How to Add Review and AggregateRating Schema Markup
Review and AggregateRating schema tell search engines and AI systems what real customers think of you: one individual review, or the combined score across many. Together they are one of the strongest trust signals structured data can carry, and one of the easiest to misuse.
AggregateRating summarizes many reviews into one score, Review represents a single piece of feedback, and both attach to whatever they’re rating, usually a Product, LocalBusiness, or Organization. The rating must reflect reviews an independent third party actually submitted, fabricated ratings violate Google’s guidelines directly and are one of the fastest ways to get all your structured data ignored sitewide.
- Only add AggregateRating once you have a real base of collected reviews, and never publish a ratingValue you can’t point to actual reviews for.
- Google decides case by case whether to display the star rich result, and has become more restrictive over time about which page types qualify, even fully correct markup can stop showing.
- Attach the schema to whichever entity the reviews are actually about, product reviews on the product, location reviews on that LocalBusiness listing, brand reviews on Organization.
What Review and AggregateRating Schema Actually Do
AggregateRating summarizes many reviews into a single score: a rating value and a review count. Review represents one individual piece of feedback, with its own author and rating. Both attach to whatever they are reviewing, usually a Product, a LocalBusiness, or an Organization, rather than existing as a standalone schema type on their own.
The Code: A Working Example
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "Product",
"name": "Classic Sourdough Loaf",
"aggregateRating": {
"@type": "AggregateRating",
"ratingValue": "4.8",
"reviewCount": "132"
},
"review": {
"@type": "Review",
"author": {
"@type": "Person",
"name": "Morgan Lee"
},
"reviewRating": {
"@type": "Rating",
"ratingValue": "5"
},
"reviewBody": "Best sourdough in Portland, and it stays fresh for days if you store it right."
}
}Google’s Rules for Reviews (and Why They Are Strict)
Google has tightened enforcement on review markup more than almost any other schema type, because it is the one most frequently faked. The rating must reflect reviews an independent third party actually submitted; self serving ratings, or ratings pulled from a source that is not clearly disclosed, violate Google’s review snippet guidelines directly, which now state plainly not to include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews in page content or markup. Google has also restricted which page types are even eligible for the review rich result, so a rating that used to display can quietly stop showing even with fully correct markup.
Where to Add It on Your Site
Attach AggregateRating to whatever you are actually rating: a Product, a LocalBusiness location, or your Organization as a whole. Only add it once you have a real base of collected reviews, and update the ratingValue and reviewCount whenever new reviews come in rather than letting the number go stale.
How to Validate It
Run the page through Google’s Rich Results Test to confirm eligibility, since review rich results are one of the more restricted display types and eligibility depends on your page type as much as your markup. Check the raw JSON-LD in Schema.org’s Validator regardless, and never publish a ratingValue you cannot point to real, collected reviews for.
FAQ
Can I add a rating if I do not have real reviews yet?
No. Fabricated ratings violate Google’s guidelines and are one of the fastest ways to get all of your structured data ignored sitewide, not just the rating itself.
Does AggregateRating always show as stars in search results?
Not always. Google decides case by case whether to display the rich result, and has become more restrictive over time about which page types qualify.
Where should Review and AggregateRating schema live: Product, LocalBusiness, or Organization?
Attach it to whichever entity the reviews are actually about. Product reviews go on the product, location reviews go on the LocalBusiness listing for that location, and general brand reviews go on your Organization schema.
Related Reading
Go deeper on trust and offering schema:
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