Google Stopped Displaying Rich Snippets Stars
-
Background
- Google stopped displaying stars next to the website "szallas.hu" in the SERPs, eg: http://goo.gl/RXSS58
- Google used to display the stars
- there is no technical problem, since I can see the stars in the Rich Snippet Testing Tool: http://goo.gl/bQUSNr
Why did Google stop showing the stars? What can I do? I already filled in a form at https://support.google.com/webmasters/contact/rich_snippets_feedback.
-
It could just be Google re-shuffling things and fine-tuning who gets stars and who doesn't. Here are a few things that have helped in my experience:
- Don't go crazy with the schema markup, especially for stars. I see people adding ratings to blog posts just to get stars, and those are all gone now. Add them where they make sense and are conventionally used (e.g. on product/place pages, not on category/type pages).
- Avoid re-using the same aggregate ratings or reviews that go into aggregate ratings on multiple pages.
- Make sure you've nested the right tags in the right orders according to the latest rules - they change sometimes. Sometimes the snippet tool will say something's correct when it's really out of order.
- Tag entities, not keywords. E.g. don't tag the entity as "The Marriottt Inn, Resort, and Spa in City, State" - tag it as "Marriott" or "Marriott Hotel" and list the location separately.
If you're doing all these things it might just be a matter of weak entity association, borderline user metrics, or insufficient site trust.
-
If you check the SERP I've provided, you can see, that all the competitors actually have the stars. Some kind of quality issue may be the cause, but can't think of any valid reason.
What could cause the removal of the stars? Because szallas.hu is the biggest player in the field (in hungary), all the reviews are real without any manipulation, spam or whatsoever.
Maybe too many reviews for a few hotels? But that's ridiculous, since what can I do if we have that much reviews for popular hotels? And what about the thousands of hotels with just 1 or 2 reviews?
Can't wrap my head around this issue, I really have no idea what could make Google think that there is some spamming going on.
-
Google has been planning to scale back on the frequency of rich snippets. Matt Cutts mentioned this to an extent at PubCon in October (link). Google has also recently begun going after those that have spammed and/or manipulated rich snippets in a deceptive manner (link). Your stars disappearing may just be part of the changes in the works.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
HTTPS, free certificates and Google seo
As we all know, Google decided to give some weight in rankings to encrypted sites. SSL certificate providers are quite a lot out there, but there is also a free alternative (Let’s Encrypt). I've been going over some of these services and compared Godaddy's and the above certificates, and there isn't much of a difference. The question is: using a free certificate would have the same effect as a paid one? I would rather pay for one than be punished for using a free one, but free would be good too.
On-Page Optimization | | anitawapa
What's your take on this? Thank you0 -
Why does Google not show my Meta Descriptions Sometimes ?
Hi Friends We have Meta Descriptions on our Pages but when certain keywords are typed into google search , different meta descriptions are created , for example when searching for "fancy dress" we see our meta description which is correct - Shop with Party Domain for all your Fancy Dress. 1000s of Fancy Dress Ideas at CHEAP Prices. Halloween Fancy Dress. Next Day Delivery and Same Day ... However when searching for "fancy dress costumes" the same page is ranked but the meta description is Fancy Dress. Female Pirate Fancy Dress Costume. £ 13.80. Female Pirate Fancy ... SKU: G11034. Pirate Captain Fancy Dress Costume. £ 12.22. RRP: £ 15.02 ... Thanks Adam
On-Page Optimization | | AMG1000 -
New google serps page design
hi i know title length displayed is now based on pixels rather than character but still thought safe to have titles up to 70 characters long before they are truncated i see that on the new G serps designed pages titles that were showing in full on old design (without truncation) are now being truncated. As in same title shows fine (displays in full) on old design serps but truncated on new designed page Anyone else notice this ? Cheers Dan
On-Page Optimization | | Dan-Lawrence1 -
Google Xml Sitemaps
Which plugin is good to use to create and submit my sitemap: sitemap from yoast or google xml sitemap plugin?
On-Page Optimization | | Sebastyan22
Which one is better? I already saw this video but I get an error when I submited it to webmaster tools and I don't know why:http://www.quicksprout.com/university/how-to-set-up-and-optimize-a-sitemap/_''Your Sitemap appears to be an HTML page. Please use a supported sitemap format instead.''_Thank you !0 -
Submitting URLs to Bing and Google
Does Submitting URLs to Bing and Google actually do anything? Is it worthwhile? What I mean is submitting intermittently individual URLS after already submitting the sitemap.
On-Page Optimization | | FCAbroad0 -
Remove internal site SERPS from Google Index?
1. Internal Serp pages did not have a robots meta tag 2. As a result, client site has thousands (~4,400) of internal site SERP pages in the Google index. 3. We added the NoIndex, Follow attribute to all internal SERPS 4. We Disallowed: domain.com/internal-search-operator in Robots.txt 5. No new SERP pages are being indexed, but the other 4000 something that were already there are still in the index weeks later. 6. The pages are dynamically created and still work, so I can't use the Remove Content tool from google, because the pages don't 404. Is there any way to get these pages out of the index besides just waiting and hoping google eventuall drops them? Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | delegator.com0 -
Does Google still see masked domains as duplicate content?
Older reads state the domain forwarding or masking will create duplicate content but Google has evolved quite a bit and I'm wondering if that is still the case? Not suggesting that a 301 is not the proper way to redirect something but my question is: Does Google still see masked domains as duplicate content? Is there any viable use for domain masking other than for affiliates?
On-Page Optimization | | TracyWeb0 -
Does google treat all urls equal?
Sorry for the lame title, i couldn't think of a better one. I want to know if google treats this: http://www.domain.com/products/some-product-name the same as it would treat: http://www.domain.com/?products=some-product-name if not, could you tell me the differences?
On-Page Optimization | | adriandg0