Critic review

A critic review is a snippet from a longer review article that a single editor has created, curated, or compiled for a publisher. Critic reviews appear in Search results with a snippet from the critic, the critic's name and the publisher icon, helping your readers to easily find the reviews and navigate to your website to read the complete reviews. You can supply critic reviews for the following content types:

How to add structured data

Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a page and classifying the page content. If you're new to structured data, you can learn more about how structured data works.

Here's an overview of how to build, test, and release structured data. For a step-by-step guide on how to add structured data to a web page, check out the structured data codelab.

  1. Add the required properties. For information about where to put structured data on the page, watch JSON-LD structured data: Where to insert on the page.
  2. Follow the guidelines.
  3. Validate your code using the Rich Results Test.
  4. Deploy a few pages that include your structured data and use the URL Inspection tool to test how Google sees the page. Be sure that your page is accessible to Google and not blocked by a robots.txt file, the noindex tag, or login requirements. If the page looks okay, you can ask Google to recrawl your URLs.
  5. To keep Google informed of future changes, we recommend that you submit a sitemap. You can automate this with the Search Console Sitemap API.

Examples

You can embed critic reviews inside LocalBusiness. This is useful for sites that provide booking services for many businesses or for business listing aggregators. Here's an example of an embedded review of a business in JSON-LD:


<html>
  <head>
    <title>Dave's Steak House</title>
    <script type="application/ld+json">
    {
      "@context": "https://schema.org",
      "@type": "Restaurant",
      "@id": "http://davessteakhouse.example.com",
      "name": "Dave's Steak House",
      "image": "http://davessteakhouse.example.com/logo.jpg",
      "sameAs": "http://davessteakhouse.example.com",
      "servesCuisine": "Steak House",
      "priceRange": "$$$",
      "address": {
        "@type": "PostalAddress",
        "streetAddress": "148 W 51st St",
        "addressLocality": "New York",
        "addressRegion": "NY",
        "postalCode": "10019",
        "addressCountry": "US"
      },
      "telephone": "+12122459600",
      "geo": {
        "@type": "GeoCoordinates",
        "latitude": 40.761293,
        "longitude": -73.982294
      },
      "aggregateRating": {
        "@type": "AggregateRating",
        "ratingValue": "88",
        "bestRating": "100",
        "worstRating": "1",
        "ratingCount": "20"
      },
      "review": {
        "@type": "Review",
        "url": "http://www.localreviews.com/restaurants/1/2/3/daves-steak-house.html",
        "author": {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Lisa Kennedy",
          "sameAs": "https://plus.google.com/114108465800532712602"
        },
        "publisher": {
          "@type": "Organization",
          "name": "Denver Post",
          "sameAs": "http://www.denverpost.com"
        },
        "datePublished": "2014-03-13T20:00",
        "description": "Great old fashioned steaks but the salads are sub par.",
        "inLanguage": "en",
        "reviewRating": {
          "@type": "Rating",
          "worstRating": 1,
          "bestRating": 4,
          "ratingValue": 3.5
        }
      }
    }
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
  </body>
</html>

You can provide standalone critic review objects, which are suitable for sites that perform no direct function for the business being reviewed, such as news sites. Here's an example of a standalone review of a business in JSON-LD:

<html>
  <head>
    <title>Dave's Steak House</title>
    <script type="application/ld+json">
    {
      "@context": "https://schema.org",
      "@type": "Restaurant",
      "@id": "http://davessteakhouse.example.com",
      "name": "Dave's Steak House",
      "image": "http://davessteakhouse.example.com/logo.jpg",
      "sameAs": "http://davessteakhouse.example.com",
      "servesCuisine": "Steak House",
      "priceRange": "$$$",
      "address": {
        "@type": "PostalAddress",
        "streetAddress": "148 W 51st St",
        "addressLocality": "New York",
        "addressRegion": "NY",
        "postalCode": "10019",
        "addressCountry": "US"
      },
      "telephone": "+12122459600",
      "geo": {
        "@type": "GeoCoordinates",
        "latitude": 40.761293,
        "longitude": -73.982294
      },
      "aggregateRating": {
        "@type": "AggregateRating",
        "ratingValue": "88",
        "bestRating": "100",
        "worstRating": "1",
        "ratingCount": "20"
      },
      "review": {
        "@type": "Review",
        "url": "http://www.localreviews.com/restaurants/1/2/3/daves-steak-house.html",
        "author": {
          "@type": "Person",
          "name": "Lisa Kennedy",
          "sameAs": "https://plus.google.com/114108465800532712602"
        },
        "publisher": {
          "@type": "Organization",
          "name": "Denver Post",
          "sameAs": "http://www.denverpost.com"
        },
        "datePublished": "2014-03-13T20:00",
        "description": "Great old fashioned steaks but the salads are sub par.",
        "inLanguage": "en",
        "reviewRating": {
          "@type": "Rating",
          "worstRating": 1,
          "bestRating": 4,
          "ratingValue": 3.5
        }
      }
    }
    </script>
  </head>
  <body>
  </body>
</html>

