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Google has announced an update to its ranking algorithm specifically for product reviews to highlight more in-depth, informative reviews within its SERP.
To be clear, this is not a core algorithm update that affects all search results. It targets product reviews only.
Google announced on its Search Central Blog that it strives to help users appreciate product reviews that share in-depth research rather than thin content that simply summarizes products.
The search engine giant unveiled the new update by saying: “that’s why we’re sharing an improvement to our ranking systems, which we call the product reviews update, that’s designed to better reward such content.
This update is going out today and only involves English language reviews for now. We believe this will further help those producing rich content in the product reviews area.
Although this is separate from our regular core updates, the advice that we provide about producing quality content for those is also relevant here. The overall focus is on providing users with content that provides insightful analysis and original research, and is written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well”.
The focus of the update is to provide increased SERP placement to product reviews that include insightful analysis and original research, which has been written by experts or enthusiasts who know the topic well.
That could change the way brands look to prompt reviews from users and publications to improve ranking based on this new, more in-depth review ranking approach.
To help with this, Google has also provided specific advice on what, exactly, it’s looking to the better surface with this update, saying that it will put increased focus on review content which:
As noted, that could put an increased onus on brands to seek out more professional reviews from publications instead of relying on user-submitted comments on Amazon or similar platforms.
In fact, that could be what Google’s looking to filter out – over the past year, there have been several examples of people using reviews as a means to punish businesses that they disagree with or in other illegitimate forms.
TikTok, for example, got massively downranked in India last year due to a political rift between the South East Asian country and China. Google eventually had to remove millions of disingenuous reviews as a result.
This type of misuse may be part of Google’s motivation here, while eCommerce’s increased take-up has also put more onus on Google to uncover more in-depth product review results to meet user requirements.
Either way, it’s another consideration for your SEO process.
Google’s product reviews update is live today and only involves English language reviews at this stage.
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