Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
BazaarVoice Paginated Reviews Not Honoring Canonical & Indexing Multiple Pages
-
If there are enough reviews on a product page to warrant page 2, 3 etc, BazaarVoice appends the below snippets to each new page of reviews, which are then also indexed, despite BazaarVoice SEO settings that automate a canonical tag (seemingly since the differing reviews on each page are not similar enough to honor the canonical).
- <cite class="iUh30">?bvstate=pg:2/ct:r</cite>
- <cite class="iUh30">?bvstate=pg:3/ct:r</cite>
It seems Target.com has found a way to hack the BV code to create a dedicated page to view all reviews:
While Ikea.com blocks it in the Robots file (defeats SEO value) -
- Noindex: */catalog/products/bvroute=Review Noindex: */catalog/products/bvtab
Tons of brands apparently have the issue, and you can see more examples if you search "inurl:bvstate=pg"
Anyone aware of a solution to this?
-
Hi Eroc,
Yep, this is a super common issue for SEOs. My company's site has reviews load in JavaScript, and Google even crawls and indexes those as if they're separate pages.
Google wants to read everything it can, so you've got to figure out the cost/benefit of this situation. If you really do have all of the product information, I'd guess that visitors entering through page 2 of reviews wouldn't be the worst thing, especially since Google would probably choose the page with the reviews most relevant to the query.
The main issue from my perspective is wasting Google's crawl budget on your extra review pages. If that's an issue that will significantly help your site (likely if you have a lot of products), you'll want to noindex those reviews like Ikea. There's no other method that will stop Google from wasting it's crawl budget.
Hope this helps!
Kristina
-
Hi Eroc,
I don’t see any value throwing review content by blocking in robots.txt, (no offence to IKEA
). I recommend to configure product pages as it won’t generate pagination issue for having too many reviews.
It can handled by loading all comments on same product page (till load time won’t hurt) and display to user in chunks (without changing the url). If your page support 50 reviews (without hurting load time) remove the “Add Review” button after 50 review’s so you won’t receive new review’s or add moderation to simply chose which 50 comments you want to show because every review will not have same impact (and good enough to publish :P).
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
-
Review Schema Dropped Off A Cliff!?
Hello everyone, I recently implemented some review schema for my website which looked to be successful as my review stars were appearing in organic rankings with no problem! Yay! However... I've just checked in on where we are with these and they have literally dropped off a cliff and I have no idea why. See image attached with the graph that shows our reviews looking great in July/August then dropping off w/c 26th August. I literally have no idea why this has happened. The Schema Markup Tool shows no errors or issues with the markup either. Can anyone advise? 81Rv88Y
Reviews and Ratings | | Virginia-Girtz0 -
What do the symbols in the profile avatars in Google listing reviews mean?
A client of mine noticed that some of their customers that leave GMB listing reviews have special symbols in their profile avatars (please look at the attachment). Is this a sign of a influencer? Has anybody else noticed this? r6mhX
Reviews and Ratings | | BigChad20 -
Paying for Reviews Penalty?
Hello, recently came across a company that has been paying people directly for reviews. I of course do not recommend this and realized the ethical implications and even the lawsuits that can come from this, but does Google have a manual penalty for fake reviews or do they just algorithmically discount ones that raise red flags? I have never really had to worry about this in the past. I know you can flag fake reviews to them on an individual basis, but does anyone have history of knowing specific situations where a company was manually punished for doing this? Just curious and I kind of wanted to give them strong documentation to knock it off. Thanks in advance.
Reviews and Ratings | | jeremyskillings0 -
How many Google reviews can I collect at once?
I work for a University with 10,000+ students and alumni that could submit reviews. But how many reviews should I be collecting at one time? I don't want to overload the reviews and put up a red flag in Google...any insight on how much is too much?
Reviews and Ratings | | GabeGibitz0 -
Why does Google return 1 star reviews in local listings as the "most helpful"?
I have a client who has recently received two 1 star reviews on Google local (unhappy customer and unhappy customers boyfriend). This is affecting an otherwise flourishing business as these two 1 star reviews are displayed prominently when you search for the brand in Google. They have since received more positive reviews, however Google insists on displaying, what they term, the "most helpful" reviews first. Why are these 1 star reviews deemed "most helpful"? In all honesty, they aren't even really that helpful, with the latter verging on slanderous. We are in the process of reporting this one as it personally attacks a member of staff, however, whilst we tentatively wait weeks for a response, I wondered if anyone has any idea on how G decides which reviews are "most helpful"? When there is no option for other users to rate these reviews as helpful (such as on play store).
Reviews and Ratings | | Silkstream0 -
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 -
Blocking Reviews by Blocking Words?
A client sent me an email this week, stating that you could block bad reviews on social media sites by "blocking" certain words from comments such as "I", "you", "them", "they"......she heard it at a conference from some other CEO's that had some problems with bad reviews. Essentially these CEO's blocked these words making the pages read only pages so no one could leave a review on social media sites. Now, I have never heard this tactic, nor think this is a good idea in any way shape or form. And I know that you can't block bad reviews from happening (without looking at the bigger picture and encouraging some look at internal processes and customer service). Has any one heard of this tactic? Or better, know of anywhere online that documents this idea of blocking words? I have to get back to her, but I have beaten the drum about how to acquire good reviews so much, I feel I am not getting through! Help! Thanks
Reviews and Ratings | | cschwartzel0 -
Yelp Review From My Customer Removed
Hi, A customer of mine told me she created a yelp account just to give me a review. She's a good customer and wanted to show me her appreciation. I thanked her for taking the trouble. About a week later, I see that her review was marked as "not recommended." This was a legitimate review made by a real customer. I'm angry that it was removed for no reason. I noticed a competitor of mine has 18 yelp reviews and all of them show up just fine. I also noticed that this same competitor is paying for ads from Yelp. A couple of years ago, another customer reviewed me on yelp and it was also labeled as "not recommended." So I now have 2 "not recommended" reviews on Yelp that, if you ask me, imply that my reviews are fake. After Yelp and Yahoo merged, I lost the 14 Yahoo reviews I had obtained from customers over the last six years. I have also noticed over the years, that whenever I need to sign into my Yelp business account to update the data, it's locked until some pushy sales person calls and asks to speak to me in order to try to sell me ads on Yelp. Anyone else hate Yelp? They're obviously not really interested in making sure reviews are "real," they're just interested in selling expensive ads.
Reviews and Ratings | | Ophelia6191