Search Engine Roundtable reports that Schema App says star ratings and other review snippets no longer appear for healthcare pages in Google results, even with correct structured data.
What was reported
On October 7, Search Engine Roundtable reported that Google appears to have stopped showing star ratings and review excerpts (review rich results) in search results for healthcare web pages.
The report comes from Andrea Bader of Schema App, a company that helps with structured data. Schema App says some of its healthcare clients saw review displays decline from late May, with a further drop in early August.
What was tried, and where things stand
Schema App reportedly tried several implementations, including different ways of writing properties, tying aggregateRating to the right entity, and combining it with Product markup. None of them brought the displays back.
Its healthcare clients are said to be choosing to keep their markup semantically accurate rather than chase the return of the stars. The reporting does not include an official explanation from Google, so the cause is unconfirmed. The article's author also says they have not seen healthcare review snippets in ordinary searches for doctors or dentists.
Background and context
Structured data is a standardized way of describing a page's content to search engines. The article notes that Google has previously chosen not to show certain rich results for particular topics, even when the markup is correct.
Reviews on a Google Business Profile, which appear in map results, are a separate mechanism from the review displays on web pages discussed here. The two should not be confused.
TAKEAWAY
What this means for your project
If your site uses review markup to earn star ratings, especially in healthcare, check how those results trend in Search Console. A drop is not necessarily a markup error. Keep the markup accurate, but do not depend on stars: make services and organization details clear on the page, and keep responding to reviews on your Google Business Profile.