Rich review snippets

[Larry Linson]

I really can't figure out how the rich snippets for reviews works. I am thinking about where you see in the SERP results a line for "rating" and you have the yellow stars. I have seen these two sites:

https://beckerlaw.com/kentucky-disability-claims-lawyer/https://www.thetexasattorney.com/social-security-disability/
Both these sites get the yellow stars. Yet if you look at the page, there are no reviews on that actual page yet if you look at the page in pagesource form you do see the actual reviews and the language from the reviewing client! Is the AggregateRating schema on the page pulling them over from the "testimonials" page?

 

[Phil Rozek]

@Larry Linson, they're using JSON-LD markup, though not in a kosher way, because the reviews aren't visible ON the page.

More info here:
https://whitespark.ca/blog/how-to-use-aggregate-review-schema-to-get-stars-in-the-serps/

 

[Larry Linson]

So do you think that they are risking a Google penalty?

 

[Phil Rozek]

In theory, yes. In practical terms, nah.