Sending Your Reviews to Google
Show star ratings beside your products in Google Shopping and free listings. What Reorbit builds, what only you can do in Merchant Center, and how long it takes.
Reorbit builds a review feed and hosts it at a URL. That is our entire contribution. Nothing is sent to Google, and Reorbit never connects to Google. Four of the five setup steps happen in your own Google account, and we cannot see whether they have been done.
What are Google product ratings?
Product ratings are the stars and review counts Google shows beside your products in Shopping results and free listings. They come from a review feed that Google collects on a schedule.
Reorbit builds an XML file of your eligible reviews, keeps it up to date, and hosts it at a URL. Google does not know that file exists until you tell it.
Turning the switch on produces a document sitting on a web address nobody has asked for. It stays that way until you complete the steps below in your own Google account.
Here is the split, so nothing is a surprise later:
| Reorbit does | You do, in Google |
|---|---|
| Builds your review feed and rebuilds it daily | Apply to Google’s Product Ratings programme |
| Hosts it at a stable URL | Register that URL in Merchant Center as a scheduled fetch |
| Decides which reviews are eligible | Make sure your product identifiers are good enough to match |
| Reports what the feed contains | Wait out Google’s processing, and keep the data source healthy |
We cannot do any of the right-hand column. Merchant Center is the only place that reports whether your ratings are actually live.
Before you start
Three things gate this, and all three are Google’s:
- A Google Merchant Center account, with your products already in it.
- At least 50 reviews in the feed. Google does not show product ratings for a shop below that floor. It counts what is in the feed, which is usually fewer than your total review count — reviews drop out for the ordinary eligibility reasons.
- Product identifiers Google can match on — GTIN, or MPN plus brand, or SKU. Google matches reviews to products by identifier, not by any link to your store, so weak identifiers mean a feed that fetches perfectly and matches nothing.
Budget 2 to 4 weeks after everything is registered before ratings appear.
Step-by-step
1. Turn on Google product ratings
From the app, go to Settings → Reviews → Google product ratings and turn it on. This is the only step that happens inside Reorbit.
Your feed is not built the instant you save. Wait for the screen to say your feed is built before you go any further. If you register the URL in Merchant Center before the first build lands, Google records a failed fetch against it — and repeated failures get a data source switched off.
2. Apply to Google’s Product Ratings programme
Fill in Google’s Product Ratings interest form.
Do this before step 3, not after. It is reviewed by a person at Google and takes weeks to come back, and it is not automatic just because you have a Merchant Center account. Register the feed first and you end up watching a data source that fetches cleanly and produces nothing, with no way to tell that the missing piece is a form you never filled in.
3. Add your feed URL to Google Merchant Center
Copy your feed URL from the Reorbit screen using the copy button. In Merchant Center, go to:
Analytics → Reviews → Product reviews → Product review data sources → Add product reviews → Scheduled fetch
Choose “enter a link to your file” and paste the URL.
Copy it, don’t retype it. You are pasting into a system Reorbit has no access to. We cannot see what you entered, cannot correct a typo, and cannot migrate you to a different URL later. A single wrong character produces a data source that fetches nothing and eventually gets disabled.
4. Check your product identifiers
Make sure your products carry a GTIN, or an MPN plus brand, or a SKU that matches what is in your Merchant Center product data.
This is the most common reason a feed sits marked Inactive with no ratings ever appearing. Check it now rather than discovering it in a month.
5. Wait for Google to process the feed
Expect 2 to 4 weeks. Google also requires the feed to keep refreshing — a feed that goes stale gets de-listed. Reorbit rebuilds yours daily, so that part is covered for as long as your plan is active and the destination is on.
Reading the Google screen
The screen reports the state of your feed and nothing more, because the feed is the only part Reorbit can see.
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Off | Your review feed isn’t being built, so there is nothing for Google to collect. |
| Not built yet | Turned on, first build hasn’t landed. Don’t register the URL yet. |
| Below the threshold | The feed is built but carries fewer than 50 reviews. Nothing appears on Google until you clear the floor. |
| Build failed | Something went wrong at our end, not yours. |
| Stale | The feed hasn’t rebuilt recently. Ours to fix. |
| Ready | Your feed is built and fit for Google to collect. |
“Ready” is as good as this screen gets, and it is deliberately not a green tick. It means the file is built and collectable. Whether your ratings are actually showing depends on three steps we cannot observe — Merchant Center is the only place that knows.
