Aggregate rating
Also called: aggregaterating, rating schema, AggregateRating schema
Aggregate rating is the average star score calculated from all of an item's individual ratings or reviews. In structured data it is the schema.org AggregateRating type, and marking it up correctly can produce star rich results in Google Search.
Aggregate rating is what most people mean by “the star rating.” It rolls up every individual review into one averaged number, then exposes that number to search engines through structured data.
How Google reads it
In schema.org, AggregateRating sits at Thing > Intangible > Rating > AggregateRating and nests inside a parent type through the aggregateRating property (Product, LocalBusiness, Organization, Recipe, and others). Google requires ratingValue plus at least one of ratingCount or reviewCount. bestRating and worstRating are recommended and default to 5 and 1. The rating you mark up must be visible to users on the same page, not buried only in the code.
A minimal block:
"aggregateRating": {
"@type": "AggregateRating",
"ratingValue": "4.8",
"reviewCount": "214"
}The catch for local businesses is Google’s self-serving review policy. If the entity being reviewed controls the reviews about itself, its LocalBusiness or Organization markup is ineligible for the star feature, whether the reviews are embedded directly or pulled through a third-party widget. A plumber dropping first-party testimonials into LocalBusiness schema will not earn stars. The supported paths are to mark up an eligible type from Google’s list (most commonly Product), or to build reviews on external platforms (Google Business Profile, Yelp) that Google can surface on its own.
How it affects your traffic
Star ratings in the SERP lift click-through on commercial and local queries, so aggregate rating is a genuine CTR lever, not decoration. But the self-serving rule means most local businesses cannot win stars from markup on their own site, which is exactly where a Local SEO engagement pays off. We route review generation to Google Business Profile (where stars already show in the map pack and local finder), apply rating markup only on eligible pages such as products, and keep your LocalBusiness schema clean so nothing gets flagged as manipulative.
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