# What happens to review star rich snippets after migration? > When you migrate off WordPress, your review star rich snippets are preserved by carrying across the two things that produce them: the real reviews behind the rating, and the structured data that describes them. The stars in search are generated from Review and AggregateRating schema, which Google only shows when it is backed by genuine reviews on the page, so you migrate the underlying review data, re-emit the same schema on the new site, and keep the URLs so the rich result stays attached to the same page. Expect the stars to lag briefly, since Google has to recrawl the pages and revalidate the schema before showing them again. What you must not do is fabricate or inflate ratings to shortcut this, because that breaks Google's policy and risks the snippet entirely. WPBuildAI migrates the review data, re-emits valid Review and AggregateRating schema, and preserves the URLs, so your star snippets return once Google recrawls. Source: https://wpbuildai.com/what-happens-to-review-stars-rich-snippets-after-migration/ By lawrence-arya ยท 2026-06-12 --- When you migrate off WordPress, your review star rich snippets are preserved by carrying across the two things that produce them: the real reviews behind the rating, and the structured data that describes them. The stars in search are generated from Review and AggregateRating schema, which Google only shows when it is backed by genuine reviews on the page, so you migrate the underlying review data, re-emit the same schema on the new site, and keep the URLs so the rich result stays attached to the same page. Expect the stars to lag briefly, since Google has to recrawl the pages and revalidate the schema before showing them again. What you must not do is fabricate or inflate ratings to shortcut this, because that breaks Google's policy and risks the snippet entirely. WPBuildAI migrates the review data, re-emits valid Review and AggregateRating schema, and preserves the URLs, so your star snippets return once Google recrawls. ## Stars are structured data, backed by real reviews The first thing to understand is what actually puts stars in a search result. They come from [review snippet structured data](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/review-snippet), specifically Review and AggregateRating markup, which describes a rating and the reviews behind it. Google shows the stars only when that markup is valid and reflects genuine reviews present on the page. So a star snippet is really two things stacked together: the reviews themselves, which are content, and the schema, which is markup that describes them. Losing either one loses the stars. That is the frame for the whole migration: you are moving both the review data and the markup, and keeping them attached to the same URLs. ## Migrate the review data, not just the markup It is tempting to think of stars as a schema problem, but the reviews are the foundation. If the actual review data, the ratings and the text customers left, does not come across, then re-emitting AggregateRating markup would describe reviews that are not there, which is both invalid and against policy. So the migration has to carry the real reviews into the new site, whether they lived in a review plugin or in your commerce data, so the aggregate is genuine. This is part of the broader job of moving your structured content faithfully, and it connects to [how changing platform affects your schema](/does-changing-website-platform-affect-schema-markup): the markup is only as good as the data underneath it, and both have to travel. ## Re-emit the schema on stable URLs With the reviews in place, the new site re-emits the Review and AggregateRating schema on the matching pages, and you keep those pages at the same URLs. The rich result is attached to a URL, so preserving the URL is what keeps Google able to reassociate the stars with the same page after a [careful site move](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/site-move-with-url-changes). Emit the same type of markup you had, validate it so it is error-free, and make sure it sits on the page a visitor actually sees. This is the same discipline as any [structured data that matters for SEO and AI](/which-structured-data-types-matter-for-seo-and-ai): correct types, valid markup, on the right pages. Get the schema and the URL right, and the snippet has everything it needs. ## Expect a lag, then recovery Set the expectation that stars do not reappear instantly. Even with the data and schema correct, Google has to recrawl the pages, revalidate the structured data, and decide to show the rich result again, and that plays out over crawls, not minutes. So a gap after launch is normal and not a sign of failure, provided the underlying pieces are right. Submitting a fresh sitemap helps Google get to the pages sooner. The platform itself is not the factor, as the [Backlinko analysis](https://backlinko.com/search-engine-ranking) of ranking signals shows; what matters is that valid markup backed by real reviews sits on stable URLs, after which the stars return in the normal course of recrawling. ## Never fabricate ratings to shortcut it The one thing that turns a delay into a real problem is trying to cheat it. Google's [structured data policies](https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/sd-policies) require that review snippets reflect genuine reviews on the site, and inventing ratings, inflating them, or marking up self-serving reviews violates those policies and can cost you the rich result entirely, not just delay it. A migration does not change this. So if you had real reviews, migrate them and the stars follow; if you did not, the honest route is to collect genuine reviews rather than mark up numbers you cannot back. Preserving what is real is both the compliant path and the one that actually works. ## Steps to keep review stars through a migration 1. **Locate the real review data** in your plugin or commerce records. 2. **Migrate the reviews** so the aggregate rating stays genuine. 3. **Re-emit Review and AggregateRating schema** on the matching pages. 4. **Keep the same URLs** so the rich result reattaches to the same page. 5. **Validate the markup** so it is error-free, and submit a fresh sitemap. 6. **Wait through the recrawl** and monitor rich results in Search Console. ## Worked example: a shop that kept its stars Consider a shop whose product pages showed star ratings in search, drawn from hundreds of genuine customer reviews. Migrating off WordPress, the team treated the reviews as data to move, not decoration: the reviews came across with the products, the product pages kept their URLs, and the rebuild emitted the same AggregateRating and Review markup, validated to be error-free. A fresh sitemap went in at launch. For a couple of weeks some products showed no stars while Google recrawled, then the star snippets returned across the catalog, because the reviews were real, the schema was valid, and the URLs had not moved. Nothing was fabricated, so there was no policy risk, only a normal recrawl delay. ## Limitation: rich results are Google's discretion It is honest to bound this. Doing everything right makes your pages eligible for star snippets and maximizes the odds they return, but Google decides whether and when to show any rich result, and eligibility is not a guarantee of display. Recovery timing varies with crawl frequency, and Google occasionally changes which snippet types it shows for which content. So treat the goal as preserving genuine reviews and valid markup on stable URLs, which is everything within your control, while accepting that the final display, and its timing, is Google's call. What you can be sure of is that fabricating ratings makes things worse, not faster. ## Key points When you migrate off WordPress, you keep review star snippets by carrying across both the genuine reviews and the Review and AggregateRating schema that describes them, on the same URLs, because stars are structured data that Google shows only when real reviews back it. Migrate the review data so the rating stays genuine, re-emit valid schema on the matching pages, preserve the URLs, and submit a fresh sitemap. Expect the stars to lag while Google recrawls and revalidates, which is normal, and never fabricate or inflate ratings, since that violates policy and can cost you the snippet outright. Rich results are ultimately Google's discretion, so the aim is eligibility through real data and valid markup. WPBuildAI migrates the review data, re-emits valid Review and AggregateRating schema, and preserves the URLs, so your star snippets return once Google recrawls. 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