As if it wasn’t enough for Google to roll out a core algorithm update in November, they went ahead and made another Product Reviews Update over the month of December. Google announced the update would start rolling out on December 1st and that it would probably take about 3 weeks to finish rolling out. Sure enough, exactly three weeks later, they announced the rollout was finished, so let’s talk about what happened and what it means for your online visibility.
Table of Contents
- What’s a Product Reviews Update?
- Quality Over Quantity
- Future Product Reviews Updates
- What If I Don’t Have a Product Reviews Site?
- What Makes a Good Review?
What’s a Product Reviews Update?
Unlike a core algorithm update, which is designed to make changes that affect most, if not all searches (and the websites hoping to rank in those searches) product reviews updates target websites that review products. The last product reviews update was in April of 2021, so websites that were hit hard by that update had time to adjust and reap the rewards from the December 2021 product reviews update.
Whether you host a product reviews website, or your products are being reviewed on a PR website, here’s what you need to know about Google’s December 2021 product reviews update:
Quality Over Quantity
High-quality reviews that display expert knowledge about the product, explain what sets it apart from similar products, and provide quantitative information on the product not provided by the seller perform better than websites with thin reviews. This is consistent with Google’s preference for longer, more in-depth content, and in this case I would say Google is probably right. The more information prospects can get about a product before they buy, the better equipped they’ll be to make an informed decision and get the product that’s best for them.
Future Product Reviews Updates
Google published a blog post with two new guidelines for websites publishing review content, even though those guidelines do not apply to the current update. It’s worth noting that they might apply to future product reviews updates, so if your site was hit hard by the December 2021 Product Review Update, take Google’s guidelines to heart now so you’ll be ready for the next update.
The first new guideline published by Google is to provide some sort of evidence of your experience with the product, such as photos, videos, or audio content. The second is to leave links to multiple vendor websites so shoppers can easily choose to buy the item from their preferred vendor directly from the review.
That last one could be a problem for Amazon affiliates. According to their affiliate agreement with Amazon, they are only supposed to link to the product page on Amazon, but refusing to include other links will hurt their Google rankings.
For now at least, links aren’t everything. Some websites with relatively fewer links experienced surges in their website traffic after the April 2021 Product Reviews Update, even though they were competing with websites with exponentially more links. Whether or not that will change after Google’s next product reviews update has yet to be determined.
Some sites saw a boost after Google’s recent core algorithm updates, only to be hit hard by the product reviews updates, while other sites had the exact opposite experience. This suggests the core updates and the product reviews updates are prioritizing different things, which can make it hard to know which strategies ecommerce websites and their reviewers should be implementing.
Search Intent: If someone is searching for an item and they include the term “best,” “top,” or “reviews,” in the search, websites with these keywords have seen a lot of volatility in their search rankings. Some of those searches lead to review sites in the top search positions and others don’t, depending on whether Google thinks the user is looking for reviews of the item or looking to buy right away.
What If I Don’t Have a Product Reviews Site?
The update impacts review sites, but websites with large libraries of other types of content in addition to reviews are also being impacted by Google’s product reviews updates.
Most notably, Google’s product reviews updates also affect the search rankings of the websites being reviewed. That means, if you have products or services being reviewed on another website, your website’s rankings could be affected by that website’s rankings. Remember that Google assumes like hangs out with like, so if Google decides it does or does not like a product review site that contains a link back to your website, Google is more likely to come to a similar decision about your website.
What Makes a Good Review?
First, as I already mentioned, including photos, videos, or audio content to prove you tested the product yourself are all super helpful. So is a good link strategy.
Comparison charts are super helpful, especially if you can organize the different features of the products so people can more easily compare and contrast their options and come to a decision. Product review websites that included this feature did very well after the December 2021 Product Review Update.
Finally, explaining your process for testing the product is also a great way to improve your authority and trustworthiness, and thereby improve your search rankings.
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