July 2022 Product Reviews Update: What Changed and What to Do

If you run a review site or publish “best of” lists, your rankings may start to move this week. Google started rolling out the July 2022 product reviews update on 27 July 2022. It affects English-language product reviews, and Google says it will take about two to three weeks to finish.

The short version: Google has not given us new rules this time. It is the same system, refreshed and tuned. So the work you need to do is the same work Google has been asking for since April 2021: reviews that show real use, real knowledge and real comparisons.

Below I’ll explain what we know, what changed (and what didn’t), how to tell if you were hit, and what I would do this week and in the weeks after.

What Is the July 2022 Product Reviews Update?

The product reviews update is a ranking change that targets pages giving advice about products. Think “Best Running Shoes for Flat Feet”, “Dyson V15 Review” or “iPhone 13 vs Pixel 6”. Its goal is to reward in-depth reviews written by people who clearly know the product, and to push down thin pages that just repeat the maker’s specs.

It is separate from Google’s broad core updates. A core update looks at all kinds of content. This one looks at review content in particular.

Here is the timeline so far:

• 8 April 2021: the first product reviews update, English only.
• 1 December 2021: the second update, which added advice about showing evidence of testing and linking to more than one seller.
• 23 March 2022: the third update, with more advice on ranked lists and “best” picks.
• 27 July 2022: the fourth update, the one rolling out now.

So this is the fourth round in about 16 months. In my view, that pattern matters more than any single release. Google keeps re-running and refining this system, which tells you review quality is a long-term focus, not a one-off clean-up.

What Changed in This Update (and What Didn’t)

When Google announced the update, it did not publish any new guidance. That is different from December 2021 and March 2022, when each release came with fresh best practices.

That suggests this is a refresh. Google has likely improved how the system spots good and weak reviews, and then re-run it across the web. Sites that improved since March may gain. Sites that slipped or never fixed their problems may lose.

What stays the same:

• Language: it still applies to English-language product reviews only. Google has said it plans to support more languages later.
• Scope: it applies to single-product reviews and to ranked lists and comparison pages.
• Type of signal: it is about content quality, not about technical issues or links.

I’d treat any claim of a “secret new factor” with caution. Google hasn’t said there is one, and the safest plan is to follow the guidance it has already published.

Who Is Most Likely to Be Affected?

Any page that reviews, compares or recommends products can be touched. In practice, these are the sites I would watch most closely:

• Affiliate sites that earn commission from Amazon or other retailers, especially those built around “best X” lists.
• Publishers with a shopping or “deals” section bolted on to a news or lifestyle site.
• Brand and ecommerce blogs that write review-style posts about their own or other products.
• Sites that scaled fast with many short reviews written from spec sheets rather than hands-on use.

In my experience, the pages that suffer most look the same from site to site. They list ten products, give each one a paragraph that could have been copied from the box, add a buy button and stop there.

A product page on an online store is not a “review” in this sense. Customer star ratings on your own product pages are a different thing. This update is about editorial content that helps someone decide what to buy.

What Google Means by a High-Quality Product Review

Google’s original April 2021 guidance for product review creators is still the best place to start. It lists questions you should be able to answer “yes” to. In plain words, a good review should:

1. Show expert knowledge about the product where it fits.
2. Show what the product is like to hold and use, with details the maker doesn’t give.
3. Give measurements of how it performs, such as battery life, noise level or speed.
4. Explain what makes it different from its competitors.
5. Cover similar products, or say which product is best for which use.
6. Discuss pros and cons based on your own research.
7. Explain how it has changed from earlier models, where that helps buyers.
8. Name the key things a buyer should look at in that category and rate the product on them.
9. Describe key design choices and how they affect the user.

The December 2021 update added two more points. First, give evidence that you actually used the product, such as your own photos, video, audio or test results. Second, think about linking to more than one seller so the reader can choose where to buy.

Then in March 2022, Google’s post on product review ranking one year on added advice for lists:

• Ranked lists and comparisons count too. You can show expertise in them by citing test results and using your own photos.
• If you call something “the best”, say why. Explain what sets it apart, backed by your own experience with it.
• If you publish both a list and separate single reviews, the list should still have enough useful content to stand on its own.

How to Tell If the July 2022 Product Reviews Update Hit Your Site

The first rule is patience. The rollout is expected to take two to three weeks, and rankings often bounce around during that time. I don’t make big changes based on the first few days.

When you do check, use this process:

1. Mark the date. Note 27 July 2022 as the start in your analytics and reporting, so you can line up any changes against it.
2. Open the Search Console Performance report. Go to Search results and compare the period after the update with the same length of time before it. Use the Compare tab on the date filter.
3. Filter to your review pages. Use a page filter, such as URLs containing /reviews/ or /best-. If your review content has no clear URL pattern, export the pages and tag them in a spreadsheet.
4. Check clicks and average position together. A drop in position on review pages, while other pages stay flat, points towards this update.
5. Look at queries, not just pages. See which “best”, “review” and “vs” queries lost ground. That tells you which topics Google now thinks someone else covers better.
6. Rule out other causes. Check for seasonal drops, tracking problems, site changes you made recently, and any manual actions in Search Console.

