Do ratings/reviews show up in Organic Search Results anymore?
-
I read about using schema or h1review to add markup that would get an individual person's review to show up in organic search, but it was from 2013. I did a few queries for keywords in my area, and none of the results had this. Then I did some queries for generic things like "best pizza in Tampa" and "coffee in tampa" and they didn't have it either. So, is this still something that can be done or not?
- I do see it when a review site like yelp comes up or in ads, but I'm specifically talking about organic search results from our website.
Thanks,
Ruben
-
Hi Ruben,
Back in 2014, Google stated that they don't want markup on testimonials on your website. You can read about this here and figure out how you'd like to proceed, given this policy:
This caused quite a bit of talk at the time, and I don't believe all sites are complying, but important to know.
Regarding third party reviews you are republishing on your site, I have not seen individual reviews coming up with stars on them for some time, but this seems to change so frequently. For example, up until recently, I was seeing Facebook listings coming up in Google's SERPs with stars on them. Now, that appears to have changed. So, I'm not sure what, if anything, you could do right now to get individual reviews posted on your website to show up with stars in the SERPs.
If anyone has seen a different pattern, please do share with Ruben!
-
Well we have both on our site. Some are pictures of hand written notes, and others are screenshots of reviews from places like google + and avvo. So, I can do either.
- Ruben
-
Hi Ruben,
Just to clarify, are you talking about testimonials you've collected from clients and have published on your website or are you talking about 3rd party reviews you've collected from other platforms and are re-publishing on your website?
-
I have been seeing review stars more and more for local organic positioning. When I click-through to see how they're getting those reviews, for the most part they are employing some kind of plugin that regenerates their Google Plus reviews (I question how legitimate most of these reviews are [especially for small businesses], but that's neither here nor there), or the reviews from a well-known aggregator (Health Grades or Demand Force, for example).
-
I agree with Josh on this one. There needs to be some reason Google should believe that the ratings on your site are legitimate. I can't be certain that third party sites like Yelp or Google+ are the source of that social proof, but it seems both plausible and fairly easy to detect for Google. It would be a sound place to start.
-
We are collecting reviews using ShopperApproved. When I do searches for many of our product queries the yellow stars and ratings scores appear beside our listings in the organic SERPs. Our listings in the SERPs look great compared to our competitors, and the results since getting those stars to appear have been kickass. If I was in a business like yours I would get in touch with ShopperApproved and ask them to start a service named "Client Approved". I believe that their model could be used to allow accountants, attorneys, etc. to collect reviews on the same platform, but just branding it as "client" instead of "shopper".
ADDED: SA has a widget that you can copy/paste into the code of your website and it will display random reviews, 4/5 star reviews or hand selected reviews. I believe that this social proof from past customers has really increased sales. We are showing random reviews rather than hand-picking.
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
-
Star rating not showing up in local pack, and knowledge panel pulling in healthgrades
Hello, I have a client that when you Google just their business name a couple of odd things are happening. First off, they show up in the map pack, but it's now showing their review rating. They have 29 reviews, with an average star rating of 4.6, but at first glance, it doesn't look like they have any reviews:
Reviews and Ratings | | ElaineBushey0 -
Beware of Fishy 4-Star Reviews
Hello to all our folks who market local businesses! I came across something this week that I felt was important enough to share. Hopefully, if you're a Moz blog reader or a Moz Local customer, you're already well aware of the importance of monitoring your Google My Business reviews on an ongoing basis, responding to them as they come in, whether they're positive or negative. And, you know to be on the lookout for spam reviews. But a strange new form of spam seems to be emerging that might be really easy to overlook at first. We're all familiar with the spammer who leaves you fake 1-star reviews for the purpose of harming your brand. But you might not immediately be suspicious of a 4-star review, or even a string of 4-star reviews until you realize your former 5 star rating has been whittled down by a succession of less-than-perfect, fake reviews. The worst thing, I think, about this tactic, is that it can be overlooked. Jason Brown has captured this phenomenon in his recent post: http://reviewfraud.org/4-star-negative-review-attacks/ and I highly recommend reading it and paying extra attention to any 4-star reviews companies you market may be receiving. I'd suggest, if you find this going on with any of the GMB listings you manage, you report it to Jason so that he can continue to track this activity. He's a Google forum TC, and, perhaps, with enough evidence, he might eventually be able to make a case to Google about this practice.
Reviews and Ratings | | MiriamEllis5 -
Schema Markup Ratings Not Showing Up in SERPs
Hello, I started using the Rich Reviews plugin for WordPress to display ratings and reviews starting on May 27th, but the ratings are not showing up in SERPs yet. Does anyone know why this might be? The link to the website is below. And when I run it through the Structured Data Testing Tool there are no errors. holtscarpetcleaning.com https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/?url#url=http%3A%2F%2Fholtscarpetcleaning.com%2F Thanks, Jennifer
Reviews and Ratings | | Jennifer_Hoffman0 -
How to Properly Add Simple Review Schema to Your Website For a Review Pulled from a Third-Party Site
Hello, I'd like to pull the content of a review from a third-party site and put it on my client's website. My plan is to add review schema to this content but I want to make sure everything I'm doing is white hat before I implement. Can someone please tell me if the following example is okay to do? For example...
Reviews and Ratings | | Etna
I'd like to pull an entire review from Yelp and put it on my website. I would link out to the review on Yelp and then give credit to Yelp in the publisher section of the schema. If I give credit to the name of the reviewer and where the review is being pulled from (in this case Yelp) on both the actual website as well as in the schema, is this white hat and something I could implement? Also, is "simple review" markup the correct markup to use in this scenario?
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/reviews Thanks in advance for your help!!1 -
How can a business turn off the Google+ review feature?
Is there a way to disable the review feature on our Google+ page whilst still retaining the rest of the Google+ features?
Reviews and Ratings | | CostumeD0 -
Local review site discovery
Rand and others have shared a link to a free service where you type in a state location and it shows a list of the most used local listings & review sites for that area. I can't find this service or link anywhere. Was this a service that was on getlisted.org that no longer exists?? Anyone know where it is or where it went?
Reviews and Ratings | | clearlyseo1 -
Why are certain words formatted as bold in Google+ Reviews?
Hey guys, I noticed that certain words within reviews left on Google+ pages are being shown in bold text. The original reviews do not feature bold text, but when shown in snippets they appear. I attached a photo below for a college's G+ page. Any insight would be great! 0ZHfhnP
Reviews and Ratings | | TomBinga11250 -
Google Plus Reviews
Hi, I am working with a brick and motor store and trying to figure out the best ways to obtain Google plus reviews. Personally speaking I think the best way to receive a review is at checkout. Checkout can take about 10-15 min and would be a great time to ask for a review. However, I run into a problem with logistics in obtaining the review and needed help deciding which option to choose or if another option existed? Option: 1. Ask the customer to give a review on our companies Google account? However, this leads to multiple reviews from a single entity, which I would only assume is not a correct way to obtain reviews. 2. Ask the customer to sign in to their Google account. This can be a little invasive and I do not want to turn the customer away from a sale. Am I missing another alternative? Any help would be great, thanks!
Reviews and Ratings | | Mike.NW0