On 8 April, Google announced an update specifically targeting product review content. After a testing, experimentation and review process, Google determined that a lot of review content doesn’t deliver information that truly helps people make purchase decisions.
Here’s what Google said in its announcement.
“From this, we know people appreciate product reviews that share in-depth research, rather than thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products. That’s why we’re sharing an improvement to our ranking systems, which we call the product reviews update, that’s designed to better reward such content.
This update is going out today and only involves English language reviews for now. We believe this will further help those producing rich content in the product reviews area.”
To bring review content up to its new expectations, Google provided a list of questions you should ask before publishing and updating any reviews on your website.
Do your reviews:
- Express expert knowledge about products where appropriate?
- Show what the product is like physically, or how it is used, with unique content beyond what’s provided by the manufacturer?
- Provide quantitative measurements about how a product measures up in various categories of performance?
- Explain what sets a product apart from its competitors?
- Cover comparable products to consider, or explain which products might be best for certain uses or circumstances?
- Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of a particular product, based on research into it?
- Describe how a product has evolved from previous models or releases to provide improvements, address issues, or otherwise help users in making a purchase decision?
- Identify key decision-making factors for the product’s category and how the product performs in those areas? For example, a car review might determine that fuel economy, safety, and handling are key decision-making factors and rate performance in those areas.
- Describe key choices in how a product has been designed and their effect on the users beyond what the manufacturer says?
Google clarified that the product reviews update was not a core algorithm update but it did state that Google’s usual advice for core updates did apply. We can’t confirm what Google meant by that but we expect it relates to content quality and the increased importance of E-A-T and YMYL.
For example, product reviews should be written by someone with proven experience and expertise on the product categories in question with their author bio and relevant links included in every post. For example, laptop reviews should be written by experienced tech reviewers who know their stuff, can go into detail and genuinely help people choose one device over the other options available to them.
Mordy Oberstein published a great writeup of the update’s winners and losers on Search Engine Journal, showcasing how the update was more complex than simply targeting thin content or affiliate links.
The big winners were pages that include buyer’s guides, comparison tables and calculations to help shoppers choose the ideal product for their needs. Affiliate content disguised as product reviews has suffered the most and Google is a lot more capable of detecting this type of content now.
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