How does Google evaluate reviews/ratings?
By now it is well-known that customer ratings have a strong impact on a Google ranking. Google evaluates customer ratings based on different criteria:
Count
In Google's world popular brands rank higher than unpopular ones. Customer ratings, especially good ones, help your product/brand to gain prominence.
That is how you show Google that your product/company/brand is relevant. You can score higher in your Google ranking if you have more ratings and better star ratings than your competitor.
Quality of content
Google also pays attention to the content of the customer ratings. Not only the count but also the content matters.
The search engine algorithm carefully analyzes the content of customer ratings and lets it influence its ranking. Adjectives such as „great“, „best“, or „horrible“ are collected by Google and impact the rating factor.
Guide customers to a google review with questions: „How did you like our service?“
A study of BrightLocal (2017) discovered that 50% of all consumers write reviews if they are asked to do so. Stay in actively in touch with your customer.
Variety
Fact is, Google likes to see a person having positve customer ratings on different portals. Also it plays a major role for a potential customer if you have generated customer reviews on several pages.
A survey of BrightLocal illustrates that the majority of consumers (59%) look at 2-3 pages with customer ratings before making a decision to buy.
Star ratings
Aside from the count and content of customer ratings, star ratings are evaluated from Google and have a strong impact on the ranking factor.
When it comes to the decision to buy, star ratings have a tremendous influence on customers.
According to a study of Brightlocal 58% of all consumers consider star ratings to be the most important.
Frequency
Also the frequency in which customer ratings are submitted have an impact on the Google ranking.
A study of BrightLocal has shown that 73% of all consumers believe that ratings that are older than three months are no longer relevant for the decision to purchase. Keep a webpage up to date.