Google Seller Ratings are sourced from across Google's licensed review partners, such as REVIEWS.io, and aggregated into an overall review score. Each company that has Seller Ratings has its own page on Google listing the various review sources and overall score. This is the score that informs how many stars appear under the Google Ads.
You can find Google's current review score for a business directly on their Google Seller Ratings page link. Here is how Bloom and Wild looks on Google's system. Note that these pages only exist for companies already eligible for Seller Ratings.
For any Google Search where paid ads are displayed, you'll probably have seen seller ratings appearing underneath in the form of stars. Here's an example of how two competing Google Ads look in Google SERPS. One contains Google Seller Ratings, the other does not.
This particular result is a Search ad result, which of course is not the only type of paid ad available in Google. If you're an e-commerce company then it's likely you're using Google Shopping (PLA) ads to drive traffic to your web store (if you aren't, you should because when done properly, Google Shopping produces a great ROI. If you need some tips on how it works, check out this blog post).
Stars appear in Google Shopping ads as well, but there are a couple of different options here. Some stars are product reviews, with an overall rating of that particular product regardless of who is selling it. The seller ratings actually appear in the expanded PLA, which you can get to by clicking on the star ratings itself.
Now that we've established what you're looking for, you'll know when your seller ratings aren't appearing. Let's look at possible reasons why your stars aren't showing up.
1) You're not collecting reviews with a Google-licensed review partner.
Let's get the obvious one out of the way first. Unless you collect reviews using a Google-licensed review partner like Reviews.io, you'll never be eligible for seller ratings. Reviews.io facilitates genuine review collection from your customers and Google have particular criteria when it comes to review collection and authenticity. You can't just collect and send reviews to Google yourself - they must be collected in a particular way and fed to Google using an official review feed from a trusted partner. Reviews.io can help with this, click here to find out more.
2) You've not collected enough reviews in a single territory
To get Google Seller Ratings, you'll need to collect 100 reviews in a 12-month period, and the average rating must be a minimum of 3.5 stars (out of five). This applies to each country that your business operates in. Here's how that works:-
Let's say you have a global e-commerce site that sells in both the UK and the USA. It's under one domain but customers can easily choose where the products are sent. When the transaction is completed, the customer receives a review invitation request, most commonly by email.
When they write the review, their location is stored along with their review rating and comment. This information is used by Google to decide where to show stars in paid ads.
Let's say you've collected 200 reviews in total. 140 reviews are written by USA customers, and 60 reviews are written by UK customers. When all these reviews are passed to Google, your business will become eligible to display Seller Ratings, but only for people searching in the USA.
So, Google uses two pieces of information, the reviewer's location and the searcher's location. If you've not collected enough reviews in one location, then stars won't show in paid ads for that location.
3) You're using the wrong campaign type in Adwords.
Google Seller Ratings are only going to appear in Search ads. They don't appear in Display ads, so if you're using a Display campaign, you won't see them. You campaign type should therefore be one that has the Search option, for example “Search Network Only”, “Search & Display Networks” or “Search Network with Display Select”.
As mentioned above, stars appear in Google Shopping Ads as well. You'll need a Google Merchant account for them to show, but if you are advertising in Google Shopping then you will already have one.
4) You're not rated highly enough
As I mentioned above, your average rating must be 3.5 stars or above to be eligible for seller ratings. If you don't have that score, they won't show. Use your review feedback to find out what your customers don't like about your service and change it to boost your review score.
With Reviews.io, you've got the option to look at Merchant Metrics and Sentiment Analysis, which are tools to read through your review content and pick out keywords so you don't have to.
You can quickly get an idea of issues - for example, if you have a lot of negative reviews all containing the word "delivery" - then you can be sure that your delivery partner is letting you down.
Fix these service issues and you'll see your rating soar.
5) You've not been eligible for long enough
Google Seller Ratings don't appear immediately on reaching 100 verified reviews. It could take up to 21 working days for them to appear, depending on Google's review cycle. So be patient and give it a few weeks.
As Google Seller Ratings are an automated extension, you aren't able to change any settings or have any control over whether they show or not. Assuming you've met the criteria outlined above, there might be a few reasons why they aren't showing in every search.
1) You're performing multiple searches from your own IP for the same keywords
If you spam Google search over and over again looking for your ads or extensions, Google will stop showing them to you, so don't be over-zealous in checking if they exist. If you really must check, then ideally you'll want to use Incognito mode in Chrome, but even then you may face issues.
Google may cache the results shown to you if you perform the same searches over and over again so this may be another reason why your seller ratings don't show.
If you have checked the eligibility link for your domain on Google and everything is good to go, then there isn't more you can do.
2) Google is deciding when to show your Seller Ratings
Time of day may be a factor in Google's decision to show your seller ratings, so if they're not there, try again a bit later on. Vary your keywords also, because different keywords have different intent.
Book a call with us or or sign up and we'll talk you through our packages. With the extra clicks on your ads that you'll get from displaying stars, and the increased quality score and reduced CPC as a result, you'll see positive ROI in no time from our review solution.
REVIEWS.io isn't just about Google Seller Ratings though, our comprehensive suite of tools lets you collect and monitor your reviews in all sorts of places online, all from within a single dashboard. We integrate with any website and give you full control over your review invitation templates, keeping you on-brand.
Also, we don't charge the earth, we work tirelessly to give you the best service and we don't do long contracts. Sign up today and one of our friendly team will give you a demo.
