Off-Site & Authority · 3.10
Reviews & Rating Schema
Marking up your genuine review score and count in a machine-readable format, so AI tools can read it as a hard data point rather than inferring your reputation from scattered text.
Why this matters
The customer’s side
An AI naming an agent with a clearly stated, credible rating feels more trustworthy than a vague, unquantified mention.
The AI’s side
Strongly observed: AI uses a declared score as a shortlist filter
For "best X" and comparison-style questions, AI increasingly uses a declared review score as a direct filter when building its shortlist. Worth knowing: this genuinely needs to be sourced from a real third party (Google, Trustpilot) — AI and search engines both discount ratings that look self-published.
How to check yours
Method 1 — Check with the Rich Results Test
confirms whether the markup exists at all.
- 1.Check whether your site currently has AggregateRating schema implemented, using the same Rich Results Test as the Schema Markup item.
Method 2 — Check the source is genuine
AI and search engines both discount ratings that look self-published — worth confirming yours isn't one of them.
- 1.Check that the rating in your schema is correctly attributed back to a real third-party platform (Google, Trustpilot), not generated internally.
How to fix what you find
Missing entirely
add AggregateRating schema, correctly attributed to a genuine third-party source.
- 1.Ask ChatGPT or Claude to generate AggregateRating JSON-LD schema using your real review score and count from Google or Trustpilot.
- 2.Add it to your homepage (or wherever your reviews are most prominently featured) and re-run the Rich Results Test to confirm it validates.
It exists but isn't correctly attributed
fix the source reference so it points to a genuine third party, not something that reads as self-published.
- 1.Check the schema's source reference actually names Google, Trustpilot, or wherever the reviews genuinely came from.
- 2.Correct it if it's missing or generic, since both AI and search engines discount ratings that don't trace back to a real platform.
Your score is solid but review count is low
this isn't a schema problem, it's a volume problem — the review-generation approaches from the Reviews lesson in the SEO guide feed directly into this one.
Keeping on top of it
Your real score changes constantly as new reviews come in — this needs syncing monthly, or it quietly goes stale and AI works from an outdated number.
How Reyse handles this
Done With You
we tell you exactly how to keep this synced.
Done For You
we keep this updated automatically, ongoing.