Multiple sets of review data may cause issues

For years, I've been saying that Google Search doesn't care if you have multiple sets of product data with one caveat. If you use Merchant Center, they tend to get confused with multiple sets of product data.

After months of research, that opinion hasn't changed. Google Search will use the most complete set of markup and ignore the others.

I do, however, have some new findings when it comes to review data.

Google Search still doesn't care if you have multiple sets of product data.

Google Search does care if you have multiple sets of aggregateRating markup for your reviews.

Many review apps will automatically add aggregateRating markup to your theme. In theory, this sounds great, but something changed in early 2024. Perhaps that was around the same time they rolled out ProductGroup markup; I'm not exactly sure.

I am confident now that having more than one set of aggregateRating data can prevent reviews from showing up in Rich Results.

As a structured data app serving thousands of Shopify stores, I have the privilege of seeing a lot of different stores using different review apps. It allows me to test why a store may or may not show reviews in search results on a larger scale. Something that an SEO Consultant wouldn't get simply because they can only work with so many clients at one time.

Over the last 9 months, I've been working with many customers to turn off their markup provided by the review apps. In most cases, within 1-2 weeks of turning off the extra data, reviews started to show in Rich Results.

If you aren't seeing reviews in Rich Results and you have multiple sets of aggregateRating markup, there may be a simple solution. Consider turning off the review markup from the review app provider and/or removing your theme provided markup. 

If you're a JSON-LD for SEO customer and use any of the 30+ review apps we integrate with, the risk is very low. We already provide the aggregateRating and a more complete set of product markup than your theme, so it's best to keep the reviews in JSON-LD for SEO.

Most review apps can turn off their automatic markup. If you don't see a setting, reach out to their support. Some review apps require you to contact customer support to turn off their data.

When in doubt, feel free to reach out to me. I'd be happy to take a look at your structured data to see if this could be why you're not seeing reviews in Rich Results.

Of course, I must end this with a disclaimer.

The types of Rich Results Google shows and the data it uses are all up to their algorithm. JSON-LD for SEO always includes as much data as you have set up, including the prices, availability, and reviews. It depends on their algorithm if they show something or not.

Adding structured data makes your site eligible for Rich Results. Google does not guarantee Rich Results will be shown, nor do they guarantee that all results will receive Rich Results.