Healthcare organizations can still earn rich results, but review star snippets for medical pages have quietly stopped showing in Google Search. Search Console data from healthcare-focused customers shows the decline started in late May 2026, with a second drop in early August, and the change has held even when review and aggregateRating schema was adjusted to match Google’s guidelines.
What changed for healthcare review snippets
Review snippets are the star ratings and short review excerpts that appear under a page’s listing in Google Search results. They typically come from review or rating schema on a page, and the snippet shows the average score across many reviewers.
For healthcare sites, those star snippets are no longer appearing at the same rate. Performance reports filtered by the review snippet search appearance show a clear two-step decline, and testing different ways of wiring up review schema did not bring the stars back.
What the schema testing covered
To rule out a markup problem, the team behind the observation tried several adjustments on healthcare pages that previously earned review snippets:
- Different ways of connecting aggregateRating to the page entity.
- Alternative property paths between the page, the reviewed item, and the rating.
- Multi-typing healthcare entities with Product to see if combining schemas restored eligibility.
None of these restored review snippet visibility, which points to a Google-side decision about which industries get review rich results rather than a markup error on the affected sites.
Is this just healthcare?
Google has a track record of turning rich results on and off, sometimes only for certain industries. The pattern here matches that history: a quiet removal scoped to a specific vertical rather than a broad algorithm update. Personal spot checks on searches for doctors, dentists, and similar queries outside of Google’s local results also no longer surface review stars on the regular web results, which lines up with what the Search Console data shows.
What healthcare sites should do next
The markup that earned those rich results is not wasted. Healthcare organizations can get a larger return by using schema markup to define the business itself for search engines and AI systems, with markup that clearly states:
- Who each physician is and their credentials.
- Where each location is, with consistent address and contact details.
- What services and specialties are offered at each location.
- How physicians, locations, and services relate to the parent organization.
Structured data like business-level schema keeps working when a specific rich result type such as review snippets is turned off, and it feeds the entity understanding that Google and AI search systems use to surface answers to patient questions about specific providers, treatments, and locations.
How to track whether your healthcare pages still get review snippets
Use Google Search Console’s performance report and filter by the review snippet search appearance. That view shows impressions and clicks only from results that displayed the review rich result, so a drop stands out clearly against organic traffic. Comparing healthcare pages against non-healthcare pages on the same domain is a quick way to confirm whether the loss is industry-specific or a site-wide issue.
The bigger picture for review schema
Schema markup that accurately describes a business, its people, and its services is the part an organization controls, and it keeps paying back across traditional search and AI-driven results.
FAQ
Why are Google review snippets gone for healthcare pages?
Healthcare sites lost review rich snippet visibility in two stages, starting in late May 2026 and dropping again in early August. Testing different review and aggregateRating schema setups did not restore the snippets, which points to a Google-side change to which industries get review rich results.
Can fixing the schema markup bring healthcare review stars back?
Not in this case. Adjustments to aggregateRating connections, alternative property paths, and multi-typing healthcare entities with Product were tested and did not recover review snippet performance for healthcare pages.
What should healthcare sites focus on instead of review snippets?
Use schema markup to define the organization itself: physicians, locations, services, specialties, and how they relate. That structured data supports both Google Search and AI systems, and it keeps providing value even when a specific rich result type is no longer shown.
Try the site audit tool
The site audit tool runs a full technical audit of a site and shows the measured result behind every check. Open the site audit tool.
This article summarizes reporting from seroundtable.com.