One practical point: if your review pages and your other content both dropped by a similar amount, the cause may be something else. The May 2022 core update finished rolling out in early June, so make sure you’re not mixing two separate changes. My guide to the May 2022 core update covers what to check for that one.

What I Would Do Right Now

Whether you dropped, gained or saw nothing, this is a good time to review your review content. Here’s how I’d approach it.

Wait Before Making Big Changes

Don’t rewrite or delete pages in the middle of a rollout. You’ll mix your changes with Google’s and won’t know what worked.

Use these weeks to collect data and plan instead.

Sort Your Review Pages Into Groups

I like a simple three-way split:

• Keep: pages with real testing, original photos and clear opinions. Update them lightly.
• Improve: pages on topics you know well but that are thin today. These are the biggest chance for gains.
• Merge or remove: pages where you have no real experience with the products and no plan to get it.

I’d start with the “Improve” group, and within it, with the pages that used to bring the most traffic. That is where effort pays back fastest.

Add Proof of Real Use

This is the change I see make the most difference to review pages. Replace stock images and maker photos with your own. Show the product in your hands, in your kitchen, on your desk or on your feet.

Add the details only an owner would know. For example, “the lid is hard to open with wet hands” or “the charging cable is too short to reach a desk from a floor socket”. These small details show you used the product.

If you test things, show the results. A table of battery life times, or a short note on how you measured noise, gives readers something they can’t get from the product page.

Fix Your “Best” Lists

Many lists tell you that a product is great but never say why it beats the others. For each pick, answer three questions:

• Who is this best for?
• What does it do better than the other options on the list?
• What is the main downside?

Also add a short “how we chose” section near the top. Say what you tested, what you looked at and what you left out. This helps readers trust the list, and it lines up with what Google has asked for.

Be Honest About Drawbacks

Reviews that only praise products read like adverts. Every product has trade-offs, and saying so makes the rest of your review more believable.

I always include a clear “who should skip this” note. It is one of the most helpful lines for a buyer, and it is rare on thin affiliate pages.

Link to More Than One Seller Where It Makes Sense

Google suggested this in December 2021. It is not a must, but if every link on your site points to one retailer, consider adding a second or third option.

It gives readers a real choice and makes the page look less like a sales funnel. Only add sellers you’d be happy to send a reader to.

Show Who Wrote the Review

Add a clear author name, a short bio and a note about their experience with the product type. A review of hiking boots means more when it’s written by someone who hikes.

This also ties into E-A-T (expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness), which Google’s quality rater guidelines use to judge content. Raters don’t change rankings directly, but their guidelines show what Google wants its systems to find.

Product Reviews Update vs Core Update

People often mix these up, so here is a quick comparison.

The two can overlap. A thin review page can be hurt by both, because both reward helpful content written with real knowledge.

How Long Recovery Can Take

This is the question I get most after any update. The honest answer is that nobody outside Google knows exactly.

What we do know is how this system has behaved so far. Google has run it as a series of updates, a few months apart. Many site owners have seen the biggest changes line up with those updates rather than happening slowly between them.

So my rule of thumb is this: if you were hit, improve your pages now and expect to judge the results over months, not days. Improving a few pages lightly is unlikely to move much. Improving the review section as a whole gives you a better chance at the next update.

Also remember that “recovery” may not mean getting back to old positions. If a competitor now has better reviews on a topic, you need to beat that page, not just match your old one.

Common Mistakes I See After Product Reviews Updates

• Adding words, not value. Making a review twice as long with general filler won’t help. Length is not the goal; useful detail is.
• Fake “hands-on” claims. Saying “we tested” with no photos, data or specific detail doesn’t convince readers, and I don’t think it convinces Google either.
• Deleting pages in a panic. Removing a whole section during the rollout throws away pages that might be worth improving.
• Chasing the wrong cause. Changing title tags, links or site speed won’t fix a content quality problem.
• Covering too many product types. A site reviewing blenders, tyres and baby monitors with no real expertise in any of them is hard to trust.

Planning New Review Content After This Update

If you’re planning new reviews, start with topics where you can truly test or use the products. That one choice decides most of the quality later.

Then pick keywords with the reader’s buying stage in mind. “Best budget espresso machine” needs a comparison. “Breville Bambino review” needs depth on one product. “Bambino vs Gaggia Classic” needs a side-by-side. My keyword research guide for beginners explains how to turn seed words like these into a content plan.

For each new review, I use a simple brief: what was tested, how it was tested, who it’s for, who should skip it, and which photos or data prove the points. If a writer can’t fill that brief, the review isn’t ready to be written.

Conclusion

The July 2022 product reviews update is a refresh of a system Google has been building since April 2021. It brings no new rules, but it re-checks review content in English against the guidance Google has already shared.

Give the rollout its two to three weeks, then measure your review pages in Search Console. Whatever the result, the next step is the same: add proof of real use, explain your picks clearly and be honest about downsides.

If you want to see how the advice has built up over time, read my breakdown of the March 2022 product reviews update, then pick your five most important review pages and start improving them this week.