Google review snippet structured data
Google review snippet markup,
as documented
The Review and AggregateRating properties and guidelines Google documents for review snippets, in Google's own words. Verified from Google's page on 2026-10-07.
Google says that when it finds valid reviews or ratings markup, it may show a rich snippet with stars and other summary information. This page lists the properties, guidelines and limits Google documents for review snippets, with the wording taken from Google's page.
What Google documents
| Topic | What Google says | Source |
|---|---|---|
| What a review snippet is | “A review snippet is a short excerpt of a review or a rating from a review website, usually an average of the combined rating scores from many reviewers.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| What Google may show | “When Google finds valid reviews or ratings markup, we may show a rich snippet that includes stars and other summary info from reviews or ratings.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Where it may appear | “Review snippets may appear in rich results or Google Knowledge Panels.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Appearance varies | “Note: The actual appearance in search results might be different.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Local businesses | “Local business (only for sites that capture reviews about other local businesses; see the guidelines about self-serving reviews)” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Organizations | “Organization (only for sites that capture reviews about other organizations; see the guidelines about self-serving reviews)” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Reviews about employers | “Does your site provide reviews about other employers? Use EmployerAggregateRating structured data.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Testing | “Validate your code using the Rich Results Test and fix any critical errors.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Individual and aggregate | “You can omit the rating for an individual review if your marked-up content contains both an author and a review date. For aggregate reviews, you must supply the average rating for the rich snippet to display.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Manual action | “If your site violates one or more of these guidelines, then Google may take manual action against it.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Use AggregateRating | “Make sure to mark up an aggregate evaluation of an item by many people with schema.org/AggregateRating.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Visible on the page | “Make sure the review content you mark up are readily available to users from the marked-up page.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Obvious to users | “It must be immediately obvious to users that the page has review content.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Visible aggregate rating | “If you use AggregateRating, users should be able to see that aggregate rating on the page.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Review comment and author | “We recommend only accepting ratings that are accompanied by a review comment and author's name.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| A specific item | “Provide review information about a specific item, not about a category or a list of items.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Multiple reviews | “If you include multiple individual reviews, also include an aggregate rating of the individual reviews.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Other websites | “Don't aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Fake and incentivized reviews | “Don't include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews on your page or in your structured data markup.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Self-serving reviews | “If the entity that's being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, their pages that use LocalBusiness or any other type of Organization structured data are ineligible for star review feature.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Ratings from users | “Ratings must be sourced directly from users.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| No editor-compiled ratings | “Don't rely on human editors to create, curate, or compile ratings information for local businesses.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Review: author | “The author of the review.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Review: author length | “If it's longer than 100 characters, your page won't be eligible for an author-based review snippet.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Review: itemReviewed | “The item that is being reviewed. However, if the review is nested into another schema.org type using the review property, omit the itemReviewed property (we assume the parent item is the reviewed item).” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Review: rating scale | “The default scale for numbers is a 5-point scale, where 1 is the lowest value and 5 is the highest value. If another scale is intended, use bestRating and worstRating.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Decimal numbers | “For decimal numbers, use a dot instead of a comma to specify the value (for example 4.4 instead of 4,4).” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| Review: datePublished | “The date that the review was published, in ISO 8601 date format.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| AggregateRating: counts | “At least one of ratingCount or reviewCount is required.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| AggregateRating: reviewCount | “Specifies the number of people who provided a review with or without an accompanying rating.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
| AggregateRating: itemReviewed | “The item that is being rated. However, if the aggregate rating is nested into another schema.org type using the aggregateRating property, omit the itemReviewed property.” | Google docs Verified 2026-10-07 |
Rules to remember
- Google says reviews you mark up must be readily available to users on the marked-up page.
- Google says not to include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews, and not to aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites.
- Google says pages of an entity that controls reviews about itself are ineligible for the star review feature.
Questions
What does Google say a review snippet is?
A short excerpt of a review or a rating from a review website, usually an average of the combined rating scores from many reviewers. Google says it may show a rich snippet that includes stars and other summary information when it finds valid markup.
Can I mark up reviews that users cannot see on the page?
No. Google says the review content you mark up must be readily available to users from the marked-up page, and that it must be immediately obvious to users that the page has review content.
Can a business mark up reviews about itself?
Google says that if the entity being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, its pages that use LocalBusiness or any other type of Organization structured data are ineligible for the star review feature.
Can I use reviews collected on other websites?
Google says not to aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites.
What does Google say about incentivized reviews?
Google says not to include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews on your page or in your structured data markup.
What scale does Google assume for ratings?
For numbers, Google says the default is a 5-point scale where 1 is the lowest value and 5 the highest. If another scale is intended, use bestRating and worstRating.
How current is this page?
Every row was read from Google's review snippet page on 2026-10-07, which showed a last-updated date of 2026-09-08 UTC. Google can change its documentation, so treat the linked page as the final word.
Sources
- Review snippet (Review, AggregateRating) structured data (Google Search Central), read on 2026-10-07
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