Google announced rolling out a new product reviews update on July 27, 2022. This rollout will take 2-3 weeks to complete and will impact a wide range of websites.
This update builds on Google’s previous product reviews update, which was released in March 2022. The main aim of this update is to provide users with more accurate and relevant information when searching for products online.
Google’s Official Announcement
As announced on Twitter, Google released a new product review update. This update is designed to help improve the accuracy and quality of product reviews. You can find the guidelines for this update on Google Search Central.
Today we released the July 2022 product reviews update. We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://t.co/sQ5COfdNcb
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) July 27, 2022
What This Update Means For You
If you run an eCommerce store or a product review website, it’s important to take note of this update. As creating high-quality, accurate, and user-friendly reviews will be more important than ever before.
Here are some things you can do to make sure your reviews are up to Google’s new standards:
- Google is now saying that reviews should be “evaluated from a user’s perspective“. This means your reviews need to be written from the perspective of someone using the product.
- Your reviews should also “demonstrate that you are knowledgeable about the products reviewed“. In other words, you actually know what you’re talking about.
- Google also says that reviews should “provide evidence such as visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product“. This is a good opportunity to use video or images in your reviews and give readers a better sense of what you’re talking about.
- Another important aspect of this update is that reviews should “share quantitative measurements about how a product measures up in various categories of performance“. This encourages you to provide ratings for products — make sure you back it up with some actual data.
- Google also says that reviews should provide links to other sources of information about the product.
What Are People Saying?
Some people have also noted that this update could be a good opportunity for small businesses and bloggers to get more exposure. By writing high-quality and informative reviews, you could see your website or blog rank higher in Google search results.
Here are some tweets from people in the SEO community:
I rate these 5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Keep up the good work! 🤗 pic.twitter.com/W0k9eReaPS
— Code+SEO 🇹🇼 (@rainprofits) July 27, 2022
There wasn’t much chatter on Twitter about the update when released until July 29, when people started to notice the changes.
Beginning to see noticeable volatility as of this morning, probably due to Google’s PRU. Also seeing some review sites lose their rich snippet stars they previously earned back with the most recent core update or earlier. Seeing anything? cc: @glenngabe @rustybrick
— Vlad Rappoport (@vladrpt) July 29, 2022
Some people are saying that they have started to notice the impact of this update.
Here are some screenshots of visibility changes *just starting* to show for sites impacted. I'm sure the tools will show much more visibility swings starting tomorrow. Again, GSC and GA show much more of the impact. pic.twitter.com/BnbU1jBEOh
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 30, 2022
And here are some exs of surges based on the July PRU. The last screenshot is a super-interesting one that I'm digging into heavily. It's a massive drop, but I'm not sure that's correct… Wouldn't shock me to see a change there as the update continues to roll out (via a tremor). pic.twitter.com/4isWpVZQS3
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) July 31, 2022
What’s Next – Dealing With This Update
Overall, this update is a benefit for both consumers and businesses. By providing more accurate and relevant information, users will be able to make better-informed decisions when shopping online. And by following Google’s guidelines, businesses will be able to improve their chances of ranking higher in search results.
With that said, Rank Math can help you take advantage of this update. Our Product Schema Module allows you to easily add structured data to your product reviews. This can help Google better understand your review content, leading to higher search rankings.
