How the hell do you get microformat to show up on google serp?
-
Preface:
- I implemented Microformat aggregate review (http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate) for our e-commerce website and included only on the homepage. The vote and count are actually coming from real reviews we are getting from our customers, and in the homepage some reviews are shown prominently and a link points to the full list of all the reviews.
- Microformat markup is correct, validated in GWT.
- Have been online for a while (probably a couple of years).
- Our website: http://www.gomme-auto.it
The star rating never showed up. When checking competitors I could see their microformats where not showing up either.
But now things changed, if I check one competitor (the market leader www.gommadiretto.it) searching for it with their brand name “gommadiretto” no star rating is showing, but if I search for tires of a specific manufactured like “pneumatici barum” I can see their result in serp is showing the star rating for that specific internal page (the brand page) where they simply put the website overall aggregate review microformat mark up, they actually put it on every page.
And that make me scratch my head and start asking myself some questions:
- is google showing their microformats because they manually awarded them somehow? no other competitor seems to have got the star rating in serp
- is google showing their microformats because they have so much more reviews than I have? I have around 1700, they have around 11000.
- is google showing their microformats because their reviews are certified by TrustPilot?
- is google showing their microformats because they put it in the product page? well of course since I am not putting it there (in the brand page) it's a factor, but isn't it recommended to put the website aggregate reviews microformat only on one page? and shouldn't we show the brand reviews on the brand page?
- isn't it best practice/recommended to put the website aggregate review microformat only on one page?
- is google showing their microformats because of some other reasons I can't see?
What the hell is google criteria for showing the star rating? Does anyone know?
-
Good luck.
-
Right on! Thanks for the tip. Since most of my clients are service based, I'm wondering if it would work as "http://domain.com/services/specific-service..."
Working on it now and will let you know.
Dino
-
Hi Dino,
yes since I originally posted this question I discovered a couple of things.
First, google loves this schema http://schema.org/Product but stubbornly refuse to show star rating set for http://schema.org/Organization, my competitors where using Product schema on their home pages and landing pages with no relation to any product on the page and getting the stars, so I did the same, and the stars appeared.
So use http://schema.org/Product
Second, google refuse to show star rating for SERP where the search query is for generic common terms keywords, it's showing star rating for branded keywords, and for additional keywords but I have not been able to identify a path/rule, I only realized for branded keywords it show star rating, for common terms it does not.
So if you add star rating http://schema.org/Product markup in a page which is ranking for "Ford Focus" they will appear, but if you put the markup in a page which is ranking for "nice looking cars" google won't show any star.
Hope this helps.
-
Hey Max, did you ever get the stars to show in search? I'm trying to achieve the same thing for my clients, but so far have been unsuccessful. One client has a competitor who has stars for all their pages so been trying to figure it out. I think I have all the right markup, but so far nothing...what a mystery.
Regards, Dino
-
Hi Ken,
that's a very good point. And a big question mark in my head. Because:
- a trustpilot (https://www.trustpilot.com/) sales man repeatedly told me adding their review widget would have made the stars appear, but I can't get any confirmation on this from the web, and sales people from competitors to trustpilot told me that is not true. Trustpilot and others are google partners when it comes to Google Trusted Stores (https://support.google.com/ads/answer/3467841) which means stars showing in AdWords ads (the service is currently not available outside US).
- wherever google talk about rich snippets and stars rating in serp never mentions any 3rd party review authority.
- And here I come again to the Google guideline I mentioned to Everett (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/146645), they state aggregate review and individual review markup should not be put on the same page, is that information outdated? Or anyone tested and verified in reality is adding SERP benefit like showing up the stars rating if added togheter?
If I may ask what kind of metrics improved using yotpo.com? Did you run a A/B test and found an increase in conversion rate? Or a relevant amount of additional traffic?
Thanks a lot for your time,
Max
-
Hi Max -
I beleive Everett is correct. The Facebook reviews are not marked up with rich snippet code for google, rather they have FB markup. In addition, the review data you have for the site in the footer is marked up as a product. It also probably doesn't help that the reviews are buried down at the bottom of the footer.
As an FYi, we recent;y switched over to a reviews service (Yotpo.com) and that has worked well for us.
Ken
-
Hi Everett, those review on the homepage are not product review, they are website/service review; in other words review from people who bought commenting on the buying process, not the product they bought.
We also have product review, but on product pages, like this one http://www.gomme-auto.it/pneumatici/estivi/riken/maystorm-2-b2/205/55/16/w/91
Also, according to this google guieline: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/146645 aggregate review and review should not go on the same page, either one or another. Which is why we put aggregate reviews markup on these pages instead of review markup.
In that guideline google is not saying it penalize you if you put both on the same page, but still recommend not to.
Are you suggesting the guideline is outdated and not relevant anymore?
-
The Facebook reviews don't appear to have any micro-data markup in the code. They're there, but not marked up. What is marked up is listing your website as the item reviewed instead of the product from what I can see, and the itemscope isn't filled out:
div class="sub-footer" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate">
gomme-auto.it|
votato
9.81
su
10
da
1704You should mark up each of the FB reviews with this schema:
And the aggregate of those reviews with this schema:
http://schema.org/AggregateRating
What they are reviewing is the product on the page, not the website itself. Therefore, you'll be using this schema to mark up the thing that is being reviewed:
You may want to hire a developer to do this. Schema can be kind of tricky sometimes. Let us know how it goes!