Guidelines

Your content must follow these guidelines to be eligible to appear as a rich result.

Technical guidelines

  • Refer clearly to a specific product or service by nesting the review within the markup of another schema.org type, such as schema.org/Book or schema.org/LocalBusiness, or by using a schema.org type as a value for the itemReviewed property.
  • Make sure the reviews and ratings you mark up are readily available to users from the marked-up page. It should be immediately obvious to users that the page has review content.
  • Provide review information about a specific item, not about a category or a list of items.

    Recommended: Hesperia Madrid Hotel

    Not recommended: Top 10 hotels in Madrid

Content guidelines

  • Authoritative human editor(s) must create, curate, or compile content for critic reviews.
  • The snippet can't exceed 200 characters.
  • The snippet must clearly indicate an opinion about the review subject. It should not merely define the subject (for example, ""Gravity" is a film by Alfonso Cuarón") or a plot synopsis (for example, "Dr. Ryan Stone is an engineer on her first space mission").
  • Critic reviews can't be template sentences built from data or automated metrics.
  • Don't include critic reviews that are duplicated or similar across many businesses.
  • Only include critic reviews that have been directly produced by your site, not reviews from third-party sites or syndicated reviews.
  • Use non-smart double quotation marks (") to denote titles (for example, ""Gravity" is the best movie.")
  • The snippet must make sense on its own and should not be confusing to someone who isn't reading the whole article.
  • The snippet must be an exact excerpt from the long-form body of the review. It should not be the review headline, a question or a teaser.
  • The snippet must be complete (not cut off, truncated, or ending in ellipses) and well-formed (having correct punctuation and grammar) thought.
  • Avoid profanity and vulgar language. Reviews should be appropriate for a broad and diverse audience. Consequently, reviews containing vulgar or profane language may be ineligible for use.
  • Don't add critic review structured data for adult-related products or services.
  • If the critic review is for a local business, you must follow these additional guidelines:
    • Snippets must not be written by the business or content provider, and may not be provided by the business or content provider unless they are genuine, independent, and unpaid editorial reviews.
    • Critic reviews must allow for customers to express both positive and negative sentiments. They may not be vetted by the business or restricted by the content provider based on the positive or negative sentiment of the review before submission to Google.
    • Critic reviews for multiple-location businesses such as retail chains or franchises can only be submitted for the specific business location for which they were written. In other words, critic reviews for multiple-location businesses can't be syndicated or applied to all business locations of the same company.
    • There can't be any commercial agreements (paid or otherwise) to provide critic reviews between the content provider and the reviewed business.

Structured data type definitions

You must include the following required properties for your content to be eligible for display as a rich result. You can also include the following recommended properties to add more information about your content, which could provide a better user experience.

Review

The full definition of Review is available at schema.org/Review.