Why some reviews aren’t in the feed
| Reason | What it means |
|---|---|
| Not published yet | Held for your response, or hidden. It goes out on its own once it publishes. |
| Rejected in moderation | You took this one down. Restoring it from Reviews puts it back in the queue. |
| No product linked | The review isn’t attached to a product, so there is nothing to attach it to at the other end. |
| Product not found | The product no longer exists in your store. |
| Anonymised | Removed under a privacy request. It stays out permanently. |
| Language unknown | We don’t know what language it was written in, and Google requires one. |
| Destination turned off | The switch is off. Turning it on clears this on the next pass. |
| No active subscription | Nothing is built while the plan is lapsed. Resubscribing releases the whole backlog. |
Managing it
The data source belongs to you
The data source lives in your Google account, not in Reorbit. If it gets changed, paused, or switched off — Google switches one off after repeated failed fetches — it has to be put right in Merchant Center. We can’t see it from here and we can’t fix it for you.
This is worth knowing up front, because there is no later moment at which Reorbit could warn you. A disabled data source looks, from our side, exactly like a healthy one.
Your Shopify switch changes what Google shows
The Shopify product reviews switch decides whether reviews collected in the Shop app count toward your star ratings — including the ratings in this feed. Turning that switch off changes what Google shows, with nothing on the Google screen touched.
Tips and best practices
- Apply to the programme first, register second. The application is the long pole; everything else takes minutes.
- Fix identifiers before you wait. A month spent waiting on a feed Google can’t match to products is a month wasted.
- Don’t register the URL until the feed is built. Failed fetches count against you.
- Keep collecting reviews if you’re under 50. The screen tells you how many further on you need to be.
- Check Merchant Center, not Reorbit, when ratings don’t appear. Reorbit can only tell you the file is fine.
FAQ
Does Reorbit send my reviews to Google?
No. Reorbit builds and hosts a file. Google collects it, on a schedule you set up in your own Merchant Center account.
Why do I need 50 reviews?
It’s Google’s floor for showing product ratings at all. Google counts the reviews in the feed, which is usually fewer than your store’s total, so aim comfortably above 50 rather than exactly at it.
I turned it on weeks ago and nothing shows on Google.
Work through the steps above in order. In practice it is almost always one of: the Product Ratings application was never submitted, the feed URL was never registered, or the product identifiers don’t match. Merchant Center will tell you which.
Can Reorbit tell me if my Merchant Center data source is working?
No. We have no access to your Google account. The Reorbit screen reports the feed’s state; Merchant Center reports everything after that.
Can I change my feed URL?
No. It’s fixed for your store. That’s also why it’s worth copying rather than retyping.
Do I have to do anything to keep the feed fresh?
No. Reorbit rebuilds it daily for as long as your plan is active and the destination is on.
Related
- Sending Your Reviews to Shopify — the Shop app and native theme star ratings.
- Moderating Reviews — the response window decides when a review becomes eligible to send.
Common questions
- Does Reorbit send my reviews to Google?
- No. Reorbit builds and hosts a file. Google collects it, on a schedule you set up in your own Merchant Center account.
- Why do I need 50 reviews?
- It's Google's floor for showing product ratings at all. Google counts the reviews in the feed, which is usually fewer than your store's total, so aim comfortably above 50 rather than exactly at it.
- I turned it on weeks ago and nothing shows on Google.
- Work through the steps in order. In practice it is almost always one of: the Product Ratings application was never submitted, the feed URL was never registered, or the product identifiers don't match. Merchant Center will tell you which.
- Can Reorbit tell me if my Merchant Center data source is working?
- No. We have no access to your Google account. The Reorbit screen reports the feed's state; Merchant Center reports everything after that.
- Can I change my feed URL?
- No. It's fixed for your store. That's also why it's worth copying rather than retyping.
- Do I have to do anything to keep the feed fresh?
- No. Reorbit rebuilds it daily for as long as your plan is active and the destination is on.