Stars in Google

Structured data are a few lines of JSON-LD at the bottom of the page that tell search engines what the page contains. FAQ & Reviews writes them by itself, only on single pages and posts, and only for what is visible on the page.

FAQPage

The questions shown on a page, from one FAQ block or many, go into one FAQPage list, as Google asks. A question shown twice is listed once. Since 2023 Google shows FAQ rich results mainly for government and health sites; the data stay valid and are read by other search engines and AI assistants. If your SEO plugin already writes FAQPage for the same pages, switch off FAQPage structured data in FAQ & Reviews > Settings: Google wants only one.

Review and AggregateRating

Google shows review stars only for reviews of something: a product, an app, a course, a book. Since 2019 it ignores the reviews that a company or a shop publishes about itself (Organization, LocalBusiness), which it calls “self-serving”, and it can take action against sites that mark them up anyway.

That is why the plugin adds review data only for review sets that say what is reviewed:

1. Open FAQ & Reviews > Review sets, add a set (for example Photography course) or edit one.
2. In What these reviews are about choose A product, An app or a piece of software, A course or A book, and fill in the name. Brand, image and price are optional; for software Google needs a price (write 0 for a free app).
3. Tick the set on its reviews, and choose the set in the Reviews block.

The block then shows the average and the number of reviews above the list, always, because Google wants the rating visible to visitors, and writes the product with its AggregateRating and the reviews shown. Testimonials about your company go in a set set to Nothing, or in no set: they are shown on the page, without structured data.

Check a page

Open the page, then paste its address in Google’s Rich Results Test. Structured data are written only on the published page, not in the editor preview.