Changes in Google Review Snippets: What’s Up?

Saw a drop in the data of your review snippets in Search Console? Is it a cause for concern? What should you do?
Marie Aquino
December 16, 2021

The Rich Snippet Enhancement report is available to those who have implemented reviews or ratings structure data in Search Console. The report shows errors, warnings, and validated pages for markup that is implemented on your site. Aside from that, it also provides a step-by-step process on how to fix errors that are encountered.

Google has reported that previously, top-level schema.org/Rating objects were counted as reviews in the Review Snippets rich results report but is no longer the case starting December 14. As a result, you may see a reduction in the number of Review objects in this part of Search Console. In case you see a drop in objects reported, no need to worry about it as it is just a change in reporting and is not an issue or error that may have occurred on your site.

Prior to December 14, Google counted top-level schema.org/rating objects in the reviews snippet results report. However, this seems to only be a reporting change and it did not say anything about changes outside of reporting, when it comes to the review snippets schema.

New to schema and not sure what it is? How do you implement it? Do you need schema? More importantly, is it a ranking factor? Check out our schema articles for more details. We also have tests on schema in the SIA and Clint also has a free advanced schema course in the member’s dashboard for SIA members that is a must watch and must implement.