Required properties
datePublished

Date

Date of the review's first publication, in ISO 8601 date format.
description

Text

A snippet from the body of the actual review that captures the author's opinion about the review subject. The snippet must follow our content guidelines.
itemReviewed

Book, Movie, or LocalBusiness

The item that is being reviewed.
itemReviewed.address

PostalAddress

The address of the specific business location. The itemReviewed.address property is required only for reviews about a local business.
itemReviewed.address.addressCountry

Text

The 2-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code. The itemReviewed.address.addressCountry property is required only for reviews about a local business.
itemReviewed.address.addressLocality

Text

The city of the local business (if applicable). The itemReviewed.address.addressLocality property is required only for reviews about a local business.
itemReviewed.address.addressRegion

Text

The state or province of the local business (if applicable). The itemReviewed.address.addressRegion property is required only for reviews about a local business.
itemReviewed.address.postalCode

Text

The postal or zip code of the local business (if applicable). The itemReviewed.address.postalCode property is required only for reviews about a local business.
itemReviewed.address.streetAddress

Text

The street number, street name, and unit number of the local business (if applicable). The itemReviewed.address.streetAddress property is required only for reviews about a local business.

itemReviewed.author

Person

The annotation for the author of the book. The itemReviewed.author property is required only for reviews about a book.
itemReviewed.author.name

Text

The name of author of the book. The itemReviewed.author.name property is required only for reviews about a book.
itemReviewed.isbn

Text

The ISBN of the book. In cases where no ISBN exists, use itemReviewed.sameAs. The itemReviewed.isbn property is required only for reviews about a book.
itemReviewed.name

Text

The name of the item that is the subject of the review. It can be the name of the book, movie, or local business.
itemReviewed.sameAs

URL

The URL of a page that unambiguously identifies the item that is the subject of the review. Google strongly prefers the following URLs based on the subject of the review:

  • Books: The book's Google Play Books page, Wikipedia page, or official website.
  • Movies: The movie's IMDB page, Wikipedia page, or official website.
  • Local Business: The business's official website.

For books only, the itemReviewed.sameAs property isn't required if you define itemReviewed.isbn.
publisher

Organization

Annotation for the publisher of the review.
publisher.name

Text

Name of the publisher of the review. For example, "The New York Times".
Recommended properties
aggregateRating

AggregateRating

The average score assigned to the item being reviewed. This typically applies to user ratings rather than professional critic ratings.
aggregateRating.bestRating

Text

The highest value allowed in the reviewer's rating system. If this property is omitted, 5 is assumed. Letter grades are allowed (for example, "A").
aggregateRating.ratingCount

Number

The number of ratings given to the reviewed item.
aggregateRating.ratingValue

Text

The average rating given to the reviewed item. Letter grades are allowed (for example, "B+").
aggregateRating.worstRating

Text

The lowest value allowed in the reviewer's rating system. If this property is omitted, 1 is assumed. Letter grades are allowed (for example, "C-").
author

Person or Organization

The author of the review. The reviewer's name must be a valid name. For example, "50% off until Saturday" is not a valid name for a reviewer.
author.name

Text

Name of the author of the review. Provide the full name of the author. The value should be capitalized correctly. Names comprised of entirely uppercase or lowercase letters are edited such that the first letter of every word is capitalized.
author.sameAs

URL

URL of a page that unambiguously identifies the author (for example, the author's official website, a profile page, a Wikipedia article).
inLanguage

Text

The BCP-47 language code of the review description (for example, "ja" is Japanese). We strongly recommended inLanguage for non-English reviews.
itemReviewed.actor

Person

The annotation(s) for main cast of the movie. The itemReviewed.actor property is only recommended for movie reviews.
itemReviewed.actor.name

Text

The name of the actor. The itemReviewed.actor.name property is only recommended for movie reviews.
itemReviewed.actor.sameAs

URL

The URL of a page that unambiguously identifies the actor. Google strongly prefers the actor's IMDB or Wikipedia page. The itemReviewed.actor.sameAs property is only recommended for movie reviews.
itemReviewed.datePublished

Date

The original publication date of the book or the original theatrical or direct-to-video release date of the movie, in ISO 8601 format. The itemReviewed.datePublished property is only recommended for reviews about a book or movie.

itemReviewed.director

Person

The annotation for the director of the movie. The itemReviewed.director property is only recommended for movie reviews.
itemReviewed.director.name

Text

The name of the director. The itemReviewed.director.name property is only recommended for movie reviews.
itemReviewed.director.sameAs

URL

The URL of a page that unambiguously identifies the director. Google strongly prefers URLs to director's IMDB or Wikipedia page. The itemReviewed.director.sameAs property is only recommended for movie reviews.
itemReviewed.geo

