By Summary
The blog post highlights Google’s recent announcement of the “December 2021 Product Reviews Update,” a new algorithm aimed at enhancing the quality of product reviews in Google search results. This update specifically targets product reviews by bloggers and emphasizes the inclusion of media like photos, videos, or audio to enhance user understanding. Released shortly after the Black Friday to Cyber Monday shopping period, the update builds on Google’s previous efforts to promote high-quality product reviews. Notably, the assessment of product review content is automated, and meeting Google’s guidelines may not guarantee high rankings. Google’s request for including links to other websites in reviews is a unique aspect of this update. The post provides tips for creating high-quality product reviews and emphasizes the importance of demonstrating expertise, providing evidence, and offering comparative analysis to stand out in search rankings.
Today the “Google Search Central” Twitter account announced a new algorithm update designed to improve the quality of product reviews ranking in Google’s search results. Called the “December 2021 product reviews update” by the announcement this update is hyper-specific in the type of content it is meant to impact in Google’s SERP, focused solely on reviews of products by bloggers.
Here is everything we know about the Google Search December 2021 Product Reviews Update
December 2021 Product Reviews Update Vitals
- Date Started: December 1st, 2021 (USA)
- Date Completed: Unknown
- First Impact Reported: Unknown
- Most Impacted Industry(ies): Unknown
- Most Impacted Site(s): Unknown
- Most Impacted Website Types: Unknown
- Most Impacted Content Types: Unknown
- SEO Change Proven to Improve: Google recommends adding media such as photos, video, or audio of the experience to help users better understand how they came up with the review / recommendation they did. Google also wants to see links to multiple online merchants selling the product or service
December 2021 Product Reviews Update Facts
- Released two days after the Black Friday to Cyber Monday shopping holiday during what merchant have been calling “cyber week”.
- Hyper-specific targeting only product reviews written on various websites.
- Update builds upon Google’s earlier efforts released in April of 2021 aimmed at promoting higher-quality product reviews in the rankings.
- Simply meeting Google’s guidelines for product reviews may not be enough to rank highly as this is only one part of Google’s algorithm for this type of content.
- Google specifically asks for this content to include links to other websites, this might be the first known algorithm by Google to specify such a request.
- Assessments of product review content are automated, this is not a manual adjustment.
Media Coverage of Google’s December 2021 Product Reviews Update
- None yet.
First possible impact
None yet.
Google December 2021 Product Reviews Update Help
When Google first announced an effort at adjusting rankings for this type of content in April of 2021 they also released a page full of tips on writing high-quality product reviews for review based websites. You can find that documentation here: Google Search Central: Write high quality product reviews
The following are tips directly from that page:
- Evaluate the product from a user’s perspective.
- Demonstrate that you are knowledgeable about the products reviewed – show you are an expert.
- Provide evidence such visuals, audio, or other links of your own experience with the product, to support your expertise and reinforce the authenticity of your review.
- Share quantitative measurements about how a product measures up in various categories of performance.
- Explain what sets a product apart from its competitors.
- Cover comparable products to consider, or explain which products might be best for certain uses or circumstances.
- Discuss the benefits and drawbacks of a particular product, based on your own original research
- Describe how a product has evolved from previous models or releases to provide improvements, address issues, or otherwise help users in making a purchase decision.
- Identify key decision-making factors for the product’s category and how the product performs in those areas (for example, a car review might determine that fuel economy, safety, and handling are key decision-making factors and rate performance in those areas).
- Describe key choices in how a product has been designed and their effect on the users beyond what the manufacturer says.
- Include links to other useful resources (your own or from other sites) to help a reader make a decision.
- Consider including links to multiple sellers to give the reader the option to purchase from their merchant of choice.