Review Sentiment: Is It A Google Ranking Factor? - Search Engine Journal

Review sentiment reflects the prevailing opinion but is it a ranking factor? In this chapter, we look at the claims and evidence.

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Review sentiment reflects the prevailing opinion shared by customers in reviews of a business’s products or services.

Whether the sentiment is positive or negative is thought by some to have an impact on a business’s search rankings.

There’s legitimate concern over those claims, as it would leave businesses vulnerable to negative SEO attacks if rankings could be lowered with bad reviews.

Conversely, there’s concern about competitors artificially inflating their rankings with fake positive reviews.

There’s no question review sentiment can influence consumer behavior and impact metrics like conversion rate.

But does it have any influence on Google’s search rankings?

Let’s look at the claims and evidence surrounding review sentiment as a ranking factor.

The Claim: Review Sentiment Is A Ranking Factor

Review sentiment gets brought up in discussions about Google ranking factors, with some claiming that a positive sentiment can boost rankings and a negative sentiment can lower rankings.

There are a number of reasons for these claims.

One of the most frequently cited pieces of “evidence” is the correlation between high ranking websites and businesses that have positive...

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