Rich Snippets: Google ratings in search results (2021)

A sunny day is dawning…. You come into the office, grab a coffee and open your browser. Before you start working, you check your position on Google: everything as usual, position #3.The main difference between you and the first two?

They use Google reviews in search results…. What would happen if there were stars under your search result? That’s the question I’d like to answer for you today – so stay tuned, it’s worth it! 😉

Rich Snippets – What do these stars bring?

These gold stars that your competitors are already using are called “rich snippets” or “structured data.” Thereby certain characteristics of your company are already displayed in the search results before the click.

In practice, it looks like this:

The advantages are obvious:

• You clearly stand out from the crowd
• You build trust before the seeker has clicked
• You get significantly more clicks and your rankings improve

Three really good reasons to take a closer look at the subject, don’t you think? 😉

If you stand out, you win.

If your search result generates more attention and clicks, you will benefit significantly. First, your click-through rate increases, at the same time you will be positioned higher in the search results. Higher click-through rates and better rankings then ensure noticeably increasing visitor numbers!

Danny Sullivan, founder of Search Engine Land and a consultant at Google, confirmed it himself:

“The ranking depends on the click-through rate. If we find that 80% of users click on the second search result and only 10% click on the first, we swap the respective positions. Obviously, the second search result is what the users are looking for.” – Quote translated into German

Impressive facts & figures!

You’re probably curious by now, right? I can understand that, so let’s move on to the interesting part! We have added rich snippets to about 20 projects so far. One of the most impressive results we achieved was with a client who provides translation services.

February: without Rich Snippets (blue)
March: with Rich Snippets (green)

Results after the first month with Rich Snippets:

Clicks: +82%
Impressions: +18%
Click rate: +53%
Average position: +11%

I probably don’t need to say anything more about these results – they speak for themselves. You probably won’t find an easier way to almost double your traffic anytime soon 😉

Get the traffic you deserve!

If you haven’t dealt with Rich Snippets before, it’s high time you started now. The advantages are obvious – the integration and configuration is done in a few hours, depending on the CMS. But you get this effort back in the form of more visitors in a very short time 🙂

Do you have any questions about this topic? We are happy to help you!

Just get in touch with us! 🙂

Update 2020 – Google regulates the stars!

Recently Google announced in its Webmaster Central Blog that the display of stars in the Rich Snippets will be revised. In order to display 5 out of 5 stars in one’s own search result, it was previously only necessary to edit one’s own source code – which of course opened the floodgates to manipulation.

To prevent such abuse, Google will no longer display ratings in the SERPs that can be manipulated accordingly. In addition, Google no longer wants to accept reviews that are “self serving”. This means that Google will no longer accept third-party reviews as rich snippets.

Which ratings are still accepted?

This does not mean that stars will no longer be displayed in the search results. Only ratings of shops or entire sites are affected. Reviews for a single product will still be presented by Google.

Also, reviews in Google Ads or Shopping search results are not affected.