Comments on: Faking the SERPs – Rich Snippet Hacks, Penalties & Author Removal Alternative

By: Bikas Gurung

Bikas Gurung — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 07:57:12 +0000

To get the star ratings on your Google Search results listings you need to use something called “schema.org markup”, “structured data” or “microdata”. Basically, this is a standard for how you label data on your website so that browsers and bots like Google can interpret it and know what it represents.

By: Gazit Lasker

Gazit Lasker — Sat, 27 Apr 2019 06:00:19 +0000

Using verified and legitimate comments and reviews system with RECAPTCHA will be a great way to gain aggregating stars in Google serp

By: Sandy Rowley

Sandy Rowley — Mon, 08 Apr 2019 05:43:55 +0000

Ty for this information. I am seeing web design companies using the review snippet as a way to display fake reviews in the SERPS.

Very frustrating to see. How long does it take for Google to catch on to this?

Do you recommend a way to display your verified Google reviews in the snippets/serps?

By: Jaky

Jaky — Mon, 18 Feb 2019 20:53:42 +0000

Funny how are all this cheap niche sites doing that, copy and pasting, also all this “seo” and ranking is getting so much harder. Big brands outrank you in 3 seconds, easily.

Back in 2016 it took me 1 month to rank now 8 months to 1.2 years. I bet in 2023 it will be 10x harder. It’s time to move on and do something else.

By: Viet

Viet — Fri, 05 Oct 2018 12:05:39 +0000

My website is the same as yours. The rating disappeared witbout any notification.

By: Naser

Naser — Fri, 14 Apr 2017 08:52:33 +0000

Hi,

I suspect my site was hit with this and it is an algorithmic one (since there was no message in webmaster tools). The reason why I came to this conclusion is that Google removed all my star ratings from SERPs and threw me to 5th page from the first position.

I have removed all rich snippets and breadcrumbs from the site, can you please let me know how should I let Google know that I have made the changes since there is no reconsideration request form available?

By: Nicholas McDonough

Nicholas McDonough — Sat, 03 Dec 2016 17:16:45 +0000

Pursuant to “Rich Snippets Seen in the Wild”, google reviews are not allowed anymore. You can only have review snippets that come from your site.

Google made another change (again) in September 2016.

By: Forrest Wheatey

Forrest Wheatey — Mon, 28 Nov 2016 13:49:55 +0000

Complaining to Google you bought fake followers is like complaining to the police your drug dealer sold you bad coke 🙂

By: Gass

Gass — Mon, 25 Jul 2016 07:10:01 +0000

As i see, Google still display reviews rich snippets currently, but only from large, very large sites from which they get the big money.
Everything they do and act is for money if you fooled can’t or you don’t want to understand!
In my wordpress site I had reviews with Rich snippets plugin, everything was transparent, people could interact with the site and reviews were showed, no hidden content at all, not fake reviews, becides there were only a few reviews in some pages only.
Despite that after just a few days i noticed that the stars dissapeared from search results, not only from mine but from most sites, and a week later i noticed in search console that i got hit by the manual penalty, so i used the only choice i had, removed all reviews and fill a reconsideration request.
The good thing is that my SERPs not only were completely unaffected but got better, and the second good thing is that my CTR is the same and for some keywords even better!!
So all these speculations about lost SERPs in cases of rich snippets penalty and about higher CTR with rich snippets on are nothing but myths.
I cannot know what will happen to my SERPs later, i hope nothing, because there have been more that 2 weeks since the penalty.

By: Mehran

Mehran — Thu, 21 Apr 2016 15:03:26 +0000

Google mentioned “If the markup contains a single review, the author’s name needs to be a valid name. For example, “50% off until Saturday” is not a valid name for a reviewer.” in structured data guidline page.
Could you tell me what is the “single review”?
If just the Author able to review its article then it will not be an honest rating, what is the purpose of the single review then?
Also I have seen some pages with just single review and I am not able to rate the page! just author rate it with his/her name.