STRUCTURED DATA · SEO GLOSSARY
Review Schema (AggregateRating)
JSON-LD structured data using the Review and AggregateRating schema types to communicate star ratings and review counts to search engines — enabling star rich results in SERPs.
Definition
Review schema uses schema.org's `Review` type (for individual reviews) and `AggregateRating` type (for a summary of many reviews: ratingValue, ratingCount, bestRating) embedded as JSON-LD in page HTML. When implemented correctly on eligible page types, Google can display star ratings directly in organic search results — the visual star display alongside a page title and meta description. Eligible content types include: Products, Books, Recipes, Movies, Software applications, and Local businesses. Review schema is NOT eligible for pure editorial or informational content — a blog post about a product cannot self-declare a star rating; the rating must reflect genuine user reviews.
Why it matters for SEO
Star ratings in search results (rich snippets) significantly increase CTR — a 4.8-star product listing stands out visually from plain text results. The CTR lift is meaningful: studies show rich snippets with stars can increase CTR by 15–30% from the same ranking position. Common implementation mistakes: using AggregateRating on content that doesn't genuinely have collected user reviews (Google bans sites from star rich results for this), setting ratingValue above bestRating, and failing to include ratingCount (which is required). Product pages with Paddle or Stripe purchases can use real customer review data; SaaS tools can use reviews from G2, Capterra, or Trustpilot with schema referencing the review source.
How DeepSEOAnalysis checks this
The audit validates Review and AggregateRating JSON-LD on crawled pages: checks that required properties (ratingValue, ratingCount, bestRating, itemReviewed) are present and correctly typed, verifies ratingValue ≤ bestRating, and flags self-awarded ratings on page types that are not eligible for rich results per Google's structured data guidelines.
Useful tools and resources
GLOSSARY
Related terms
structured data
Schema Markup
A shared vocabulary of types and properties from Schema.org used to annotate web content in machine-readable format — enabling search engines to understand what content means, not just what it says, and to generate rich results.
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FAQPage Schema
JSON-LD structured data that marks Q&A pairs on a page so search engines and AI systems can display and cite them directly.
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HowTo Schema
JSON-LD structured data that marks step-by-step instructional content so search engines and AI systems can identify and cite procedural answers.
Read definition →See how your site scores on Review Schema (AggregateRating).
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