You expected Lipscore ratings and reviews to display in your Google Shopping ads, and yet they are not there? Take a look at the most common reasons for ratings and reviews not showing in the Google Shopping ads and verify if you completed all the required steps.

How to display Lipscore ratings and reviews in Google Shopping ads

We know that it is important for you to show your customer ratings and reviews in Google Shopping ads. This is why we created an XML feed you can upload to your Google Merchant Center. Please refer to the article about Uploading Lipscore XML feed to Google Merchant Center for step-by-step instructions.

Common reasons why ratings and reviews do not show in the Google Shopping ads

1. The file has not been uploaded to the Google Merchant Center

If you have not uploaded the file to your GMC account yet, please follow the steps described in Uploading Lipscore XML feed to Google Merchant Center.

2. GTIN numbers are not sent to Lipscore via integration

The data that is sent to Lipscore needs to contain GTIN numbers (Global Trade Identification Numbers). GTINs have different names in different parts of the world or for specific product types: UPC in the US, EAN in Europe, JAN in Japan, ISBN for books. These numbers are required by Google and therefore, products that do not have a GTIN number in our database are automatically excluded from the Lipscore XML feed. In the native Lipscore apps for Shopify, Woocommerce and Magento, this functionality can be activated upon app configuration. However, not all other partner apps allow it. If you integrated Lipscore via API, the integration needs to be updated so that products[][gtin] value is added (see API documentation). 

3. There are no Product URLs in data sent to Lipscore

The fully qualified URL of the product details page in your webshop (including https://) is yet another requirement for displaying ratings and reviews on Google Shopping. These URLs need to be fully qualified product URLs – homepage URL won’t do and products lacking fully qualified URL will be rejected from Lipscore XML feed.

4. You have less than 50 ratings and/or less than 3 ratings per product

Google requires that the XML feed contains at least 50 ratings (in total for all products) for the feed to be approved, and each product needs at least 3 ratings to get a spot in the feed. If your XML feed contains less than 50 ratings, you will need to wait until more products are viewed, so that it is updated with ratings and reviews information (read more about it in the next point), or/and until you have collected more ratings.

5. You have not implemented the Rating widget on your product pages

Each time a product page is visited by your shopper, Rating widget is triggered and information about all ratings and reviews for this product are sent to the XML feed (the file is updated every day at c. 5 am). Without the Rating widget, Lipscore will not receive the page-view data and the feed will not be updated. Also, it is in the Rating widget where Schema.org markup is contained and only if this widget is implemented, stars have a chance to show in Google organic search.

The Rating widget does not have to be visible on your product pages – but it has to be there in the page code. You will find the Rating widget code snippet in the Widgets page and once it is implemented, you can hide the rating widget hide using CSS in the Lipscore account (Settings > General > There Settings).

6. Your products have not been viewed within the last 2 months

Google XML Feed only contains reviews for products that have been viewed in the last 2 months.

Google validates all URLs in the XML feed and checks if the product actually exist and is available in the webshop. If the URLs do not exist, the feed will not be approved, and no ratings or reviews will appear in Google Shopping.

Each time a product page is visited by your shopper, information about all ratings and reviews for this product will be sent to the XML feed (the file is updated every day at c. 5 am). Please note, that the prerequisite here is that the Rating widget is installed on the page. Without it, Lipscore will not receive the page-view data and the feed will not be updated.

By removing products that have not been viewed in the last 2 months from the feed, we reduce the chance of including products that are no longer for sale, that might cause the file to fail.

7. You have not waited long enough

After the XML feed is uploaded to your GMC it can take up to a few weeks for it to be processed and approved. The eligibility status in Merchant Center will show a status of ‘inactive’ while approval is still pending. After your store is onboarded and active in the program, the status will display as ‘active’. The status change itself can take 4-5 days.

8. Google works in mysterious ways…

We know that as a marketer you are probably allergic to this phrase – but you also know it is true. We can prepare the most robust XML feed for you and you can correctly upload it to the Google Merchant Center and have it approved, and yet Google may still refuse to display the ratings and reviews in Google Shopping ads for the reasons only their algorithms will know. As they state themselves in the Product Rating Basics:

Lipscore reviews in Google Shopping – examples

Despite Google’s mysteries, we have had a lot of success displaying the shoppers’ feedback in our customers’ Google Shopping ads, and here are a few examples. Please note, that star ratings represent the aggregated rating for the product, compiled from multiple sources including merchants, review aggregators, review sites, and Google users. Examples of reviews coming from Lipscore are marked green.

Devold.no

Apotek1.no

Mimmis.no

Davoy.no

Make sure to complete all the steps of Uploading Lipscore XML feed to Google Merchant Center instructions and contact your Google Merchant Center consultant if the ratings and reviews are not displayed, despite the feed approval.