Google has confirmed that the April 2023 reviews update is now finished rolling out. This update announced on April 12, 2023, has officially completed rolling out over a 13-day period.
February 2023 reviews update. As a reminder, the April 2023 reviews update started to roll out at about 12 p.m. ET on April 12. This update took 13 days to roll out after it was announced. So this update started on April 12 and lasted through April 25, 2023, Google posted.
This update goes beyond Google’s prior product reviews updates to evaluate reviews of any topic that is reviewable, including:
- Services and businesses.
- Destinations.
- Media (e.g., games, movies).
Google has changed the name of its “product reviews system” to “reviews system” and has altered the language in multiple parts of its guidance documentation around product reviews to now apply to all types of reviews.
Why we care. If your website offers general review content, you will want to check your rankings to see if you were impacted. Did your Google organic traffic improve, decline or stay the same?
Long term, you are going to want to ensure that you put a lot more detail and effort into your review content. Make it unique so it stands out from the competition on the web.
If you need more advice on this update, see our previous story over here.
Previous product review updates. This is the seventh release of the formerly known as product reviews update, now the reviews update and was released on April 12 at about 12 pm ET. The first product reviews update was launched on April 8, 2021, the second was launched on December 1, 2021, the third has been released on March 23, 2022, and the fourth was released on July 27, 0222, and the fifth was released on September 20, 2022 and the sixth was released on February 21, 2023.
