Google updated its review snippet documentation to recommend that ratings should be accompanied by a review comment and author's name. This is a recommendation and not a requirement, but it seems like a strong recommendation.
The new line added reads:
We recommend only accepting ratings that are accompanied by a review comment and author's name. While not required, this approach can help your users see supporting details that explain the rating.
Google added, "We recommend implementing a setup that only accepts ratings and reviews that are accompanied by a review comment and author's name, as this approach can help your users understand the context for a given rating."
One more thing, Google also added the bolded section to this bullet point:
Make sure the review content you mark up are readily available to users from the marked-up page. It must be immediately obvious to users that the page has review content. For example, if you marked up reviews, users should be able to see the text of the review and associated rating. If you use AggregateRating, users should be able to see that aggregate rating on the page.
You can compare the older version of this page to the live version.
Forum discussion at X.
