Review Rich Results Schema: Complete Guide
Review rich results — the star ratings that appear beneath your search listing — are one of the most click-through-boosting schema types available. Studies show that star ratings in search results can increase CTR by 15–35% compared to listings without them. But Google has strict eligibility rules about which types of pages can show review rich results, and violations can lead to manual penalties. This guide covers everything from required markup to eligibility rules and common mistakes to avoid.
What Are Review Rich Results?
Review rich results display star ratings (typically 1–5) and a review count below your page title and description in Google search results. They appear for two types of content: an individual review (a single person's review of a product, book, service, etc.) shown using the Review schema type, and an aggregate rating (the average of many reviews) shown using AggregateRating. The aggregate rating is more common and more impactful because it shows a star score and total review count, giving users immediate social proof before they click.
Required Schema Markup (JSON-LD)
Review schema is typically nested inside another schema type (Product, Book, Recipe, LocalBusiness, etc.) rather than used standalone. Here is an example of a Product with both a Review and AggregateRating:
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Product",
"name": "SitemapFixer Pro",
"aggregateRating": {
"@type": "AggregateRating",
"ratingValue": "4.8",
"bestRating": "5",
"worstRating": "1",
"ratingCount": "412"
},
"review": {
"@type": "Review",
"reviewRating": {
"@type": "Rating",
"ratingValue": "5",
"bestRating": "5"
},
"name": "Best sitemap tool I have used",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Alex Johnson"
},
"reviewBody": "Found 47 sitemap errors on my first scan. Fixed them all in under an hour. Organic traffic up 23% in 6 weeks.",
"datePublished": "2026-03-10"
}
}What Content Types Can Show Review Stars?
Google restricts which item types are eligible for review rich results. Currently eligible types include: Book, Course, Event, HowTo, LocalBusiness, Movie, Product, Recipe, and SoftwareApplication. Types that are explicitly not eligible for review stars include: businesses, organizations (as standalone entities), or persons. Critically, websites cannot use review stars to rate themselves — the author of the review must be a different entity from the subject being reviewed. This is the most commonly violated eligibility rule.
Google's Review Snippet Policies
Google's review snippet policies are strict and violations can result in manual actions. Key rules: reviews must be written by genuine customers or users of the reviewed item; you cannot include reviews written by the business itself or its employees; you cannot display review snippets for content types not in the eligible list; reviews must be visible on the page (not hidden or loaded only in JavaScript that Googlebot cannot render); and you must not aggregate ratings from third-party review platforms (like Yelp or Trustpilot) in your own schema without a legitimate integration agreement.
AggregateRating Required Properties
For AggregateRating, the required properties are ratingValue (a number) and either ratingCount or reviewCount. Include bestRating and worstRating to define your scale — Google assumes 1–5 if omitted, but specifying them explicitly ensures accurate display. If your site uses a 10-point scale, set bestRating: 10; Google will normalize the display. The ratingValue must be between worstRating and bestRating — ratings outside this range will fail validation. Never fabricate review counts; Google cross-checks these against third-party signals.
Individual Review Schema Properties
For individual Review schema, required properties are author (a Person or Organization who wrote the review, not the subject of the review), and reviewRating containing a Rating with ratingValue. Strongly recommended: datePublished, reviewBody (the review text), and name (review headline). The author must be identifiable as a real reviewer — a vague author like "Anonymous" or "Verified Buyer" without additional context may not qualify for the rich result treatment.
How to Test Review Schema
Test using the Rich Results Test (search.google.com/test/rich-results) — paste your page URL and look for "Review snippet" in the detected rich results. Check for errors in the review or aggregateRating properties. In Google Search Console, the Review Snippets report under Enhancements shows site-wide coverage and error breakdown. Monitor for manual actions in the Manual Actions report — review snippet violations are one of the more common schema-related manual actions Google issues. Run SitemapFixer after any site changes that touch product or review templates to catch schema regressions early.
Common Mistakes and Fixes
Top review schema mistakes: adding AggregateRating to a business homepage rating themselves (policy violation — fix: remove or use a compliant third-party integration); ratingValue of 0 or null (fix: only markup pages with at least one real review); using review stars on content types not in Google's eligible list like plain articles or blog posts (fix: remove and use Article schema only); missing ratingCount with only ratingValue (fix: always include count); and schema data not matching visible review content (fix: ensure schema reflects what users can read on the page, not more or fewer reviews).
Third-Party Review Integration
Many sites want to display Google, Yelp, Trustpilot, or Amazon reviews via schema. Google's policy is that you must not use third-party reviews in your schema markup unless you have a direct integration or licensing agreement with that platform. Simply scraping ratings from Trustpilot and putting them in your Product schema is a policy violation. Instead, collect first-party reviews directly on your site and markup only those. If you want to display third-party review scores, use a certified review platform widget that handles schema markup within their licensing terms — many major review platforms offer Google-approved widgets.