Review Schema Markup Guide

What review schema markup does

Review schema describes visible review or rating information in machine-readable form. Google may show an eligible review snippet, but valid markup does not guarantee that presentation or a particular click-through improvement.

Review rich results appear as gold stars beneath the page title in search results, alongside the number of reviews and the aggregate rating score.

Critical rules: visible content, collection and eligibility

Google's content policy: Review schema markup must represent reviews that exist on the page being marked up. You cannot use schema markup to claim a TripAdvisor, Google, Trustpilot, or Yelp rating in your website's schema. Doing so violates Google's content guidelines and can result in rich results being removed from your pages or manual action applied to your site.

Review types with specific eligibility requirements

Product: For product pages with user reviews on your site (ecommerce)
Recipe: For recipe content with user or editorial reviews
LocalBusiness: subject to additional restrictions; a business’s own self-serving review page is ineligible for organic review stars.
Movie: For film review pages
Book: For book review pages
Course: For educational course pages with reviews
Software / App: For software application pages with user reviews

JSON-LD example: business identity, not review-star eligibility

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Restaurant",
  "name": "The Oak Kitchen",
  "url": "https://example.com/"
}

Key requirements

The aggregateRating must reflect reviews actually published on the page
The reviewCount must match the number of visible reviews on the page
Individual reviews in the review array must be visible to users on the page — hidden reviews in schema only are a policy violation
Author information must be real — do not use generic labels like "Customer" or "Anonymous"
Dates must be accurate

How to test your schema implementation

Google's Rich Results Test is the authoritative tool for validating schema markup. Paste a URL or paste the schema code directly to see:

Whether the schema is valid
Which rich results it qualifies for
Specific errors or warnings

The Rich Results Test is available at search.google.com/test/rich-results.

Frequently asked questions

Can I add my Google Business or TripAdvisor rating to my schema?

Do not copy a third-party platform’s aggregate rating into review markup to seek organic stars for your own business. Google’s rules exclude aggregated ratings from other websites and self-serving LocalBusiness or Organization reviews. A permitted visual display is a separate question from rich-result eligibility.

Does review schema improve my Google ranking?

Eligible rich results can change how a search result is presented. Structured data is not a guarantee of display or a predictable ranking improvement; validate eligibility against the relevant Google policy.

How do I get on-site reviews to mark up?

Collect genuine feedback through a fair process and make any intended publication clear. On-site collection alone does not make a business’s own LocalBusiness or Organization reviews eligible for organic review stars. Check the supported type and all applicable Google policies before implementation.

Understand what your reviews are saying

Schema markup helps your reviews appear in Google. ReviewsBlender helps you understand what those reviews are telling you about your business — and what to do about it.

Order intelligence report — $99 Monitor from $59/mo

Check review-star eligibility before implementation

Google’s review-snippet policy makes self-serving LocalBusiness and Organization reviews ineligible for the organic review-star feature. This includes a business placing reviews about itself on its own site through a third-party widget. Having genuine testimonials on the page does not remove that restriction.

Eligible product or other supported review content has its own requirements. The structured data must describe visible, accurate content and meet the relevant policy. Do not change the declared item type simply to evade an eligibility rule.

A review display can still help visitors understand customer experiences. Check permission, attribution, privacy and current source terms. ReviewsBlender’s report service should not be described as including an embeddable widget without confirmation.

Sources and further reading

Reviewed by ReviewsBlender on 1 November 2026. External policies and product terms can change; consult the linked official source for the current requirements.