Local pillar / check review-signals

Reviews and testimonials

Whether buyers can see what your customers say: testimonials on the page, a testimonials page, or a link to a third-party review profile.

By Shimon Carroll, Founder, SEO for AI Agents · Last updated

What this check measures

Testimonials on your homepage (quoted reviews, star ratings, a "What our clients say" section), a link to your own testimonials or reviews page, and links to review profiles on Google, Yelp, BBB, Trustpilot, G2, Clutch and the directories each industry uses (Avvo, Martindale and Justia for lawyers; Healthgrades, Zocdoc and Vitals for medical practices; Zillow and Realtor.com for agents). We also note, without scoring it, rating markup that sits on your own business entity.

Why it matters

Google's rater guidelines say customer reviews can be helpful for assessing the reputation of a business, and ask raters to read them with care. Reviews on platforms you do not control are the independent kind. Google also stopped showing review stars for reviews a business hosts about itself on LocalBusiness or Organization markup (2019), so the value of reviews is in buyers reading them, not in markup.

How we score it

Editorial. No testimonials, no testimonials page and no review profile link lowers the local pillar at low severity, or medium for local service businesses (law, medical, accounting, real estate). Any one of the three passes. Self-serving rating markup is a note only. This check sits in the local pillar, so it follows the local rule. When the local checks run: for accountants, lawyers, medical practices and real estate audits they always run, because a missing address or Maps link is itself the finding. For every other audit they run only when the pages we read show a physical location or a service area: a street address or a city and state, a Maps link or embedded map, LocalBusiness, opening-hours, geo or address schema, locations or service-area pages or wording, or a city or state in the title or headings. When none of these appear, each local check is marked not applicable with that reason. It does not score, it is left out of coverage and of the overall, and it never enters the action plan.

Confidence-flag rules

MEDIUM: links are read exactly; recognizing a testimonial block is a reading of the page.

Common mistakes

  • Testimonials inside an image slider with no text.
  • A Google review widget with no link to the Google profile itself.
  • Adding aggregateRating to your own LocalBusiness markup to try to get stars.

How to fix it

Show a few real customer testimonials as text, and link your Google Business Profile and one industry review site from the footer of every page. Law firms should check their state bar rules on testimonials first. Medical practices should not post patient testimonials without the patient's written HIPAA authorization; link Healthgrades, Zocdoc or your Google Business Profile instead and agree the review plan with your privacy officer.

Primary sources

Changelog

  • · Local checks now apply only to businesses that show a physical location or service area on the pages we read, unless the industry always runs them. Online-only sites see each local check marked not applicable with the reason, and the local pillar does not score.
  • · New. Complements the self-serving review markup check: that one says what not to mark up, this one asks whether buyers can see real reviews at all.
  • · Medical practices get review advice that respects HIPAA: third-party review platforms, and patient testimonials only with written authorization.
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