Reviews Google Seller Rating
Google Seller Rating is an extension in Google Ads. This extension causes review stars to be displayed with your Google Ads and Google Shopping ads. Few Dutch review parties offer this option, but through WebwinkelKeur it is possible to qualify for Google Seller Rating.
Difference Google rich snippets and Seller Rating
What exactly is Google Seller Rating? Not to be confused with Google's rich snippets! Although they seem to be one and the same, this is not the case. Whereas one is visible in organic search results, Google Seller Rating is visible in your paid search results (Google Ads / Google Shopping). The rich snippets are therefore always free and for the Google Seller Rating there is a monthly fee. See below the difference in Google's search results:
Benefits of Google Seller Rating
Using Google Seller Rating brings many benefits. These mainly affect the success of your advertising campaigns.
According to Google, the biggest benefits are:
- Increase in traffic to your online store.
- Increase of 17% in click through rate (CTR).
- Improvement in quality scores (QS).
- Lowering cost-per-clicks (CPC).
All in all, good reasons to consider it for your web store!
Activate
Unlike the stars of rich snippets, the stars of Google Seller Rating are unfortunately not free of charge. This is because the stars are shown in your Google Ads and the seller rating '% positive' in Google Shopping. To keep the costs for our members as low as possible, the fees we charge go almost entirely to the partner. The cost for this seller rating is 20 euros per activated webshop per month. So you pay and activate per webshop and not per membership.
What exactly do you get in return:
- Yellow stars in your Google Ads via desktop search results from Google.
- Percent positivity reviews in Google Shopping.
Also want to use Google Seller Rating? Log in within our dashboard > go to Reviews > Shop Reviews > Settings > click on Google Seller Rating > see if the store in question qualifies > Activate.
Conditions for qualifying
Not every online store qualifies for the stars. There are some requirements for this:
- The web store has collected at least 100 unique reviews in the last 12 months. Unfortunately, this is not yet a guarantee that the stars will actually be shown. Google has its own algorithm that they use to pick out duplicate reviews. To be sure your stars will be shown, you need to be a lot above 100. Also, if you have collected the 100 reviews within the past 4 weeks, the stars may not be shown (yet) because of Google's indexing process. This is because indexing takes an average of 4 weeks. Therefore, after reaching the required number of unique reviews, it may take another 4 weeks before the stars become visible.
- The average of the reviews is worth at least 3.5 out of 5 stars.
- You are not using URLs with subdomains.
- You have not (intentionally or accidentally) "overshadowed" the stars within your Google Ads campaign.
Video explanation
You can also see more information about the Google Seller Rating in the video below:
Google review stars
Google has many different review options. Although they are very similar, how each star works is different. Each possibility within Google can be shown with WebwinkelKeur. More information about the other features can be found below:
- Blog overview of all Google review stars.
Frequently asked questions about the Google Seller Rating
What is Google Seller Rating?
How do I enable Google Seller Rating?
What are the costs associated with Google Seller Rating?
What are the requirements to qualify for Google Seller Rating?
Requirements for Google Seller Rating
Not every online store qualifies for the Google Seller Rating. The online store must meet certain requirements in order to display the stars. We’ve listed them for you below:
• The online store must have collected at least 100 unique reviews over the past 12 months. Unfortunately, this alone doesn’t guarantee that the stars will actually be displayed. Google uses its own algorithm to filter out duplicate reviews. To ensure your star rating is displayed, you’ll need to have significantly more than 100 reviews. Also, if you’ve collected 100 reviews within the past 4 weeks, the stars may not be displayed (yet) due to Google’s indexing process. Indexing takes an average of 4 weeks. So, even after reaching the required number of unique reviews, it may still take another 4 weeks before the stars become visible.
• The average rating is at least 3.5 out of 5 stars.
• You do not use URLs with subdomains.
• You have not intentionally “overshadowed” the stars within your Google Ads campaigns.
My Google Seller Rating stars aren't showing up. Why is that?
Google Seller Rating is installed but not visible?
Google Seller Rating installed but not visible? You’ve now activated and installed Google Seller Rating, but you’ve noticed that the stars aren’t visible. There could be several reasons for this:
• The online store has collected fewer than 100 unique reviews in the past 12 months. (Please note that collecting at least 100 unique reviews doesn’t guarantee the stars will appear. Google uses its own algorithm to filter out duplicate reviews. To ensure your stars are displayed, you’ll need to have well over 100 reviews.)
• The 100 unique reviews come from different countries. You must have collected at least 100 unique reviews from a single country, since Google Seller Rating stars are assigned by country code.
• The online store has collected 100 reviews within the past 4 weeks. These are not (yet) displayed due to Google’s indexing process.
• The average rating is lower than 3.5 out of 5 stars.
• You’re using URLs with subdomains.
• You have intentionally (either voluntarily or accidentally) “masked” the stars in your Google Ads campaigns.
• Google Seller Rating stars are not visible in mobile search results.
• Google Seller Rating is not the same as Google Shopping product reviews. When enabled, Google Seller Rating does show the percentage of positive reviews you have on Google Shopping.
Check if your Google Seller Rating is working
You can easily check if Google Seller Rating is working—but don’t do this by Googling your own ads, as the stars may or may not appear. You can easily verify whether Google Seller Rating is working using the following URL. Copy this into your address bar, replacing ValuedShops.nl with your own domain name:
https://www.google.com/shopping/ratings/account/lookup?q=ValuedShops.nl
If you see a review score on the page that appears, then Google Seller Rating is working. Google can now display stars next to your Google Ads. For each search query, Google determines whether or not to do so.
Google Seller Rating stars not always visible?
You may notice that the Google Seller Rating stars appear sometimes but not others. This could be due to the following reasons:
• If you search for the same terms multiple times (often in quick succession), this affects Google’s search results—both organic and paid. As a result, Google may temporarily stop showing you the stars.
• Google determines the best times to show you the Google Seller Rating stars. As a result, you might not see them sometimes.
• Google remembers what you’re searching for or have recently searched for (Google caching). Based on the cache, they determine whether the stars are relevant to you or not.
• Your bid and Ad Rank also influence whether or not the Google Seller Rating is displayed. There’s no fixed threshold for this, but an Ad Rank of 7 or higher is recommended.
Real-World Example
We’d like to use Wehkamp as an example to show you that Google sometimes displays stars and sometimes doesn’t. This has nothing to do with a broken link.
Search result without stars
Search result with stars
This example clearly shows that it’s difficult to determine whether the Google Seller Rating is working by searching for your own ads. The only way to verify whether your Google Seller Rating is working correctly is via the URL shown above. After that, whether or not these stars are displayed will vary depending on the search query and the visitor.