Goals and Outcomes
Rich snippets are enhanced Google Search results that can display additional product information, such as an aggregate star rating and review count.
Rich snippets can help you:
Make your product results more noticeable in Google Search.
Give shoppers additional information before they visit your store.
Build shopper confidence through visible product ratings.
Improve the relevance of traffic reaching your product pages.
In this article, you’ll learn how Yotpo adds review data to your product pages, how Shopify Metafields Sync works, and how to validate your structured data.
How Rich Snippets Work
Yotpo uses structured data to provide search engines with product and review information from your store.
The following information can be included:
Product name and description
Product image URL
Product price and currency
Number of product reviews
Average product rating
Google can use this information to display product ratings and other details in search results.
Note
While we can guarantee that you can mark up your page correctly as validated by the Rich Results Testing Tool, we cannot guarantee that stars will show in Google search. That is solely up to Google's algorithms. In case you cannot see the markup, please contact our support team.
Google does not allow content that relates to firearms and weapons, recreational drugs, tobacco and vaping products, and gambling-related products. See Google content guidelines
For more information on Google's product rich snippets feature, click here
Adding Rich Snippets Automatically
Yotpo allows the implementation of rich snippets without any manual markup. We have a built-in solution based on JSON/LD, to automatically add rich snippets to your product pages.
The solution utilizes Yotpo's Reviews Widget code and JS library (which should already be implemented on your site) in order to fetch and embed the relevant data.
JSON/LD is recognized by Google and is just as effective as having a hard-coded schema.org markup on your site.
The following details will be automatically added to your rich snippets:
Product name and description
Product image URL
Product price and currency
The number of reviews for the product
The average star rating for the product
You can view your rich snippets mark-up with Google's Rich Results Testing Tool and see a separate Product tab that only contains Yotpo's Automatic Mark-up:
Note
This solution is enabled by default for plans entitled to the rich snippets feature. If you're not satisfied with the automated rich snippets solution, you can revert to manual markup, as long as it is supported by your e-commerce platform. If you'd like to disable the automated solution, please contact your dedicated account manager or Yotpo Support.
Shopify Metafields Sync
For Shopify stores, Yotpo syncs your product review count and average rating to Yotpo metafields and Shopify’s standard rating metafields.
You can use the synchronized data to:
Manually implement rich snippets.
Create a custom star rating display.
Display Shopify’s native product ratings on collection pages.
Before You Begin
Shopify Metafields Sync is available for:
Shopify and Shopify Plus stores
Starter, Pro, Premium, and Enterprise plans
Your Shopify theme must support Shopify’s standard product rating metafields to display Shopify’s native product ratings.
Activating Shopify Metafields Sync in Yotpo
To activate Shopify Metafields Sync:
In Yotpo Reviews, go to Program Settings.
Select Shopify Metafields Sync.
Turn on Activate Shopify Metafields Sync.
Click Save changes.
Yotpo syncs the following product review information to Shopify:
Average product rating
Product review count
The data is synchronized to both Yotpo metafields and Shopify’s standard rating metafields.
After activating Shopify Metafields Sync, allow a few hours for the initial data to sync. Metafield values are then updated every eight hours, so subsequent changes to your reviews or ratings might not appear in Shopify immediately.
Displaying Shopify’s Native Product Ratings on Collection Pages
After activating Shopify Metafields Sync in Yotpo, you can enable Shopify’s native product ratings on collection pages in supported Shopify themes.
To display product ratings:
In your Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
Locate your active theme and click Edit theme.
Click anywhere on the site preview to open the customization menu.
Navigate to the Product grid.
Turn on Show product rating.
Click Save.
Once Shopify Metafields Sync and Show product rating are enabled, no additional code is required to display Shopify’s native product ratings on collection pages in supported Shopify themes. The rating displayed through this setting is Shopify’s native product rating, not the Yotpo Star Rating widget. You might need to enable Show product rating separately in each collection template where you want ratings to appear.
Note
The available settings and their location can vary depending on your Shopify theme. If Show product rating is not available, refer to your theme documentation or contact the theme developer.
For more information, refer to Shopify’s guide to displaying metafields on your online store.
