Google compliance

  • Resolved garp200555

    (@garp200555)


    8 months, 3 weeks ago

    Hi TrustIndex team,

    I’m a customer using your widgets to display reviews from Google/Facebook. I see TrustIndex can also inject Rich Snippets/JSON-LD. I’d like clarity on how this aligns with Google’s current rules for review rich results.

    Google’s rules say that self-serving reviews aren’t allowed for LocalBusiness/Organization—including reviews placed on the business’s own site “either directly in their markup or via an embedded third-party widget.” Pages of those types are ineligible for star snippets. Google for Developers

    Given this, could you please clarify and advise:

    When a widget sources reviews from Google/Facebook/etc., does your JSON-LD ever attach those ratings to Organization/LocalBusiness? If yes, how is that intended to comply with Google’s policy above?

    Thanks



    • This topic was modified 8 months, 3 weeks ago by garp200555.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Support Laca

    (@lacadev)

    8 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hi @garp200555

    Let me clarify a few things about Google’s review guidelines:

    1. Trustindex is considered a third party provider – this means we can technically provide structured data (schema markup) about your business reviews.
    2. The rule about “self-serving reviews aren’t allowed” means that you cannot manually create or write reviews yourself and then place them into schema markup as if they were independent user reviews.
    3. Even if everything is implemented correctly, it’s always Google’s decision whether to show the review stars (rich snippets) in search results or not.

    So, using Trustindex you are not violating the guidelines, but you should be aware that the final display is up to Google.

    Kind regards,
    Laca from Trustindex

    Thread Starter garp200555

    (@garp200555)

    8 months, 2 weeks ago

    Hi Laca,
    Thanks for the reply. I’m looking at Google’s docs and they seem to contradict parts of your explanation. Google defines self-serving as “a review about entity A placed on the website of entity A — either directly in their markup or via an embedded third-party widget,” and says it won’t display review snippets for LocalBusiness/Organization in those cases. It also says “Don’t aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites.” Could you clarify how TrustIndex’s JSON-LD for third-party reviews on a business’s own pages aligns with these rules? Thanks

    Thread Starter garp200555

    (@garp200555)

    8 months ago

    Hi TrustIndex team

    Any updates on my previous message ?

    thanks

    Plugin Support Laca

    (@lacadev)

    7 months, 3 weeks ago

    Hi @garp200555

    Sorry for the late reply!

    According to Google’s guidelines on rich snippets for reviews, displaying aggregated or listed reviews on a website does not trigger star ratings in search results when the schema type is set to Organization or LocalBusiness. However, all other structured data and the presence of rich snippets still positively contribute to SEO.

    There is a less clear area when the schema type is set to Product and the Organization is included as the Manufacturer. In such cases, the review details may appear in search results. We’ve made this option available under the Company Settings page upon client request. It is, however, the user’s responsibility to ensure that their business legitimately qualifies as a Product category.

    While this approach is increasingly being used across the industry, we have not seen or found any reports of Google penalizing such usage.

    Kind regards,
    Laca from Trustindex

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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