I was reviewing a client’s Google Search Console last month when I spotted something that made me cringe. Sweet Dreams Bakery had been marking up fake reviews for six months straight. Five-star ratings, glowing testimonials, the works. All written by the owner’s nephew. Their organic traffic had tanked 60% after the September update.
The problem? Some genius he hired had been marking up fake reviews in his schema for months. Five-star ratings from customers who didn’t exist. Glowing testimonials from email addresses that probably belonged to his cousin. The whole thing was a disaster waiting to happen, and Google finally noticed.
When I showed him the data, he just blinked at me. “I thought schema was supposed to help with SEO,” he said. Like yeah, buddy, so is gasoline but not if you pour it on a fire.
Schema markup is basically the difference between Google understanding your business and Google thinking you’re trying to pull some sketchy. Most local businesses have no clue they’re walking into a buzzsaw with their structured data. They think they’re being clever, but they’re torching their own rankings.
Schema Markup Isn’t Magic, It’s Translation
Let me explain this without boring you to death. Your website speaks one language. Google’s crawlers speak another. Schema markup translates between them so Google knows what the hell you’re trying to say.
When it works, you get those fancy search results with stars and business hours and phone numbers right there. One client jumped from getting maybe 50 clicks a day to 150 just because people could see his 4.8 rating without clicking through. That’s real money.
But here’s what nobody tells you… Google isn’t just reading your schema markup. They’re fact-checking it. They’re comparing it to what’s on your page, what’s in their databases, what shows up on other sites. Get caught lying and it’s not just about missing out on rich snippets anymore.
The Schema Mistakes That Are Destroying Local Businesses
The Ghost Content Problem
This drives me absolutely insane. Business owners stuff schema markup full of information that doesn’t exist anywhere on their actual website. Like claiming you’re open 24/7 in your markup but your website says you close at 5 PM.
I watched a dental office drop completely out of the map pack because they marked up services they didn’t offer. Root canals, orthodontics, oral surgery… all in the schema, none on the website. Google figured it out eventually. Always does.
The stupidest part? The fix is dead simple. If it’s in your schema, put it on your page where humans can see it too.
Copy-Paste Laziness
You know what’s worse than no schema markup? The same schema markup on every single page of your website.
I had this HVAC company, right? They found some LocalBusiness schema that worked for their homepage. Great. Then they slapped that exact same markup on their blog posts about furnace maintenance. On their contact page. On their freaking privacy policy.
Google saw 47 different pages all claiming to be the main business location and basically said “Dang with this, we’re ignoring all of it.” Their rich snippets disappeared overnight.
Every page needs its own markup that matches what’s actually on that page. Your homepage gets business schema. Service pages get service schema. Blog posts get article schema. This isn’t rocket science but apparently it might as well be.
Manufacturing Reviews Like It’s 2005
Look, I get it. Your competitor has 200 reviews and you have 12. Feels unfair. So you think, what if I just… make some up? Mark them up in schema, make Google think I’m popular too?
This is the fastest way to nuke your entire online presence. Google cross-references everything now. They check if those reviews exist on actual review platforms. They analyze writing patterns. They look at timing, IP addresses, probably what you had for breakfast.
One landscaping company I know lost 80% of their traffic because the owner’s wife wrote 30 reviews from her work computer. All posted on the same day. All with similar phrasing. All marked up in schema like they were legit.
Google didn’t just ignore the fake reviews. They stopped showing ANY of the business’s structured data. No more star ratings. No more business hours in search. Nothing.
Math Is Hard
This one’s embarrassing but I see it constantly. You’ve got 50 reviews averaging 3.9 stars. But in your schema markup, you claim a 4.7 average because… optimism?
Or worse, you cherry-pick your best review (5 stars from three years ago) and mark that up as your overall rating. Meanwhile Google can see your actual average on Google Business Profile, Yelp, Facebook, everywhere else.
The mismatch triggers warnings in Search Console that most people ignore. Keep ignoring them and Google stops trusting anything you say. Your stars disappear from search results. Your click-through rate tanks. All because you couldn’t do basic math.
JavaScript Timing Bombs
Modern websites load content dynamically with JavaScript. Fine. But if your schema markup loads before your actual content, you’ve created a timing problem that makes Google think you’re being deceptive.
Real example: Restaurant website shows $15 lunch specials that load via JavaScript. But the hardcoded schema says $25. For about 2 seconds, there’s a mismatch. Google’s crawler catches it, flags it as misleading pricing.
Boom. Manual review. Rankings crater. All because of a loading sequence issue that nobody thought about.
What Happens When Schema Goes Wrong
Missing out on rich snippets is just the beginning. The real damage goes way deeper.
You lose your spot in the map pack. Those top 3 local results that get all the clicks? Say goodbye. Google pushes you down or removes you completely.
Manual penalties are even worse. Some poor human at Google has to review your site and decide you’re actively trying to deceive people. Recovery takes months if it happens at all.
I’ve seen businesses lose half their traffic overnight. Phone stops ringing. Leads dry up. All because they thought they were being clever with schema markup.
Fixing Your Schema Without Losing Your Mind
Use Google’s Free Tools
Search Console literally shows you every schema error on your site. But here’s the thing… you have to look at it. Most business owners check it once when they set it up then never again.
The Rich Results Test is even better. Paste in any page URL and Google shows exactly what they can understand from your markup. If there’s a mismatch or error, it’s right there in red.
Reality Check Everything
Walk through your website like a customer would. Every piece of information in your schema markup should be visible on the actual page. Business hours? Should be there. Prices? Visible. Services? Listed clearly.
If you’re claiming something in schema that visitors can’t verify by looking at your page, you’re doing it wrong.
Stop Trying to Outsmart Google
They have more engineers than you have employees. Their algorithms are smarter than your shortcuts. Just be honest about what you offer and where you’re located.
Mark up real reviews from real platforms. Use your actual business hours. List services you actually provide. Revolutionary concept, I know.
Check This Stuff Regularly
Your business changes. Hours change. Services change. Prices change. Staff changes. But most people set up schema markup once and forget it exists.
Set a reminder. Every three months, run your site through the Rich Results Test. Check Search Console for new errors. Make sure your markup still matches reality.
Why This Matters
The businesses killing it in local search right now aren’t necessarily the biggest or the oldest. They’re the ones with clean, accurate structured data that helps Google understand exactly what they do and where they are.
Your competitors might have fancier websites or bigger ad budgets. But if their schema markup is a mess and yours is clean? You’ll outrank them every time.
That bakery I mentioned at the beginning? We stripped out all the fake review markup, fixed the timing issues, made sure every piece of schema matched what was on his site. Took about a month for Google to trust him again. Now he’s ranking top 3 for every major bakery search in his city.
The phone rings. Jobs book. Money flows. All because we stopped trying to trick Google and started helping them understand his business.
Your local customers are searching for businesses like yours right now. This minute. Make sure Google knows exactly what you offer and can show it to them. Or keep playing games with your schema markup and watch your competitors eat your lunch.