Schema for Reviews

[JesterMagic]

A few questions....

1) Anyone use the review schema without having a rating for it? It doesn't say a rating is required and the Google Page Snippet testing tool doesn't have a problem with it.

[developers.google.com...]

2) Also has anyone used CriticReview schema for anything beyond Local businesses and Movie and Books? It doesn't mention using it for anything else but one of our websites writes reviews for products. I am not looking for a Critic Review snippet (those are for Local businesses and Movie and Books) but I do want to differentiate a review by a critic and one by a user. (as we have both)

3) Also both the CriticReview and UserReview schema are considered pending. The Google Page Snippet testing tool recognizes it fine, does google bot?

[martinibuster]

Just because Google's schema tool validates something doesn't mean you won't get penalized if it's not following Google's guidelines.

Using the critic review for a product review is not how Google intended the use. So it's possible that it could trigger a manual action.

Just use the Author property in the review schema, as outlined on Schema.org's web page for reviews.
https://schema.org/Review [schema.org]

There are review examples on the page that you can edit yourself to fit your situation.

The Author property can describe a specific reviewer or it could be your organization/website. So if you don't publish an author's name you can still use your organization as the author. It works.
https://schema.org/author [schema.org]

Good luck!
;)

Roger Montti

[JesterMagic]

@martinibuster Thanks for the reply. That is a good idea re the author property. I do have the organization property already added.

According to Schema

[pending.schema.org...]

A critic review is meant more for than what Google has laid out in their guidelines. From what I read Google doesn't say you cannot use it for other products or services just that if you want a critic review snippet you must meet their guidelines. While a snippet would be nice, my main goal is for Search engines to understand the type of review it is.

The fact that CriticReview and UserReview is pending is another issue so the safest course of action is to stick with the regular schema Review type.

[martinibuster]

Google's guidelines for criticReview are here:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/review#critic-review-guidelines [developers.google.com]

Here is what it says it's applicable for if you want it displayed in rich results:

You can supply critic reviews for the following content types:
Local businesses
Movies
Books

The fact that something is pending is ok. The Speakable structured data is pending (last I checked) but Google's using it in a limited manner right now.

Kind of Wild Westy, eh?

;)

Roger