Marking up an iframe with reviews schema. Possible? Ethical?
-
Hey there fellow Mozzers! I work with a broad variety of clients, many of them local businesses, and they in turn sometimes find a vendor that stumps me. This is one of those special cases, where the vendor is doing some shady stuff with reviews schema.
First, they're taking reviews from third party sites and filtering them to only show 4 and 5 star reviews (red flag #1), then they're asking us to post them to the website (red flag #2) and finally they are marking them up with schema (red flag #3).
If this were my vendor I would have fired them when they started telling me Google doesn't care, doesn't enforce the guidelines, and all that other nonsense, but hey, I'm not the client and I have to make good for them. I did flat out refuse to place these reviews as they asked, but they came back with a "solution", that I'm not sure I trust.
They're telling me they can't remove the schema (red flag #4), but they can iframe it onto the website. Their logic, which is wrong, is that Google can't/doesn't crawl iframes so therefore the reviews can be displayed without any negative consequence.
I obviously have some ethical concerns with this, but I have to provide the service to my client whether or not they share my values. However, I can object on professional grounds if I think they will take on undue risk. My only problem here is that I have no documentation for how this proposed solution would work. Working through this logically still leaves me with a gap, and that's where you folks come in!
A) We know that Google crawls iframes
B) We know that Google can apply schema within iframes (works with YouTube embeds)
C) We know that content within an iframe is technically on another website, so it doesn't normally apply to your website
D) I don't know how specifically reviews schema would interact with an iframe
E) I don't know if this would result in Google triggering an alarm and blocking the businessI'm hoping you guys can help me figure this out. Ethics aside (making me cringe to type that) is this technically feasible without risk, or would this still be a risky move?
For the record, another client tried filtering their reviews while marking up with schema against my recommendation and got caught, and received a penalty alert. They were removed from results until the problem was fixed.
-
Thank you, I have advised my coworkers and our client that we will not be implementing this solution as it stands on the website. I normally bring a lot of hard data with me when I need to fight back against something like this, but was a bit short this time around. I just may frame your description for assessing risk and hang it up over my desk. Cheers!
-
I would say this is pretty risky. One barometer I have for penalty risk is "if a human quality reviewer looked at this, would they see something amiss?" and in this case, someone who knew what they were looking for would sniff this out as shady right away. I also think the combination of signals you're describing are easily machine-readable to an extent that a penalty trigger would definitely be possible.
I also don't understand the logic the vendor is using here. If Google can't crawl schema in an iframe, why include the schema at all? It's not like users are going to see it or get anything from it. There's no point in having schema if it's not machine-readable, so why do it at all?
James has a good point that reviews are actually more trustworthy when they include some negative ones. Users are smart enough, and used to reviews enough, at this point to be able to tell when they're only being shown the positive reviews - so including only 4- and 5-star reviews is probably hurting their credibility with customers, as well as with Google.
I don't have any data on how Google specifically treats markup within an iframe. I have heard that you are only at risk for a penalty if you're receiving the reviews rich snippet, so that's one thing I would look for - but again, if they're not trying to get reviews snippets, why do any of this in the first place? If they're a small enough business with low enough traffic, this is the kind of thing that could fly under Google's radar for a long time, but as you've already experienced, recovering from a penalty is a lot harder than never engaging in shady practices in the first place.
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
-
Any experiences with Reviews.io?
Hello, We have used Trustpilot.com for a few years in the past. Service was reasonable and they did what they were supposed to do. However, due to their price and requirement for a full-year payment upfront we stopped using their review collection service. Is someone using Reviews.io? They are included in Google Review Partners, which seems to be very encouraging:
Reviews and Ratings | | the-global-communicator
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375474?hl=en Also, they have a decent price for their intermediary package (about $ 89/month) and don't require a yearly contract like Trustpilot and some others. Any experiences you could share about Reviews.io will be appreciated. Luciano, The Translation Company Group0 -
Client wants to delete Google My Business Due to Bad Review
My client has received a bad review on Google and although has other good ones, wants to delete the current Google My Business page and open a new one. I disagree with this strategy but need some evidence to back it up. They are ranking well and so I don't want to upset the cart. I need reasons not to in terms of potentially harming rankings. Am I right that this could impact?
Reviews and Ratings | | AL123al3 -
How many reviews should i have previewed for marking up a page?
I have a separate /reviews URL, but want to markup the main page with aggregate reviews and also add preview reviews on there. Roughly, how many reviews do I need on the page in order to markup with aggregate review?
Reviews and Ratings | | imjonny1230 -
Does embedding Yelp reviews hurt SEO?
Yelp has embed code for reviews now - does it count as duplicate content? Will this hurt or help my SEO?
Reviews and Ratings | | LindaWolfe0 -
Query on Product Reviews
Hello Experts, For my Ecommerce site I am using third party review service. Now my query is :- The reviews which is showing on my third party site if same review I can show on my product so will google consider this as duplicate content? Now that product listed on one of the category and that category page before footer section I have section of "Recently Reviewed" section in that section also it is showing same review of that product so is it fine? Will google consider it as duplicate content? Lastly I do have few subcategory pages before footer section I have section of "Recently Reviewed" section in that section also it is showing same review of that product so is it fine? Will google consider it as duplicate content?Note - Image attached of Review section - Which is visible on category and subcategory pages.FYI - This I am doing for two purpose 1) For Visitors purpose so he or she will know reviews about my products 2) As it is customer own written reviews so my pages will get fresh content.Please share your viewsBiKmp
Reviews and Ratings | | wright3350 -
Google+ Places Reviews
Hi There, Am I right in saying that Google Places reviews cannot be reviewed easily if at all. I have advised a client wirth a negative review to instead respond to the review and get clients to place good quality reviews. However, they seem to think if I ring Google they will just remove them and that Google has confirmed this. I am pretty sure I am right but before I jump through pointless hurdles with Google to be told I am, I want to make sure. Has anyone been successful in removing negative reviews from Google. Kind Regards Neil
Reviews and Ratings | | nezona0 -
Why ratings (no. of reviews & stars) still not showing in search results?
We implemented Schema and submitted the pages (with actual ratings and reviews) to Google Webmaster's Structured Data Markup tool a few weeks ago, but the ratings (stars and no. of reviews) are not showing yet. How long do I need to wait? TIA!
Reviews and Ratings | | zpm20140 -
Using structured data for reviews - for negative or warnings.
We all use review markup today and we use it linearly as only a vote up or down. My question is around a site that will judge the negative impacts of given chemicals introduced into certain waterways. (Sorry, I must protect the client so I cannot give out all the info; I hope this is enough for a reasonable understanding.) Is there anyone who has ever used or is aware of any markup that does not result in a star? So, if we use the current system, we end up where a bad chemical gets a ton of single stars. In essence what we are measuring is degrees of Positive. With four stars there is no zero positive, but 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% (Ok unless it is aggregated). I want to be able to show degrees of negative and obviously stars would be confusing. So, have a symbol that connotes a negative (skull and crossbones, X, !!, etc.) and the more of these someone marks shows more displeasure or more danger. Are there any ideas for this or any occurrences already on the Internet you may be aware of? Preference would be to be able to at some point have search engines show them as snippets. Thanks to all you Mozzers, Robert
Reviews and Ratings | | RobertFisher0