SEO News You Can Use: Google’s July 2022 Product Reviews Algorithm Update Released

The fourth iteration of Google’s product reviews update has started to roll out. 

The first update to the product reviews was released on April 8, 2021, the second on December 1, 2021, the third on March 23, 2022, and the most recent update was announced on Twitter on July 27, 2022.

According to Search Engine Land, this update to the search ranking algorithm aims to rank product review-related information on the web that is most beneficial and valuable to searchers. Instead of just restating information already available, these reviews need to provide in-depth analysis.

According to Google, it will prioritize these product reviews in the order of search results. 

Google does not explicitly penalize evaluations of inferior products with “thin content that simply summarizes a bunch of products,” however, it will undoubtedly feel like a penalty. 

If you discover that your rankings have fallen due to other content being promoted above yours, you may want to consult the product review guideline. You could do this by following best practices and providing accurate reviews that include quantitative measurements, advantages and disadvantages, comparisons with other products, etc.

Technically, Google maintains, there is no penalty applied to your material; rather, Google gives higher results to sites with more insightful review content. 

This change should only affect long-form product reviews, and it appears that no ranking criteria were notably altered. Google is more than likely updating the algorithm and making minor changes.

According to Google, this deployment will take “two to three weeks to complete.” Most of the ranking fluctuation will probably occur in the initial phases of this rollout. Although the initial rollout will only affect “English-language product evaluations,” this modification may eventually affect people who “create product reviews in any language.” 

Google noted that this update had previously had “positive effects” and that it “plans to open up product review support for more languages” in the future.

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