Product Review Update: Google Boosts High-Quality Reviews!

  • Home / Articles / Product Review Update:…
Product Review Update: Google Boosts High-Quality Reviews!

Product Review Update: Google Boosts High-Quality Reviews!

Product Review Update: Google Boosts High-Quality Reviews!

As part of Google’s series of product review algorithm updates, they have recently released the September 2022 product review update, which has officially and completely rolled out on September 26.

The recently completed product review update aims to make it much easier to connect individuals with original, high-quality reviews, ensuring that users and potential customers can get access to helpful information when they are doing their research on specific products. This update is the fifth in Google’s series of updates that target low-quality product review-related content.

The first product review update was released on April 8, 2021, with the second and third released on December 1, 2021, and March 23, 2022, respectively. The most recent one was released just two months prior, on July 27, 2022. Hence, it came as a surprise to many users when Google announced this product review update release alongside the helpful content update last month.

What does this update involve?

The Google product review algorithm update aims to reward product review-related content that offers quality information that is above and beyond what you can find on the web by promoting and pushing it towards the top of SERPs. Such content is curated by actual individuals who have used the products for themselves. The written content might include details, such as advantages and disadvantages, videos and photos of the product, as well as comparisons with similar brand products.

This means that product review-related content that consists of summarising and comparing similar products might find that their SERP ranking has become lower. According to Google, it is technically not a penalty against such content as they do not actively demote them, but instead, they are sourcing out quality, rewarding content and promoting them. This latest update, as its name suggests, impacts only websites that publish long-form product review-related content and not others.

In addition, it will, as of now, affect only product reviews written in English. Therefore, it will not apply to you if you do not publish such review-related content on your webpage. Neither will it affect you if customers can leave their reviews on your webpage as customers’ reviews are not considered product review content. This product review update is also unlike the recently released broad core update that targets most SEO content across the web.

How to score well on the SERPs with this update?

Our advice to you is not to immediately rush to any digital marketing agency in Singapore for SEO services but rather to vet through and optimise some of your existing product review-related content, especially the latest few. Even as you curate new review content on your page, here are some questions that you can ask yourself when you are optimising both existing and new product review content.

  • Have I expressed expert knowledge about the products?
  • Have I provided information on what it looks like and how it functions with unique, original content that is different from the manufacturer?
  • Have I provided information and statistics about the product’s performance as compared to their similar competition?
  • Have I shared the advantages and disadvantages of using the product?
  • Have I added value to the user’s purchasing decision by providing product-related information, such as how it has improved from previous models or future improvements?
  • Have I helped users to identify key decision-making factors for the product’s specific categories and how it performs? For example, if you are reviewing a particular car model, you might determine that the key decision-making factors are handling, safety features, and fuel economy. Hence you would rate its performance and compare the car to similar competitions in those categories.
  • Have I included multiple links to different sellers to allow my readers to choose their preferred merchant?

If your written content is a review of multiple products, it would be highly effective to write an in-depth review of each individual recommended product in combination with a well-crafted copywriting of the listed products. By ensuring both, you can be sure that you have enough valuable content.

If your written content is about recommending the best product, do ensure to share with your readers why they should consider the product and what sets it apart from their similar competition. Be sure to tie in first-hand evidence to support your claim.

Conclusion

In the long run, Google is moving towards providing users with a well-mapped customer journey that links them with not only beneficial information, but also useability. As such, it is high time that brands and individuals put additional effort and detail into their content so that it is unique, original, and stands out from the norm.

As with previous Google core and broad updates, we believe that with the proper practice, such as optimising your website, as well as ensuring that your web content is optimised for both mobile and desktop, you are able to keep up with Google’s algorithm updates.