). That markup is only to be used for reviews that have been generated on/for your site specifically. Does this also mean that the numbers used to calculate an AggregateRating have to be unique as well? In other words, if there are 10 reviews of your business on Facebook that average at 4.5/5, you can't take those individual reviews and post them on your site as marked up Reviews. But can you use that "4.5/5 based on 10 reviews" information in the AggregateRating schema?
-
Can AggregateRating scores include ratings from different sources? In other words, if there were 10 ratings on Facebook and 20 on Yelp, could the AggregateRating be marked on the website as "__/5 based on 30 ratings"?
If I can simply take the numerical average and pop that into the LocalBusiness JSON markup that goes on every page automatically, alongside the other basic business info like name, phone number, and address, this will make things much easier.
Thanks!
-
-
That helps some, but there are a few things I'm a little unclear about. Thanks though!
-
In looking up some stuff to answer that question, I found these requirements: 1. Ratings must be sourced directly from users.
2. Don't rely on human editors to create, curate or compile ratings information for local businesses. These types of reviews are critic reviews.
3. Sites must collect ratings information directly from users and not from other sites.Here are the guidelines: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/review#review-snippetsDoes this help?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
AggregateRating JSON-LD help needed
Hey all, Working with gydeandseek.com and trying to get 5-star reviews to show up at a SERP Feature on some of their pages. Everything validates using the Structured Data Testing Tool, yet we are not seeing anything in search. We have had this SERP Feature show up in the past. Here is a sample page - https://gydeandseek.com/budapest/gabriella Hoping the greater consciousness (aka you) can help us figure out what we are doing wrong here. Or if it is just Google deciding not to display the aggregateRatings in search. Other clients who use this markup have it show up pretty quickly, trying to figure out why it isn't here and generally stumped. Thanks, Tim
Reviews and Ratings | | TimAkers0 -
Marking up an iframe with reviews schema. Possible? Ethical?
Hey there fellow Mozzers! I work with a broad variety of clients, many of them local businesses, and they in turn sometimes find a vendor that stumps me. This is one of those special cases, where the vendor is doing some shady stuff with reviews schema. First, they're taking reviews from third party sites and filtering them to only show 4 and 5 star reviews (red flag #1), then they're asking us to post them to the website (red flag #2) and finally they are marking them up with schema (red flag #3). If this were my vendor I would have fired them when they started telling me Google doesn't care, doesn't enforce the guidelines, and all that other nonsense, but hey, I'm not the client and I have to make good for them. I did flat out refuse to place these reviews as they asked, but they came back with a "solution", that I'm not sure I trust. They're telling me they can't remove the schema (red flag #4), but they can iframe it onto the website. Their logic, which is wrong, is that Google can't/doesn't crawl iframes so therefore the reviews can be displayed without any negative consequence. I obviously have some ethical concerns with this, but I have to provide the service to my client whether or not they share my values. However, I can object on professional grounds if I think they will take on undue risk. My only problem here is that I have no documentation for how this proposed solution would work. Working through this logically still leaves me with a gap, and that's where you folks come in!
Reviews and Ratings | | brettmandoes
A) We know that Google crawls iframes
B) We know that Google can apply schema within iframes (works with YouTube embeds)
C) We know that content within an iframe is technically on another website, so it doesn't normally apply to your website
D) I don't know how specifically reviews schema would interact with an iframe
E) I don't know if this would result in Google triggering an alarm and blocking the business I'm hoping you guys can help me figure this out. Ethics aside (making me cringe to type that) is this technically feasible without risk, or would this still be a risky move? For the record, another client tried filtering their reviews while marking up with schema against my recommendation and got caught, and received a penalty alert. They were removed from results until the problem was fixed.0 -
Schema markup for employees and local business on same page - Possible?
Hello, We have some local business sites where we have user submitted reviews. We then post those reviews on that business' page and use the schema aggregate markup. Works like a charm in getting stars in SERPs on branded searches for these location. We already have information about the persons who work at these locations and are about to work out a process where we can get even better data on these persons. Right now they are marked up as employees on the local business pages. Right now the ratings are for the business as a whole, but we are looking at expanding where you can not only submit a location review, but designate which employee you worked with. We work in the health care industry and so you can see why this would make sense. Right now we mark up a local clinic and employees in the following way Local Business > Employee > Person > Name of Person Person Bio > Person info etc We are going back and forth on if this would be worth marking up reviews at the employee level as well. So, on a page each employee would have an aggregate rating and then the location would have an aggregate rating that consists of all of the reviews for that location - a combination of all employees. As I looked through the schema standard for person https://schema.org/Person there is nothing there that shows a markup for the aggregate rating of a person. Also when I look at other more specific business types https://health-lifesci.schema.org/MedicalBusiness same thing. It looks like schema has rating tied to a business vs a person. Right now - the markup validates. It shows up in the SERPs. People are happy. So, I am inclined to say, if it aint broke ... but we are always looking for better ways to present our data to user and to Google. My gut right now, based on how Google is reading things, to just keep the aggregate rating on the location, but start to track reviews on a per employee basis for potential future use. Lemme know what you all think!
