3rd Party Approved Reviews - Widget or API Feed - Any thoughts ?
-
Hi Mozzers,
We use a google approved 3rd party review company to collect reviews for our branches and now also for our products( this is about to be implemented).
We currently use one of their widgets on our site (its javascript) to show the reviews. I don't think google can read this and I don't think we currently, therefore, get any direct seo benefit from it.
My questions are as follows :
- I obviously want to get any SEO benefit from any review text which customers leave but as the data itself is housed on the review site with a widget on my site pointing to it,should I use an API feed as opposed to a widget. If google can read the review text on my page - then surely i should some benefit from it even though, it could technically be classed as duplicate content
what are peoples thoughts ? .
thanks
Pete
-
"The only benefit is trust , increase CTR etc and obviously reviews markup."
This is a huge benefit though. It's abut users at the end of the day and having those stars showing in the serps and having the reviews scrolling on your site (using a widget) has helped me enormously with CTR. It's one of those where you need to think less about the technical SEO stuff and more about how having the reviews there will increase the CTR and conversion rates. It also helps time on site - all MASSIVE ranking signals.
If I said to you that a piece of technical wizzardry could increase CTR, TOS and conversions then you'd learn how to do it and implement it like immediately. Well that's what reviews do. So i'd not worry about marking them up or just use a wordpress widget and get them on there. I'm not massively technical but we do have 500 5* reviews with a widget on every page of the site and are in the top 3 for most non-branded searches because of our CTR. Also google says they want to eventually live in a world without markup when the algo gets smarter so it's all going to be a moot point.
Sorry If i've missed the technical nuances of this but we're doing super well just having the nice comments up there on the site (which is more than lots of your competitors have)
-
I think that a good options is create a plugin
So you can ask to your clients to give you a review in your site but using a third party API, so the first Idea is use the Google Business Review API.to show off your Google My Business Reviews rating in stars, thumbs or squares.
For Local SEO I think is the best option and you will not share your DA with nobody.
-
Do the reviews appear anywhere else on the web? Are people leaving reviews on the reviewer's site, and they're visible there, and then you're pulling them in via this widget? Or are they only visible on your site, through the widget?
If the reviews are elsewhere on the web (for example on a review site such as Yelp or Angie's List), Google is going to understand that that content belongs on that site. Pulling it in via this widget probably won't send much in the way of a unique content signal; it's unlikely that it would be seen as duplicate content, though, as long as the page it appears on also has its own unique content. Appearing through the widget also means you likely won't be able to mark up the reviews using schema.org.
If they appear somewhere else, and Google can easily associate those reviews with your product, you'd probably be better served having a function on your own website where people can review your products there. Then, let those reviews live on your site, and the third-party reviews stay on the third-party reviewer site.
-
Yes, that's what I thought, My only concern with using a widget though is the data is "owned" by the review company so whilst I'm displaying the rewiew on my site, I am not getting any SEO benefit in terms of unique content whats' so ever.
The only benefit is trust , increase CTR etc and obviously reviews markup.
I am wondering if it's better to write something in addition to this 3rd party review software we use so customers can write the reviews and then the pages will benefit from the unique content and freshness..
Otherwise , All I'm really doing is having duplicate content
thanks
Peter
-
Not because, the widget will point the source of the content
(if you add a google my business widget with the reviews of your clients)
the tag of the widget will tells google where the information is coming from.
At leasrt is my expriencie integrating widget from yelp, and google my business
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
-
Google Reviews Rich Snippets
Howdy Moz fans! Does anyone know if you can use Google Reviews as a Rich Snippet in the actual Google listing for your business? It seems strange that you can have this for widgets like Trust Pilot and Reviews.co.uk and not Google Reviews. Surely Google allow you to display Google reviews on your site that can then be used for schema mark up? Maybe they don't because those reviews are used for local searches? Hope this makes sense. David.
Reviews and Ratings | | Slumberjac0 -
How to get the most reviews for in home service providers?
Most of my clients go to the clients home to provide their service. For example a plumber or a bed bug extermination. Most of my clients find it hard to ask for and get reviews even though they do a great job. Is there an app or anything else out there that makes the process easier and gets better results than just asking? Are there any review aggregator applications? Maybe an application that a client can write a review in one location and the review is pushed out to multiple sites like Google My Business or YP?
Reviews and Ratings | | PSLab0 -
Customers can review business on New Google Plus
Google Plus for businesses has switched to a new Google+ page that does not have a "WRITE A REVIEW" button available for customers to leave a review for a business. This is preventing us from sending a link to our Google Plus business page directly to customers soliciting a review for our business. Has anyone else noticed this update migration and does anyone have a work around for how to send a link to our customers so they can leave a review on our Google+ business page?
Reviews and Ratings | | bcannon130 -
New building ownership and NAP - strategies for removing old listings with bad reviews
I have a question based on this scenario: An apartment building changes ownership. Previous owners were terrible and online listings have had terrible reviews. Since the apartment building now has a new brand name, new office address and phone number, the new owners want to create new online listings instead of claiming the old listings with the bad reviews. Also they want to report the old listings as "closed". They would like to remove the old listings with bad reviews from the old management and old brand name and start fresh, since they plan many improvements. Has anyone tried this strategy? How much luck has anyone had rebranding an apartment building and reporting old business listings as closed?
Reviews and Ratings | | DragonSearch0 -
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
Reviews and Ratings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
Customer Reviews inputted by a single person
We send out a product review survey through an email after a purchase has been made. It is okay that we input those in manually ourselves when they are returned? They are legitimate reviews. I want to make sure it doesn't send a red flag to search engines since the same person inputs them from the same computer and IP address. Thanks in advance for your inputs.
Reviews and Ratings | | jwanner1 -
Does advertising on Yelp help a business get more Yelp reviews?
I've gotten this question from a few clients. There seems to be a correlation in some cases between paying to advertise on Yelp, and the volume of reviews received. Of course, correlation does not necessarily equal causation. And I can attest to the fact that other clients who have at times advertised on Yelp did not even see a correlation. Has anyone else seen this correlation? And if so, can you speak to the possible causation or lack thereof?
Reviews and Ratings | | irapasternack0 -
How to display reviews from review sites on your own website?
Is there a good way to display reviews that people have left on sites like Yelp, City Search, Google, etc on your own website without triggering duplicate content issues? It's hard to get reviews, so I'd like to make the most out of the ones that I get.
Reviews and Ratings | | atstickel0