Did you know Google can label some of the reviews in the product reviews section as "incentivized"? I am not sure I've seen this before, have you?
This was spotted by Gagan Ghotra who shared a screenshot of this on X - you can see it yourself in action on this product listing:
Are they labeled "incentivized" because they come from the retailers site or because of the way they were inputted or both? I am not sure:
🆕 Giving points/rewards to your customers for leaving product reviews!? well now Google is starting to show "Incentized" labels with those reviews in product listings 👀 pic.twitter.com/Xt30FGaZcW
— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) September 29, 2025
Anyone have more details on this label?
Forum discussion at X.
This specific brand is exclusively mentioned that they are rewarding points. I think that's something which Google is looking at Or probably there is more to? But what if they remove this label from their pages - will Google going to drop label from listing 🤔🤔 pic.twitter.com/zg0iZT1lkM
— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) October 3, 2025
Another example would be some reviews on Home Depot with their Seeds Program. Reviews are legit but the product was provided for free.
— Brandon Schmidt (@brandonschmidt) October 3, 2025
HD does call it out on each review. pic.twitter.com/rmwZK2xpXF
Here’s the policy @gaganghotra_ https://t.co/3UY8cp93HY
— Nicholas McDonough (@Callmenicholi) October 3, 2025
If you provide an incentive for a review, you are required to use the <incentivized_review> attribute in your feed to properly disclose it.
Either AF is doing heavy incentivizing or there is an error.