-
Hi Ken, thanks for your time.
those "facebook" reviews are "the" reviews, we ask customers for permissions to post on their facebook wall, and show their review along their picture and facebook profile to get additional trust.
Best,
Max
-
Hi-
Here are a coupe of quick thought for you:
-
I don't actually see the ratings on your home page. I can see that they are in the code but I didn't see them appearing on the page. The only reviews I see are the FB reviews.
-
I read somewhere that Google will sometimes not show the rich snippet data if they think you are light on content. I will find the reference and post it when I do, but that could be a problem for you as well.
Good Luck
Ken
-
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Ranking for a word when your image is showing up as #2?
I'm trying to rank for several specific words in my industry. I've noticed that many of the pages I'm trying to rank for the specific words, the main image of the page is being ranked. So my question is should I still try to rank my page even though the image is ranking as the first image displayed in the google results. Will this count against me by Google if I do? Or should I try to make the image being ranked more enticing for google searchers to try to increase traffic? Right now the images are not generating many clicks.
On-Page Optimization | | mr_w0 -
On Brand Queries Google does not shows my home page first instead of it shows internal pages.
Also on my brand query it doesn't shows sitelinks. What may be the reason?
On-Page Optimization | | vivekrathore0 -
Why Isn't Google Authorship Showing My Picture?
I have several clients and the Google Authorship images used display in the search results for all of them. About a month ago all of the images disappeared, however it still displays "by <name>, indicating that Google Authorship is working -- it just doesn't show the image (see screenshots). The image follows the guidelines, and we've got the rel author tag in place, with a link back to Google. </name> When I use the Google Structured Data Testing Tool it shows that authorship is properly functioning. I'm completely stumped. Does anyone have any ideas why this may not be working? Here's two examples of the sites with Authorship not working properly (screenshots below): criminalattorneylongislandny.com
On-Page Optimization | | socialfirestarter
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3786946/Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 12.53.10 PM.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3786946/Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 12.44.12 PM.png attorneytonyadderley.com https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3786946/Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 12.52.36 PM.png
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3786946/Screen Shot 2014-01-03 at 12.52.52 PM.png0 -
Google picking up old pages
I recently redesigned a site that had all the keywords it was ranking for going to the home page. Now I have specific pages for each of these keywords but I'm seeing the home page (not the page that, if I do an on page optimization by hand in MOZ gives me an A rating) showing up in the auto reports (assuming pages Google sees for these keywords related to the url) as F's. They're all pointing to the home page. I've redirected the old index.html home page to the new but I suspect the reason is actually these pages (were) ranking for these terms (though none too well - all but one were not in the top 50 and one was 45) because these rankings are all dropping as well. I'm at a loss, with the site replaced, as to how to correct this and tell Google these keyword phrases all have their own pages now. I've dug through this forum and the only applicable answer I can see would be to add these phases to the home page (where they all rank for now) with anchored links to their new (A rated by Moz for these terms when I hand enter them) singular pages? Or is it just a waiting game?
On-Page Optimization | | adworksofboca0 -
Getting access to clients websites for onsite seo
I understand on site seo fine, as I have tweeked up my own website a fair bit. But I am thinking about doing Onsite and Offsite SEO for clients, as I have had a few request now. So my question is what is the best way to get access to clients websites. So I can make the required adjustments. I have one client, who had a company create a website for him, but they have since closed down.
On-Page Optimization | | aussieseoguy0 -
Google cached snapshots and last indexed
My question is I noticed today that the snap shots of my main pages were outdated. About a month. Then I clicked on the "Learn More" link about cahced images and Google says "Google crawls the web and takes snapshots of each page. When you click Cached, you'll see the webpage as it looked when we last indexed it." I know this sounds really dumb, but does that really mean the last time Google indexed that page? So the changes I have made since then have not been taken yet?
On-Page Optimization | | cbielich0 -
I changed my site from HTML to PHP and I need to get some help.
Ok...so the other day I went from HTML to PHP in every part of my website. I want to know the best option for me for redirecting my pages from HTML to php. I had my site scanned with SEOMoz and I was given many 404 errors which is not at all good. I do not have any pages of my site linking to any of these html pages. All of the site links have been updated. I have checked 3 times. I have never created a robots.txt file so I would love to get a little help with this part. I was thinking it would be best to tell Google not to worry about these pages in the file. I kept the pages up and I plan to remove all code with them so that no content shows up if someone visits but the issue with that is my site is already indexed as HTML. I want to have the HTML pages redirect to the PHP without worrying that my visitors will land on my site via Google onto an HTML page. I hope I am making sense. What is the best advice you can give me. I need all pages to redirect to PHP. I used an htaccess redirect from all HTML to PHP but when I get so many of them added I get an error on my site saying too many redirects. Seriously need help.
On-Page Optimization | | TrendyHost0 -
Shall Google index a search result?
Hi, I've a website with about 1000 articles.Each article has one ore more keywords / tags. So I display these keywords at the article page and put a link to the intern search engine. (Like a tag cloud) The search engine lists als articles with the same keyword and creates a result page. This result page is indexed by Google. The search result contains the title of the article, a short description (150-300 chars.) and a link to the article. So, Google believes, that there are about 5.000 pages instead of 1.000 because auf the link to the search result pages. The old rule was for me: More pages in Google = better. But is this still true nowadays? Would be a "noindex, follow" better on these search result pages? (Is there a way to tell Google that this is a search result page?) Best wishes, Georg.
On-Page Optimization | | GeorgFranz0