json-ld for testimonials

Question

We currently have some pages on our website that lists local businesses and on those pages we have testimonials.

I'm trying to make the json+ld for these pages and I read that for testimonials, you are meant to use the Review schema but for the itemReviewed, you should put organization.

With this in mind, I have come up with the following json:

{
  "reviews": [{
    "author": {
      "name": "Joe Blogs",
      "@type": "Person"
    },
    "itemReviewed": {
      "name": "Test Company",
      "@type": "Organization"
    },
    "reviewBody": "This is a testimonial 1",
    "@type": "Review"
  }, {
    "author": {
      "name": "John Smith",
      "@type": "Person"
    },
    "itemReviewed": {
      "name": "Test Company",
      "@type": "Organization"
    },
    "reviewBody": "Testimonial text 2",
    "@type": "Review"
  }, {
    "author": {
      "name": "Jane Doe",
      "@type": "Person"
    },
    "itemReviewed": {
      "name": "Test Company",
      "@type": "Organization"
    },
    "reviewBody": "Testimonial content 3",
    "@type": "Review"
  }],
  "url": "http://www.example.co.uk",
  "@context": "https://schema.org/",
  "name": "Test Company",
  "@type": "LocalBusiness",
  "image": "https://www.fillmurray.com/200/300"
}

But when I test the snippet at https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool, the reviews are failing with

Multiple reviews should be accompanied by an aggregate rating.

How should I be adding testimonials as they don't have a rating (or is there a way to not need the aggregate rating for multiple reviews)?

Answer 1

1. Your statement for the itemReviewed, you should put organization is wrong. Where do you have it from? Google lists a bunch of types, which can be reviewed: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/review-snippet?hl=en

2. That is true: without rating values you will not get the errorfree validiation through SDTT. This is currently by design.

You can use reviews. And you can use multiple reviews. But to get the snippet validated by SDTT it is required to use rating/aggregateRating to give Google something numeric. You can use multiple reviews without ratings - it is valid syntax:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org/",
  "review":
[{ "@type": "Review",
  "itemReviewed": {
    "@type": "Restaurant"
  },
  "name": "A good seafood place.",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Bob Smith"
  },
  "reviewBody": "The seafood is great.",
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Washington Times"
  }},
 { "@type": "Review",
  "itemReviewed": {
    "@type": "Restaurant"
  },
  "name": "A good seafood place.",
  "author": {
    "@type": "Person",
    "name": "Bob Smith"
  },
  "reviewBody": "The seafood is great.",
  "publisher": {
    "@type": "Organization",
    "name": "Washington Times"
  }}]
}

Test it here: https://json-ld.org/playground/, and you'll see.