review snippet
Also called: review stars, star rating snippet, review rich snippet
A review snippet is the star rating, numeric score, and review count Google can show beneath a search result. It is generated from Review or AggregateRating structured data on the page and appears only for eligible content like products, recipes, books, and software apps.
Google builds the snippet by reading Review or AggregateRating markup (JSON-LD is the format Google recommends). If the page qualifies, the result can render stars, the average score, and a rating or review count. An AggregateRating needs an item to review (or a parent name), a ratingValue, and at least one of ratingCount or reviewCount. A single Review needs an author and a reviewRating.
"aggregateRating": {
"@type": "AggregateRating",
"ratingValue": "4.6",
"reviewCount": "218"
}Rules that decide whether stars show
- Eligibility is narrow. Snippets are limited to types like products, recipes, books, courses, events, movies, and software apps, plus a few media types.
- Self-serving reviews are out. Since 2019 Google stopped showing star snippets for
LocalBusinessandOrganizationwhen the reviews sit on the reviewed entity’s own site. - Ratings must come from real users on the marked-up page. Inventing them or aggregating other sites’ reviews risks a manual action.
- One clear target per rating. On 13 November 2025 Google reminded sites to give each review or rating a single obvious target. Auto-generated markup that pins the same score to both a product and the business is a common reason stars disappear.
Validate in Google’s Rich Results Test, which shows exactly what Google reads and whether the page is eligible.
How it affects your traffic
Stars in the SERP pull the eye, so a review snippet can lift click-through rate at the same ranking position, one of the few on-page wins that grows traffic without new backlinks. Eligibility is narrow, though: the wrong schema type, a self-serving LocalBusiness setup, or one rating mapped to two entities makes the stars silently disappear. Matching the right schema to each page type, validating in the Rich Results Test, and staying clear of manual actions is exactly the work an SEO Consulting engagement covers.
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