If you publish product reviews in Spanish, German, French or another major language, the February 2023 product reviews update is the first one that can affect you directly. Google started rolling it out on February 21, 2023, and for the first time it covers 11 languages, not just English.
The short answer: Google now judges non-English reviews by the same standard it has used for English reviews since 2021. It rewards reviews that show real, hands-on use and pushes down reviews that only repeat product specs. This guide explains what changed, how to check your site, and what to fix first.
What Is the February 2023 Product Reviews Update?
The February 2023 product reviews update is the sixth release of Google’s product reviews system. This is a ranking system that looks only at content that reviews, compares or recommends products. It is separate from Google’s broad core updates.
Here is what Google confirmed on February 21, 2023:
- Start date: February 21, 2023.
- Rollout time: about two weeks. At the time of writing, it is still rolling out.
- Languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Russian, Dutch, Portuguese and Polish.
- Where: globally, in all of those languages.
- What it targets: product review content, including single reviews, “best of” lists and comparison posts.
Google announced it in a short post from its Search Central account. It said the update would take about two weeks to fully roll out. No other kinds of pages, such as news articles or service pages, are meant to be affected.
Product Reviews System vs Product Reviews Update
Google also changed the wording in its documentation at the same time. It now talks about the “product reviews system” instead of just the “product reviews update.”
The difference is simple. The system is the part of Google’s ranking that is always running. An update is a moment when Google makes a notable improvement to that system and tells us about it. In my view, this is a helpful change, because it reminds site owners that review quality matters all the time, not just in the weeks after an announcement.
The Big Change: More Languages
Every product reviews update before this one applied to English-language reviews only. Google said many times that it planned to add more languages. This is the update where that happened.
That matters a lot for review sites outside the English-speaking world. Many German, Spanish, Italian and Polish affiliate sites have watched English sites deal with these updates for almost two years. Some of them never had to change anything. Now they do.
Here is the history so you can see where this update fits:
| Update | Start Date | Languages |
|---|---|---|
| First product reviews update | April 8, 2021 | English |
| December 2021 update | December 1, 2021 | English |
| March 2022 update | March 23, 2022 | English |
| July 2022 update | July 27, 2022 | English |
| September 2022 update | September 20, 2022 | English |
| February 2023 update | February 21, 2023 | 11 languages |
If you want the background on the English updates, my guide to the March 2022 product reviews update covers what Google added for ranked lists and “best” picks. The September 2022 update came right after a core update, which made results hard to read for many sites.
Why English Sites Should Still Pay Attention
English is on the list too. So if you run an English review site, this is also a normal product reviews update for you. Your rankings can move in the same way they did in earlier rounds.
There is a second reason. Many English sites also publish translated versions of their reviews. If you have Spanish, German or French copies of your English reviews, those pages are now in scope as well.
What Google Looks for in Product Reviews
Google has not published a new checklist for this update. The guidance is the same one it has built up since 2021. What changed is that it now applies to more languages.
Google’s guide to writing high quality product reviews asks reviewers to do these things:
- Write from the point of view of a user and show you know the product well.
- Give evidence that you used the product, such as your own photos, audio, video or links to your own tests.
- Share measurements that matter for that type of product, and explain how it performs.
- Explain what makes the product different from its competitors.
- Cover similar products and say which one is better for which kind of buyer.
- List pros and cons based on your own research.
- Explain how the product changed from older models or versions.
- Point out the key decision points for that product category.
- Include links to more than one seller where it makes sense, so readers can choose.
For ranked lists, Google also asks you to explain why your “best” picks are the best, with first-hand support. And it says a ranked list should be useful on its own, even if you also have full reviews of each product.
The “Experience” Connection
This guidance lines up with a recent change to Google’s search quality rater guidelines. In December 2022, Google added “Experience” to E-A-T, which became E-E-A-T. I explained that change in my article on how E-A-T became E-E-A-T.
The rater guidelines do not directly rank pages. But they show what Google wants its systems to reward. For reviews, “experience” means one plain thing: did the writer actually use the product?
Who Is Most Likely to Be Affected
In my experience, the sites that lose rankings in product reviews updates tend to share a few habits. With the language expansion, I expect to see the same patterns in non-English markets.
- Translated reviews with nothing local added. A German page that is a direct translation of an English review often mentions US prices, US stores and US models. That is not very useful to a reader in Germany.
- Spec-sheet reviews. Pages that list the same features you can find on the maker’s site, with no testing, add very little.
- “Best of” lists built from other reviews. If a list just summarises Amazon star ratings, there is no first-hand evidence behind it.
- Stock images only. Manufacturer photos prove nothing about whether you held the product.
- One “buy” link to one store. This is not wrong on its own, but it often comes with thin content around it.
Sites that will likely gain are the ones that already did real testing but were held back by thin competitors. Ranking is relative. If a weak review drops, a stronger one moves up.
Is It a Penalty?
No. Google does not treat this as a manual action or a penalty. You will not get a message in Search Console about it.
A drop means Google’s systems now think other reviews are more helpful than yours for that search. That is good news in one way: you can recover by making your reviews better, not by filing a request.
How to Check If Your Site Was Hit
The rollout takes about two weeks, so rankings will move around for a while. I recommend you watch, take notes, and wait for the rollout to finish before you make big changes.
Here is how I check a site during a product reviews update:
- Note the dates. Mark February 21, 2023 as the start. Use Google’s Search Status Dashboard to check whether the rollout is still running.