GeoCoordinates

The geographic coordinates of the business. The itemReviewed.geo property is only recommended for reviews about a local business.
itemReviewed.geo.latitude

Number or Text

The latitude of the business location. The precision should be at least 5 decimal places. The itemReviewed.geo.latitude property is only recommended for reviews about a local business.
itemReviewed.geo.longitude

Number or Text

The longitude of the business location. The precision should be at least 5 decimal places. The itemReviewed.geo.longitude property is only recommended for reviews about a local business.
itemReviewed.telephone

Text

The public phone number of the business that's normally used by customers, including the country code. The itemReviewed.telephone property is only recommended for reviews about a local business.
publisher.sameAs

URL

The URL of the publisher's official website or Wikipedia page.
reviewRating

Must be one of the following:

Rating

The rating given in this review on a scale (for example, 3 out of 5 stars). Ratings can be either numeric (for example, 1-5) or text (for example, A-F), where you define the best and worst score in the bestRating and worstRating properties. The rating can be a nested Rating or more specific subtype. The most typical subtype is AggregateRating. Here's an example of reviewRating.Rating:

"reviewRating": [{
  "@type": "Rating",
  "ratingValue": "3.0",
  "bestRating": "5",
  "worstRating": "0"
}]
EndorsementRating

A rating that expresses some level of positive endorsement for the item being reviewed. For example, inclusion in a "critic's pick" blog, a "Like", or "+1" on a social network. EndorsementRating is a rating by itself (for example, "2 thumbs up"), not a rating on a scale. Here's an example of reviewRating.EndorsementRating:

"reviewRating": [{
  "@type": "EndorsementRating",
  "name": "2 thumbs up",
  "ratingValue": "2"
}]

Additional guidelines:

  • Google recommends using a text string up to a few words in length (approximately 10-15 characters).
  • An EndorsementRating may be part of a numeric scale or organized system.
  • If the scale is not numeric, indicate that the endorsement is positive to help consumers understand that the rating is broadly positive.
reviewRating.bestRating

Text

The highest value allowed in this rating system. This property is required if the rating system is not on a 5-point scale. If bestRating is omitted, 5 is assumed.
reviewRating.ratingValue

Text

The rating given to the reviewed item. Letter grades are allowed. For example, "B+".
reviewRating.worstRating

Text

The lowest value allowed in this rating system. The worstRating property is required if the rating system is not on a 5-point scale. If worstRating is omitted, 1 is assumed.
URL

URL

URL of the web page that contains the full text of the review.

The webpage indicated by this property must contain a full-length review that is longer than 300 words.

Other use cases:

  • If no value is provided, Google assumes that the crawled page is the location of the review in its entirety.
  • If your structured data is on a page other than the one containing the full text of the review, or if you have multiple URLs for the full-text review, you must populate this property.
  • If you have duplicate pages for the same content, make sure you use the canonical URL.

Monitor rich results with Search Console

Search Console is a tool that helps you monitor how your pages perform in Google Search. You don't have to sign up for Search Console to be included in Google Search results, but it can help you understand and improve how Google sees your site. We recommend checking Search Console in the following cases:

  1. After deploying structured data for the first time
  2. After releasing new templates or updating your code
  3. Analyzing traffic periodically

After deploying structured data for the first time

After Google has indexed your pages, look for issues using the relevant Rich result status report. Ideally you should see an increase of valid pages, and no increase in errors or warnings. If you find issues in your structured data:

  1. Fix the errors.
  2. Inspect a live URL to check if the issue persists.
  3. Request validation using the status report.

After releasing new templates or updating your code

When you make significant changes to your website, monitor for increases in structured data errors and warnings.
  • If you see an increase in errors, perhaps you rolled out a new template that doesn't work, or your site interacts with the existing template in a new and bad way.
  • If you see a decrease in valid items (not matched by an increase in errors), perhaps you are no longer embedding structured data in your pages. Use the URL Inspection tool to learn what is causing the issue.

Analyzing traffic periodically

Analyze your Google Search traffic using the Performance Report. The data will show you how often your page appears as a rich result in Search, how often users click on it and what is the average position you appear on search results. You can also automatically pull these results with the Search Console API.

Troubleshooting

If you're having trouble implementing structured data, here are some resources that may help you.