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I am implementing Schema.org structured data on our ecommerce reviews site.

On product review pages one can see many reviews (which are annotated with structured data). But these reviews also appear on the front page in a 'recent reviews' column, and I am uncertain whether I should be marking up everything, or just critical parts of the site.

Will implementing structured data change the way that search engines see our data as 'duplicate'? Or perhaps, they just see it as duplicate either way.

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    Google doesn't usually penalize for duplicating content within your own site. At worst, Google just doesn't index pages that don't have any unique content. See What is duplicate content and how can I avoid being penalized for it on my site? Google has very good algorithms for identifying content duplication and I don't think that your use of structured data is going to change that.
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 17:41
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    You do have to make sure that you are applying structured data according to the specs and documentation. Google does sometimes penalize sites for sites that abuse structured data by using it inappropriately or stretching it to apply to situations for which is was not intended.
    – Stephen Ostermiller ♦
    Commented Dec 20, 2017 at 17:44

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According to the Google specification for structured data type Product:

a product page that describes a single product.

Accordingly, all structured data for type Review for a particular product must be installed only on the web page with this particular product.

According to the Google specification for structured data type Review:

You can supply ratings for the following content types: Local businesses + Movies + Books + Music + Products.

I can assume that it's unlikely your front webpage has content with a description of a single product. Therefore, we can ignore the latter type. If you have structured data for one of the specified types, this will work, but only for the specified type. For example, if your front page has a markup for type LocalBusiness then all reviews (and their structured data) should have a relationship to the local business, but not to the products they offer.. Accordingly, duplicating product reviews on the front webpage can be perceived as a violation of Google's recommendations and is not valid.

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  • wow thanks that's really helpful. So if we have a bunch of links to different products on our front page we should probably avoid marking them up at all with structured data.
    – Daniel Thompson
    Commented Dec 21, 2017 at 1:32
  • @Daniel Thompson I do not think it's right to you completely reject the reviews. Many users when considering the purchase of a product take into account the opinion of other buyers. Valid responses increase the trust of your customers potentsialnyh to offer you the product. And these reviews enhance trust Google to your website searchengineland.com/…
    – user29419
    Commented Dec 21, 2017 at 5:59
  • I still plan on including structured data for reviews, but they happen to be included on the product page. I figure that since they aren't anywhere else that I'll be find marking them up on the product page (they kind of appear in a style that looks like comments).
    – Daniel Thompson
    Commented Dec 21, 2017 at 8:09
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Will implementing structured data change the way that search engines see our data as 'duplicate'?

No, or at least there's currently no evidence to suggest so.

However, the extent to which the recent reviews are a problem may depend on other factors. Are you displaying full reviews on the homepage, and how quickly do you acquire new reviews?

If rate of acquisition is sufficient that "recent" content changes daily, it's almost certainly changing each time a search engine bot visits – so no duplication problem.

Either way, if you preview just a snippet of the full review, the duplication is minimised sufficiently to remove concern.

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