February 2023 product reviews update

The date that matters for non-English sites

The first four reviews updates applied to English-language reviews only. A Spanish, German or Portuguese affiliate site could not have been demoted by the reviews system before 21 February 2023, no matter what its content looked like.

That single fact resolves a lot of misdiagnosis. If a non-English review site declined in 2021 or 2022, the cause was something else, and audits that assumed reviews-system damage from those years were looking in the wrong place.

What non-English sites were suddenly judged on

The same standard, applied to markets that had never been exposed to it. Evidence of first-hand use, quantitative detail, coverage of drawbacks, comparison against alternatives, and a named reviewer with a stated method.

Many non-English affiliate markets had been running on translated or lightly rewritten English content, which fails that standard on its face. Others were built on manufacturer specifications in local language, which fails equally.

Recovering a non-English review site

• Translation is not first-hand experience. A translated review of a product nobody at the site handled fails the standard in every language.
• Local evidence is an advantage. Local pricing, local availability, local warranty terms and photographs taken in your market are all things an English source cannot provide.
• The system is continuous now. Since December 2023 there are no named releases, so improvement can be reassessed within weeks rather than waiting for an announcement.

Source: Google ranking updates list