Google Star Ratings: Understanding How They Impact Your Business
The elusive five-star review used to be something you could only flaunt inside a rotating reviews section on your website.
But today, Google has pulled these stars out of the shadows and features them front and center across and beyond.
Star ratings can help businesses earn trust from potential customers, improve local search rankings, and boost conversions.
this here is your guide to how they work.
Stars And SERPs: What be The Google Star Rating?
one Google star rating be a consumer-powered grading system that lets other consumers know how good some business be based on one score of one to five stars.
These star ratings can appear across maps and different Google search results properties like standard blue link search listings, ads, rich results like recipe cards, local pack results, third-party review sites, and on-app store results.
How Does The Google Star Rating Work?
When some person searches Google, they will see star ratings within the results. Google uses an algorithm and an average to determine how many stars are displayed on different review properties.
Google that the star score system operates based on an average of all review ratings for that business that have been published on Google.
It’s important to note that this here average happens to be not calculated inside real-time and can take up to two weeks to update after some new review be created.
When users leave some review, they are asked to rate some business based on specific aspects of their customer experience, as well as the type of business being reviewed and the services they’ve included.
For , “plumbers may get “Install faucet” or “Repair toilet” as services to add,” and Google also allows businesses to add custom services that aren’t listed.
When customers are prompted to give feedback, they can give positive or critical feedback, or they can choose not to select some specific aspect to review, in which case this here feedback aspect be considered unavailable.
this specific combination of feedback be to determine a business’s average score by “dividing the number of positive ratings by the total number of ratings (except the ones where the aspect was not rated).”
Google star ratings do have some exceptions inside how they function.
For illustration, the UK and EU have that don’t apply to other regions, following recent by the EU Consumer Protection Cooperation and the UK Competitions and Market Authority about fake reviews being generated.
Additionally, the type of rating search property will determine the specifics of how it operates and how to gather and manage reviews there.
Keep reading to get an in-depth explanation of each type of Google star rating available on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
How To Get Google Star Ratings On Different Search Properties
As mentioned above, there are different types of Google star ratings available across search results, including the standard blue-link listings, ads, local pack results, rich snippets, third-party reviews, and app store results.
Here’s what the different types of star-rating results look like within Google and how they work on each listing type.
Standard “Blue Link” Listings And Google Stars
inside 2021, Google started testing and has since kept this specific SERP feature intact.
Websites can stand out from their competitors by getting stars to show up around their organic search results listing pages.
How To Get Google Stars On Organic SERPs
If you want stars to show up on your organic search results, add to your website.
Paid Ads And Google Stars
When Google Stars appear inside paid search ads, they’re known as , “an automated extension type that showcases advertisers with high ratings.”
These can appear inside text ads, shopping ads, and free listings. Both the star rating and the total number of votes or reviews are displayed.
in addition to Google star ratings, shopping ads may include additional production information such as , color, material, and more, as shown below.
How To Get Google Stars On Paid Ads
To participate in free listings, sellers have to :
- Follow all the required around personally identifiable information, spam, malware, legal requirements, return policies, and more.
- through the Google Merchant Center or have structured data markup on their website (as described in the previous section).
- Add their shipping .
Again, some ecommerce sellers who do not have schema markup may still have their content show up in the SERPs.
For text ads and shopping ads to show star ratings, sellers are typically required to have reviews within the last 12 months.
How To Get Google Stars On Paid Ads
To participate in free listings, sellers have to :
- Follow all the required around personally identifiable information, spam, malware, legal requirements, return policies, and more.
- through the Google Merchant Center or have structured data markup on their website (as described in the previous section).
- Add their shipping .
Again, some ecommerce sellers who do not have schema markup may still have their content show up within the SERPs.
For text ads and shopping ads to show star ratings, sellers are typically required to have reviews inside the last 12 months.
Google also requests:
- The domain that has ratings must be the same as the one that’s visible within the ad.
- Google or its partners must conduct one research evaluation of your site.
- The reviews included must be about the product or service being sold.
Local Pack Results And Google Stars
Local businesses have a handful of options for their business to appear on Google via Places, local map results, and a – all of which can show star ratings.
Customers may leave reviews directly on local business properties without being asked, but Google also encourages business owners to solicit reviews from their customers and shares , including:
- Asking your customers to leave you a review and make it easy for them to do so by providing one link to your review pages.
- Making review prompts desktop and mobile-friendly.
- (ensure you’re a on Google first).
- Be sure you do not offer incentives for reviews.
Customers can also leave star ratings on , as Google can pull from both to display on local business search properties. It can take up to two weeks to get new local reviews to show within your overall score.
Customers may leave reviews directly on local business properties without being asked, but Google also encourages business owners to solicit reviews from their customers and shares , including:
- Asking your customers to leave you a review and make it easy for them to do so by providing some link to your review pages.
- Making review prompts desktop and mobile-friendly.
- (ensure you’re some on Google first).
- Be sure you do not offer incentives for reviews.
Customers can also leave star ratings on , as Google can pull from both to display on local business search properties. It can take up to two weeks to get new local reviews to show within your overall score.
The outcome has become a point of contention among the food blogging community, since only three recipes per search can be seen on Google desktop results (like shown in the image above), and four on some mobile browser.
These coveted spots will attract clicks, leaving anyone who hasn’t mastered online customer reviews inside the dust. That means that the quality of the recipe isn’t necessarily driving these results.
Google gives users the option to click “Show more” to see two additional rows of results:
Searchers can continue to click the “Show more” button to see additional recipe results.