AggregateRating and ratingValue when not rated yet

Question

How do I set up AggregateRating when the object is not rated yet (ratingValue = 0)?

My current setup is:

<div itemprop="aggregateRating" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/AggregateRating">
    <meta itemprop="ratingValue" content="0" />
    <meta itemprop="bestRating" content="5" />
    <meta itemprop="worstRating" content="1" />
    <div itemprop="ratingCount">0</div>
</div>

When I check the Microdata with the Google Testing Tool I get an error "Failed to standardize the rating value". Do I just have to set worstRating to 0? Or is there an other way to tell that there’s no rating yet?

Answer 1

The schema specifically states that ratingValue is of type text, whilst bestRating and worstRating are text/number. This suggests you could put anything into ratingValue, even "not ranked". However, how Google would interpret that is up to debate.

However it seems to me the ACTUAL CORRECT way to implement this is to only give an aggregateRating where ratingCount > 0.

Simply omit the ratings when there are no ratings.

Answer 2

Well, I guess it does not make sense to specify a ratingValue of 0 if the worstRating should be 1:

• worstRating must be the "lowest value allowed in this rating system", which would be 0 in your case.

• A ratingValue of 0 does not mean that there are no votes yet (i.e., 0 has not a special meaning), as 0 is certainly a valid rating value (some rating systems allow this).

So either set worstRating to 0, or omit ratingValue for items not rated yet.