How to activate Google Shopping Ratings and product stars on Google

Google Shopping is managed from Google Shopping. Open the domain of the store you want to set up to review the requirements, activate the ratings feed, and check how Google identifies your products.

Requirements to activate the feed.

• Have a plan compatible with Google Shopping.
• Have a compatible, active ecommerce connection associated with the store.
• Use a validated domain. The domain configured in Google Merchant must belong to that domain or one of its subdomains; temporary Shopify domains are not valid.
• Have at least 50 active product reviews whose URLs belong to the domain of the feed.

If any requirement is missing, the screen shows the reason and does not allow activating the feed. When everything is correct, use Activate ratings feed. Revi will prepare and update the product reviews feed for that domain. The appearance of stars is not immediate: Google processes and approves the information according to its own timelines and criteria.

Advanced catalog settings.

• My catalog sends combinations as separate products: activate it only if in Google Merchant each size, color, or variant appears as an independent product.
• Use a fixed brand for all products: use it only when the catalog needs to always send the same brand. The value must match brand in your product feed.
• How Google should identify your products: define which identifiers Revi sends to link each review with the correct product.

The default strategy, All available, sends the available identifiers of the product. You can also prioritize or limit the sending to GTIN, brand + MPN, or brand + SKU. The Only options do not use alternatives when the chosen combination is missing; Do not send identifiers omits all identifiers. Keep All available unless the actual structure of your Google Merchant catalog requires a different strategy.

Check the Product identifier summary to see the calculated coverage on active products with reviews. If there are unidentified products, first correct GTIN/EAN, MPN, SKU, and brand in your catalog, or choose the strategy that matches the data you actually send to Google Merchant. If you meet the requirements but the feed cannot be activated, or the coverage does not improve after correcting the catalog, contact support indicating the store, the domain, and the selected strategy.

The star ratings of your products may appear in different spaces on Google, but they are generated by different mechanisms depending on the space.

Google Shopping Ratings (Google Shopping ads). This is the mechanism Revi activates with Google Shopping Ratings. The stars appear only in Google Shopping ads (Shopping campaigns in Google Ads). They are not shown in text search ads or in other ad formats.

Rich Snippets (organic search results). This is a different mechanism: in Google's organic search results, the average product rating may appear thanks to the structured data (schema.org) that Revi adds to your site. This visibility does not depend on having active campaigns, but it does depend on Google deciding to display the snippet.

In short: if you want stars in your Shopping ads, activate Google Shopping Ratings. If you want stars in organic results, make sure Revi's widgets are correctly integrated into your product page and the Rich Snippets are generated automatically.

For Google Shopping Ratings to display your stars in Shopping ads, your account and your products must meet several requirements.

1. Minimum review volume.

50 published product reviews in total. They can be 50 reviews of the same product, or 1 review on each of 50 different products, or any combination.

2. Valid product identifiers.

Your products must include unique identifiers so Google can link reviews to the correct product. The most common are: EAN or GTIN code (recommended), SKU + brand (manufacturer) combination, or MPN + brand combination. If your catalogue does not have EAN/GTIN, configure SKU and brand on each product so the sync works.

3. Active Google Merchant Center account.

You need a Google Merchant Center account with your product feed uploaded. The stars appear in ads served from that feed.

4. Google's approval.

After activating Google Shopping Ratings from Revi, Google reviews the request and can take up to 6 weeks to start showing the stars in your ads. This timing is managed by Google directly.

In Google's organic results, the average product rating may appear as a Rich Snippet (stars + number of reviews) next to the product title.

Unlike Google Shopping Ratings, it does not require specific activation or a Merchant Center account: it is generated automatically when your Revi widgets are correctly integrated into the product page, because Revi adds the structured data (schema.org) that Google needs to build the snippet.

Important. Google decides when to show the Rich Snippet based on its own criteria (relevance, data quality, search context). Having structured data well defined is a necessary condition but does not guarantee that the snippet will always appear.

If the widgets are installed but stars do not appear in organic results, you can:

1. Check in Google Search Console that the product pages have Product structured data with aggregateRating.
2. Test specific URLs with Google's Rich Results Test.
3. If the data is correct and stars still do not appear, wait: Google may take weeks to start showing the snippet.