What does Google require for incentivized reviews in structured data?

Definition: Google says a review exchanged for money, a discount, a voucher, or a free product is an undisclosed incentivized review when the incentive is not clearly and prominently disclosed. Reviews in review snippet markup must be based on a genuine product or service experience and be available to users on the marked-up page.

Key facts

• Google's review snippet documentation says not to include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews on the page or in structured data markup.
• The same documentation gives reviews exchanged for money, discounts, vouchers, or free products as examples when the incentive is not clearly and prominently disclosed.
• Google requires review content in markup to be readily available to users and immediately obvious on the marked-up page.
• Google's general structured data guidelines say structured data must represent the page content and must not describe hidden, irrelevant, or misleading content.
• For a local business or organization, Google says ratings must be sourced directly from users.

What does Google consider an unacceptable incentive disclosure?

In the version updated 8 September 2026, Google's review snippet guidelines say: “Don't include fake or undisclosed incentivized reviews on your page or in your structured data markup.” The rule applies to the visible page and to the markup that describes it.

Google gives two examples. A review fails the genuine-experience requirement when it is not based on a genuine experience of the product or service. A review exchanged for a benefit, including money, discounts, vouchers, or free products, fails the disclosure requirement when the incentive is not clearly and prominently disclosed. The wording sets two conditions for an incentivized review represented in markup: the experience must be genuine and the benefit must be disclosed clearly and prominently.

What must the page and markup represent?

Google's general structured data guidelines require original content generated by the site or its users. They also say not to mark up content that is not visible to page readers, and not to mark up irrelevant or misleading content such as fake reviews. The structured data must be a true representation of the page content.

The review snippet page applies that rule specifically to reviews. Review text and the associated rating must be visible to users. If a page contains multiple individual reviews, Google says to include an aggregate rating of those reviews. Its general guidelines add that the structured data should include all reviews visible on the page, because omitting some can mislead people who expect the search appearance to represent the page.

For a basic review object, the documented fields can be represented as follows. The visible page still needs to show the corresponding review text, rating, and author information.

{
  "@type": "Review",
  "reviewRating": {
    "@type": "Rating",
    "ratingValue": 4
  },
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Bob Smith"
  }
}

Do local businesses have an additional restriction?

Yes. Google's review snippet documentation says that when the reviewed entity controls reviews about itself, pages using LocalBusiness or another Organization type are ineligible for the star review feature. The page gives a business website with its own reviews, including reviews displayed through an embedded third-party widget, as an example of that situation.

The same local-business guidance says ratings must come directly from users and says not to rely on human editors to create, curate, or compile ratings information for local businesses. These rules apply alongside the genuine-experience and disclosure requirements.

How can a site check the implementation?

Google lists JSON-LD, Microdata, and RDFa as supported structured data formats, with JSON-LD listed as recommended. Its general guidelines say the Rich Results Test and the URL Inspection tool can test most technical errors.

Google also warns that a structured data violation can prevent rich result display or lead to a manual action. A structured data manual action removes a page's eligibility for rich result appearance, while the documentation says it does not affect how the page ranks in Google web search.

Related terms

• Review structured data
• AggregateRating structured data
• Structured data
• JSON-LD

FAQ

Can a review received after a free product be marked up?

It can meet Google's stated incentive condition when the review reflects a genuine experience and the free product is clearly and prominently disclosed. The review also needs to be visible on the page and represented accurately in the markup.

Is a disclosure hidden in structured data enough?

Google's guideline describes the disclosure as clear and prominent and separately requires review content marked up in structured data to be available to users on the page. A disclosure that exists only in markup does not meet the page-visibility condition described in the documentation.

Can a business mark up reviews copied from another website?

Google says not to aggregate reviews or ratings from other websites. For local businesses, its guidance also says ratings must be sourced directly from users.

Sources

1. Google Search Central, "Review Snippet (Review, AggregateRating) Structured Data", 8 September 2026
2. Google Search Central, "General Structured Data Guidelines", 10 July 2026

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