Review Schema and AggregateRating: How to Show Stars in Search

What review schema is

Review schema (JSON-LD) marks up either an AggregateRating (your overall star rating and review count) or individual Review items. When valid and eligible, Google can display gold stars in the results — a “rich snippet” that stands out and gets more clicks.

The AggregateRating block

For a business, you add AggregateRating inside your LocalBusiness markup:

"aggregateRating": {
  "@type": "AggregateRating",
  "ratingValue": "4.8",
  "reviewCount": "127",
  "bestRating": "5",
  "worstRating": "1"
}

Build the full, valid block with our free review schema generator — it outputs copy-paste JSON-LD from a simple form.

Google’s rules — follow them or lose your rich results

Google’s review snippet guidelines are strict, and violations can suppress all your rich results:

• The rating must be visible to users on the same page you mark up — not hidden or invented.
• It must reflect genuine reviews, not numbers you made up.
• Self-serving reviews (a business reviewing itself) aren’t eligible. The safe pattern is to display an aggregate built from third-party reviews and mark up that same figure.

This connects to the broader FTC rules on fake reviews — don’t fake the numbers.

LocalBusiness vs Product review markup

Use AggregateRating within LocalBusiness for a business’s overall rating (see LocalBusiness schema). Use Product review markup for a specific product page. Don’t mix them up.

Validate and monitor

Test with Google’s Rich Results Test after adding it, and re-check periodically — Google occasionally changes what’s eligible. Valid markup is a prerequisite for stars, but Google decides when to actually show them.

Stars advertise the rating you have

Schema only shows off the rating you’ve earned — the real lever is the rating itself. A page marked up with 4.8 stars earns far more clicks than the same page at 3.9. Tailwind grows your genuine rating and review count so the stars you display keep climbing — see how it works. Reviews also drive rankings and AI recommendations (reviews and AI search).

Earn the stars that get more clicks. See how Tailwind works.