Reviews and Ratings | | HeaHea0 -
How can I filter reviews that use profanity while using schema markup?
Google released new guidelines last year governing how schema markup is to be deployed on a website. One of those guidelines states that reviews on your site must not be filtered or altered to receive the benefit of schema markup. After my client was slapped on the wrist by Google for ignoring their Webmaster guidelines (and our advice ahem) they removed all filtering from the websites. However, being a family friendly company it is a requirement that no profanity be displayed on the website. Google's guidelines are not entirely clear about what to do. They state: "Profanity and vulgar language are discouraged. Reviews should be appropriate for a broad and diverse audience. Consequently, reviews containing vulgar or profane language may be ineligible for use." and... "Critic reviews must allow for customers to express both positive and negative sentiments. They may not be vetted by the business or restricted by the content provider based on the positive/negative sentiment of the review before submission to Google." The issue is that we need to vet the reviews to remove profanity, yet that may be triggering for Google. Any thoughts?
Reviews and Ratings | | brettmandoes
Source: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/reviews1 -
Schema.org problems with reviews
Hey Mozzers, Has anyone had problems getting review data to appear in the SERP? Specifically, hotel package reviews. The site I work for sells packages and products, but I'm having off cases where the data is appearing if there is only 1 review present. As soon as it gets multiple reviews the snippet data is no longer showing up. The schema.org markup is testing fine in the structured data testing tool, and when I compare it against competitor sites where the data is appearing, I can't see the difference. I am by no means a veteran SEO, but this doesn't make any sense to me. Has anyone encountered a similar problem? I could really use some help here. One of the pages I am having difficulty with: www.tripcentral.ca/vacations-packages_mexico.html }
Reviews and Ratings | | tripcentral0 -
Is there a better way to wrap schema on a testimonial page? Example website shown
Hi, Hopefully someone can help my dilemma! I am trying to wrap review schema (schema.org/review). However, it's stumping me because of our WordPress theme "Flawless." If any are familiar with this particular theme you'll know that there is the normal visual/text portion of the page-editing portion of WordPress, but there is also a page-building section which is unique to Flawless. In this instance, a Testimonial "Content/Post Type Item" has been used. This was where the page was constructed and wherein the problem lies. If I wrap schema around it like I normally would, the page distorts on the front end and becomes a garbled mess. I've been trying to solve the problem and the closest I've gotten has been to copy the source-code of the Flawless themed Testimonial Content/Post Type Item into the "Text" portion of Wordpress to replicate the Flawless page-builder. I thought "yay! I can wrap schema around this for sure!" but I'm still encountering some problems. If I'm using the structured data markup helper from Google, and copying and pasting the HTML I'd like (with the corresponding schema "header") I get an error on the Structured Data Testing Tool saying "Incomplete schema data." I've tried looking for plugins that would help me, but all that I've seen adds duplicate content to the page. If there's a way to wrap review schema on this page—it would make my day! Thanks for the help!
Reviews and Ratings | | Shawn1240 -
EKomi widget and Schema.org
Hi Everyone, I bet everybody knows eKomi. For their customers they supply widgets (javascript) which you can add to your html and displays the widget to your visitors. Some webshop alter the widget a bit and add extra html to the bottom of the widget: Company Name receives a 7.4 out of 10 out of 1100 reviews This code is dynamic and pulls data from eKomi.com. I was wondering what you guys think of this, is this spam? Will Google see it as spam?
Reviews and Ratings | | Loui-60570
Searching for "Company name" in Google will result in a SERP with both the company and eKomi on #1 and #2 with the same snippets based on the reviews on eKomi.com Let me know 🙂0 -
Do schema review numbers have to be manually updated?
Hi! I've had success with review schema rendering in SERPs but have had to manually code the numbers and update those numbers as more reviews come in (which is a bit time-consuming). Is there a way to use auto-generated numbers that will still render schema or do those numbers have to be manually added? I've looked at the schema for sites like IMDB, and their schema numbers seem to be manually added, which seems like a huge lift. Advice/input is appreciated!
Reviews and Ratings | | 199580