Google made many changes to its algorithms in September, and Google’s September 2022 product reviews update is now completely rolled out. At the same time, the September 2022 broad core update is also completed.
The back-to-back algorithm updates are a signal to improve your content quality with valuable information.
Google’s Official Announcement
On Sep 20, Google announced the fifth product reviews algorithm update on Twitter. According to Google’s search ranking update page, “The rollout was complete as of September 26, 2022.”
According to the ranking updates page, the product reviews update will affect the English language product reviews website and e-commerce site.
Today we released the September 2022 product reviews update for English-language product reviews. We'll update our ranking release history page when the rollout is complete: https://t.co/sQ5COfdNcb
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) September 20, 2022
Google also gives insight into the effects of broad core updates and product review updates on your site.
If you see a change and wonder if it's related to the core update or the product reviews update:
– If you produce product reviews, then it's probably related to that.
– If not, then it might be related to the core update.— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) September 20, 2022
What Is the Product Reviews Update?
Product reviews update rewards high-quality and helpful review content that provides real value to their readers and demotes low-quality content.
Google has provided a helpful document for writing high-quality product reviews. If you’re stuck with creating high-quality review content, Google shares some useful questions to consider while creating product reviews, as shown below.
What Are People Saying?
Google overlaps its fifth product reviews update.
Here are some tweets from people in the SEO and reviewer community tweeting about the overlapping of updates:
This was actually the August product reviews update delayed to September.
I would have thought they'd wait for the Sept Core update to roll out considering @dannysullivan said to @Marie_Haynes that they try their best to not run overlapping updates – And that was a week ago. https://t.co/d5kJUNu0JL
— Charles Floate 📈 (@Charles_SEO) September 20, 2022
Google's fifth product reviews update has been unleashed prior to the September core update completing https://t.co/FYEr8B8Slg pic.twitter.com/RVAJdyVKfI
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) September 20, 2022
Remember when Google said they try not to overlap updates?
Just kidding! 😂 Here's another!
September core is still rolling out. New product reviews update launches today. https://t.co/IJQ6zvfkK4
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) September 20, 2022
Big heads-up: I take back what I said the other day… Google IS rolling out several major updates AT THE SAME TIME. The September 2022 Product Reviews Update is now rolling out DURING the September 2022 broad core update. Good luck everyone. 🙂 https://t.co/AGs4Hm3JNz
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) September 20, 2022
What’s Next – Dealing With This Update
This update is beneficial for your helpful product review content that values user perspective. Keep an eye on your product review content to be more accurate and relevant to readers.
Take advantage of this product review update using Rank Math’s Pros and Cons feature of the Product Schema for editorial reviews. Our feature allows you to easily include positives and negatives of the product, which helps Google to understand your content better and features them in rich results. This leads your helpful content to gain more visibility in search results.
