The March 2022 Google Product Reviews update is now fully rolled out, Alan Kent from Google told me. The updated started on March 23, 2022 and ended 19 days later on April 11, 2022. Alan Kent told me "Sorry for the delay in response. It was almost... almost... almost.... Yes! The rollout is now complete!" Here is that response on Twitter:
Sorry for the delay in response. It was almost... almost... almost.......
— Alan Kent (@akent99) April 11, 2022
Yes! The rollout is now complete!
This product reviews update was the 3rd version of this product reviews update algorithm, the previous two versions were the April 2021 Product Reviews Update and the December 2021 Product Reviews Update. The March version was updated to incorporate more signals and criteria in this niche ranking algorithm.
This March 2022 version was super slow to kick in but then on March 31st we saw some big volatility and then again on April 5th as well.
Google Product Reviews Update March 2022 Quick Facts
Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:
- Name: Google March 2022 Product Reviews Update
- Launched: March 23, 2022 at around 12:00pm ET
- Rollout: Finished rolling out on April 11, 2022 at around 3pm ET
- Targets: It looks at product review content
- Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards "insightful analysis and original research."
- Not a core update: Many are going to say this is a core update, it is not.
- English Language but will expand: This is only looking at English-language content right now but likely will expand soon to other languages, this is a global launch.
- Impact: Google would not tell me what percentage of queries or searches were impacted by this update.
- Discover: This update can impact your performance in Google Discover, Google previously said.
- Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google's advice below
- Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. This may be the first refresh that Google has done, it is the first refresh Google communicated about.
I have a lot more detail on this update in these stories:
- March 2022 Google Product Reviews Update Rolling Out - Everything We See So Far
- For Google Updates, The Product Reviews Update III Is Not That Huge - So Far
- Now Seeing Volatility For The Google Product Reviews Update (v. March 2022)
- Immense Google Search Ranking Volatility; The Tail End Of The Product Reviews Update?
I also have a data centric post on this update at Search Engine Land.
So now that it is really fully done, you can start to see if you were hit by this update - maybe?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update on January 3, 2023: It seems Google is now saying this was completed on April 6, 2022:
April 6th does seem wrong? I mean @akent99 said it was done on April 11th https://t.co/oHE9D3xGjP
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) January 3, 2023
John said on Mastodon, "It's hard picking a date for some of these (especially afterwards). For many (not all) updates, the update rolls out, it takes a while to be visible (which is when we call it a start), and it takes a while to be in most queries / URLs / datacenters (which is when we call it done). There's no binary border for start / stop, it's more about "starts being visible" and "mostly settled down". It's a bit like timing when bread rises when you bake it."
And then this:
When I checked on April 11th it was "done". But it was actually "done" earlier.
— Alan Kent (@akent99) January 3, 2023
"Done" is a grey definition as systems roll out across multiple data centers and and process backlogs at different rates. So its really do we say done at 99.9% or 99.99% or ... (I'm done)