- Open the Search Console Performance report. Compare the days after February 21 with the same number of days before. Look at clicks and average position.
- Filter by page. Use the Pages tab to see which URLs lost or gained the most. Check if they are review pages.
- Filter by country. If you have content in several languages, compare countries such as Spain, Germany, France and Poland. A drop in one country only can point to one language section of your site.
- Group your pages. Split results into reviews, “best of” lists, comparison pages and everything else. If only the review groups moved, this update is the likely cause.
- Look at who replaced you. Search your main terms and read the reviews that now rank above you. Note what they show that you don’t.
One common mistake I see is blaming a product reviews update for a drop on pages that are not reviews at all. If your blog guides, category pages or service pages also fell, something else may be going on. Look at technical issues, seasonality, or other Google changes before you rewrite anything.
What to Do Now: Fixing Your Product Reviews
Whether you were hit or not, now is a good time to check your review content. Here is the order I would work in.
1. Start With Your Most Valuable Pages
List all your review and “best of” pages. Sort them by clicks and, if you are an affiliate, by revenue. Fix the top 10 or 20 first.
I’d skip trying to rewrite hundreds of pages at once. A smaller number of truly strong reviews is better than many lightly edited ones.
2. Add Real Proof of Use
This is the single biggest fix for most sites. Add your own photos of the product, ideally in use. Short videos work well too.
Share what you measured or noticed. For a vacuum, that could be battery life in your home. For a pair of running shoes, how they felt after a few weeks of runs. Readers trust details like these, and so does Google’s guidance.
3. Make Translated Reviews Truly Local
This step matters most for this update. If you translate reviews, check each version for local details:
- Use local prices and currency, or leave prices out if they change often.
- Link to stores that sell in that country.
- Check that the model you review is sold in that market. Product names and versions often differ by region.
- Fix units, plug types, sizes and anything else that changes by country.
- Have a native speaker read it. Machine translation with no review often reads badly.
In my view, a short review written by someone who used the product in that country beats a long translated one.
4. Explain Your “Best” Picks
For every product in a ranked list, say why it is there. Who is it for? Who should skip it? What did you compare it against?
A clear format helps. I like a short “best for” line at the top of each pick, followed by a few sentences of first-hand reasons. Keep the full details on the single review page, but make the list useful by itself.
5. Add Honest Pros and Cons
Pros and cons should come from your own use, not the product box. Include at least one real downside. Every product has one, and readers know it.
If you never say anything negative, your reviews look like ads. That hurts trust with readers, and Google’s guidance clearly favours balanced reviews.
6. Compare With Other Options
Say how the product stacks up against its closest rivals. Mention what changed from the previous model. This is the kind of help a buyer cannot get from the maker’s page.
7. Show Who Wrote It
Add an author name and a short bio that explains why that person can review this kind of product. If you have a testing process, explain it on a separate page and link to it.
This is not a direct ranking factor that Google has named for this update. But it helps readers trust you, and it fits the “experience” idea in E-E-A-T.
Affiliate Links and the Product Reviews Update
Many people ask if affiliate links are the problem. They are not. Google has said for a long time that affiliate links are fine when the page adds real value.
The issue is thin affiliate content: pages that exist only to send clicks to a store, with little original information. Google’s product reviews guidance points to its advice on thin affiliate pages for this reason.
My rule of thumb is simple. If you removed every affiliate link, would the page still be worth reading? If yes, you are in a good place. If no, the links are not your problem; the content is.
How This Update Fits With the Helpful Content System
The product reviews system is not the only system that looks at content quality. Google’s helpful content system was first launched in August 2022 for English. Then, in December 2022, Google expanded it to all languages globally.
So non-English sites now face two quality systems that care about similar things: content made for people, written with real knowledge and experience. They are separate systems, but the fixes overlap a lot.
In my experience, if you fix your reviews for the product reviews system, you usually improve your site for the helpful content system at the same time. Just remember that the helpful content system works across the whole site, while this update is about review content.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Here are the reactions I’d avoid during and after this update:
- Changing everything mid-rollout. Rankings will move for about two weeks. Making big changes now makes it harder to see what worked.
- Adding words, not value. A longer review is not a better review on its own. Extra paragraphs with no new information will not help.
- Faking first-hand use. Writing “I tested this” without real testing is risky and dishonest. Readers notice, and it can hurt trust in your whole site.
- Deleting pages in a panic. Improve your best pages first. Only consider removing or merging pages that have no traffic and no real value.
- Ignoring smaller language sections. If your Polish or Dutch section is your least loved, it may be the one most likely to drop.
How Long Until You See Results?
Google said the rollout should take about two weeks. After that, results should settle.
If you improve your reviews, you may see some gains over time as Google re-crawls and re-evaluates those pages. But big recoveries often show up around the next product reviews update, when Google refreshes the system again. Google has not shared a fixed schedule for future updates, so I plan for slow, steady improvement rather than a quick bounce.
Final Thoughts on the February 2023 Product Reviews Update
The February 2023 product reviews update is not a new set of rules. It takes the same review standards Google has used for English since 2021 and applies them to 10 more languages. If you publish reviews in any of those languages, first-hand experience is now the bar.
Your next step: pick your 10 highest-traffic review pages in each language and check them against Google’s guidance. Add proof of use, local details and honest pros and cons. Then watch your Search Console data once the rollout finishes.
