Google December product reviews update affects more than English language sites?
In Google’s December product reviews update, they revealed that it would be rolling out to the English language. No timeline has been given on the rolling out of other languages. However, Google’s John Mueller did respond to whether it will roll out additional languages or not.
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Google December Product Reviews Update
On Dec 1, 2021, Google tweeted that their December product reviews update will roll out to English language websites.
The primary reason for this update was to enhance the quality of studies appearing in Google search results. The update is primarily centered around review sites.
A Google Andy Tweeted About the Description of Sites That Would Face Lowering of Search Rankings:
“Mainly relevant to sites that post articles reviewing products.
Think of sites like “best TVs under $200″.com.
The goal is to improve the quality and usefulness of reviews we show users.”
Google also introduced a blog post for more information on the update with two new premier exercises that Google’s algorithm would review for ranking.
The first exercise required evidence of actual product review and handling by the publisher.
The second exercise was linking different e-commerce sites for product purchases.
Google’s Tweet revealed that the new December product reviews update would roll out to English language sites. But their blog post neither clarified what languages it was rolling out nor specified that the update was limited to English review sites only.
Does December Product Reviews Update Affect Other Languages Too?
The concerned person was sure that the product review update only acted on English language search rankings. Yet he noticed turbulence in German language review sites that appeared to be related to product review updates.
His question was:
“I was seeing some movements in German search as well.
So I was wondering if there could also be an effect on websites in other languages by this product reviews update… because we had lots of movement and volatility in the last weeks.
…My question is, is it possible that the product reviews update affects other sites as well?”
To which Mueller responded:
“I don’t know… like other languages?
My assumption was this was global and across all languages.
But I don’t know what we announced in the blog post specifically.
But usually, we try to push the engineering team to make a decision on that so that we can document it properly in the blog post.
I don’t know if that happened with the product reviews update. I don’t recall the complete blog post.
But it’s… from my point of view, it seems like something that we could be doing in multiple languages and wouldn’t be tied to English.
And even if it were English initially, it feels like something that is relevant across the board, and we should try to find ways to roll that out to other languages over time as well.
So I’m not particularly surprised that you see changes in Germany.
But I also don’t know what we actually announced with regards to the locations and languages that are involved.”
So, according to Mueller, Google’s product review update should have rolled out to multiple languages worldwide and not only to English. However, Google’s Tweet on the December product reviews update said otherwise. Even their blog post didn’t mention any particular language for rolling out.
Conclusion
There could be a possibility that Google’s Tweet wants to convey that the update was rolling out initially to the English language followed by other languages.
Until Google clarifies, it is still vague if the product review update affects only English or more.