Another Google update impacts your product review rankings
Google, as always, makes sure we all stay busy and focused. This time, the “December 2021 Product Review Update (PRU)” has shown volatility and drastic changes in rankings across the board.
What does the update mean for you?
- Pages with in-depth and comprehensive reviews of products will be rewarded
- Product reviews should contain links to multiple sellers — allowing customers to make a purchase from a merchant of their choice
- Affiliate sites with thin reviews will be considered less valuable
Google, as always, makes sure we all stay busy and focused. This time, the “December 2021 Product Review Update (PRU)” has shown volatility and drastic changes in rankings across the board.
What does the update mean for you?- Pages with in-depth and comprehensive reviews of products will be rewarded
- Product reviews should contain links to multiple sellers — allowing customers to make a purchase from a merchant of their choice
- Affiliate sites with thin reviews will be considered less valuable
According to Google, they received feedback from the users on what type of content they find useful and trustworthy.
Users generally trust reviews that provide evidence of tested products and want multiple options to buy the product.
This is why Google has added this new product review guidance. For now, this update is rolling out for the English-language pages, which will take about three weeks.
Google has also provided two new best practices that you can use for your content.
- Add more multimedia to your product reviews to support your expertise and showcase your authenticity.
- Provide links to multiple sellers, which will give your readers the option to purchase from the merchant of their choice.
This new update will promote review content better than the templated information available on the web. Google will be promoting these in-depth product reviews in their rankings.
However, this doesn’t mean that lower-quality product reviews will be removed completely from the search. Thin content that’s similar to the product description will be demoted from the first page results. The update’s focus is to ensure that users have access to in-depth product reviews, have original research, and are written by experts.
If your website is offering product review content, it is important that you check how your rankings have been impacted because of the update. For the long term, you need to ensure that you add more details into your product review content so that it stands out from the competition.