Validating Rich Snippets
Use Google’s Rich Results Test to confirm that Google can detect the product and aggregate rating structured data on your page.
To validate your rich snippets:
Open Google’s Rich Results Test.
Enter the URL of a product page.
Run the test.
Open the detected Product result.
Confirm that the result contains the aggregate rating and review count.
Important
The product must have at least one review for aggregate rating data to be available.
Note
Even when the structured data is valid, Google might not display product ratings immediately. Google must first crawl and index the updated page, and the final appearance of the search result is determined by Google.
Manually installing rich snippets on other platforms
Choose the installation guide that is relevant to the platform you're using:
Once you have it all set up, you can view your rich snippets mark-up with Google's Rich Results Testing Tool and see the aggregateRating markup is in the same Product tab as the rest of your markup:
Adding Additional Parameters
To add other product parameters to your structured data, retrieve the required product data by using the Yotpo API.
Use the Retrieve Bottom Line - Total Reviews and Average Score for a Specific Product API request and cache the response on your server before adding it to your structured data according to Google's guidelines.
Troubleshooting
If you have marked up your page correctly and it shows the stars in the Google testing tool, keep in mind that you will need to wait approximately 24 hours for it to be indexed by Google. The waiting time depends on Google.
Google makes algorithmic determinations on when and how to display results in the SERPS (search engine results page), including snippet information, based on a myriad of factors including the search terms, etc. Even if they are coded correctly, snippet inclusion in the SERPS is beyond Yotpo's direct control.
We would recommend focusing your efforts on making as unique and compelling a site as possible in order to increase the likelihood of your products reviews displaying in the Google search.
Manipulating or changing your aggregateRating markup may lead to Google penalizing your rich snippets results.
1. Are you missing the required product attributes?
You must include all of the product attributes in the Reviews Widget div, for example, data-currency and data-price, in order for rich snippets to work.
2. Is the nesting correct?
When you edit the code, make sure that you nest the aggregating information within the product itemscope.
3. Did you close all the HTML tags?
When writing HTML code, each HTML node must be opened and closed – the forward slash character (/) indicates closure of an HTML node, for example <tag>content</tag>.
4. Did you add Multiple aggregateRating itemprops?
If you have added multiple aggregateRating itemprops, stars will not show.
5. Is the aggregateRating itemprop missing?
If no aggregateRating itemprops are present, the rating displayed by Rich Snippets may not match the average review rating in your store.
6. Main entity not defined
Google will look for an aggregateRating of the first Type itemscope that it encounters in the DOM (Document Object Model). If a page contains multiple Type itemscopes, make sure the main entity is labeled with the mainEntity itemscope.
7. Are you using schema.org/Organization?
Using the Organization type itemscope on product pages can prevent rich snippet stars from displaying. For any page where you would like to see rich snippets appear in search results, do not include the Organization itemscope.
The Organization itemscope is used to describe an organization such as a school, NGO, corporation, club, and so on.
8. Are you missing supporting review content?
Google may interpret the lack of review text on a page as an indication that the aggregateRating data may be false. Yotpo suggests that you always include eight reviews on the same page where you display an aggregateRating.
9. Questionable content authenticity
If Google doesn’t trust a domain, or the contents within the domain, it is unlikely that rich snippet stars will render in search results. This is typically an issue for newer domains that do not yet have a good reputation.
10. Is your server-side and Inspect Element code markup consistent?
If the versions of the code seen in each tool are not consistent, Google may also be inconsistent in its display of rich snippet stars. For optimal results, both versions should adhere to all of the principles in this post.
11. Google has yet to cache the new markup
Markup changes you have made to your pages should be reflected in the Google Structured Data Tool within a month's time (usually considerably sooner).
If a month has passed and your changes are not yet reflected, it may be that a cached version is used. To verify:
Search for your product on Google.
Open the cached version of the page by clicking the inverted green triangle icon next to the result URL and clicking Cached
At the top of the page, you will see the cached version date ("It is a snapshot of the page as it appeared on...").
If the snapshot date is before the date you made the changes, then Google has not cached the new markup yet.