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
-
Structured data - reviews & aggregateRating
Hi all, We recently implemented structured data for reviews, specifically aggregateRating, on a few of our pages as a test. An example page is: https://www.vouchedfor.co.uk/financial-advisor-ifa/cambridge/01740-duncan-hannay-robertson Initially, this seemed to work well and we could see the star ratings and review number showing in Google search results. However, now it seems to have disappeared. Search console and the testing tool seem to suggest the structured data looks fine - when I posted this in the webmasters forum, the response I got was that it was because we're trying to mark what google deems a 'person' as a 'local business', which triggers their spam warning. And you can't have reviews for a person, apparently. I guess we're unique in that we're a review platform for professional advisers (for example, financial advisers). So whilst the profile is for a person, it's also a business - the reviews are for the professional services clients receive. Feels unfair to be penalised just because Google hasn't thought of our use case! We'd love to be able to showcase our review content, but feels like we're running out of ideas here. If anyone has any ideas for how we can make this work, it would be hugely appreciated!!
Reviews and Ratings | | Eric_S0 -
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 -
Do people receive notifications when you respond to their Google reviews?
If someone leaves a review of your business on your Google My Business listing, and you respond to that review, will they receive an email notification of your response to their review? We are working with a client who has unanswered reviews from several years ago, and though it's best practice to respond to all reviews, we didn't want to respond to reviews from 2013 if the person (who has likely forgot about their experience with the business in question) is going to get an email notifying them of our late response to their review. Thank you!
Reviews and Ratings | | BlueCorona1 -
Want to use Google Business Pages but Spam Reviews are putting me off
Not sure if I am missing something here...I have phoned and asked Google business how they deal with reviews which are potentially fake and damaging to a business reputation, it seems there is very little a small local business can do about them other than report the review with no guarantee of anyone helping ...Has anyone else had this issue as I would really like to use this service to assist with rankings on google? It is hard to convince (and to be honest I don't want to have to convince!) a local business that this is a good service at the same time as informing them they will more than likely have to spend extra time fending off fake reviews...Not seen any good answers anywhere else, ignoring the reviews, adding more positive reviews or replying/managing reviews are not an option. Hope someone can help with this, thanks
Reviews and Ratings | | imoprojects0 -
Fixing Google Review (it's technical, not about an unhappy client)
We have six 5 star reviews for our Tampa office...but for some reason, our rating is a 4.8. Why is that? And, more importantly, how do I get it fixed? https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=kemp+ruge+green+tampa+twiggs&lrd=0x88c2c48aec26ee65:0xaa2e3a3569ca3602,1 Thanks, Ruben
Reviews and Ratings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
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 -
How can I avoid duplicate content when building a review widget?
My website has a profile page for each of the home improvement contractors who signs up. They accumulate reviews on those pages. I want to build a review widget to display our reviews on our contractors' websites. How can I avoid duplicate content issues for the reviews? Example of a profile page with a few reviews: http://www.thehomefixers.com/members/425/waterheaters-plus-llc.php
Reviews and Ratings | | menachemp0 -
Google plus review - how to ask
I found a way (finally!) to find out which of my customers who have a gmail account have also a Google plus account. That helps a lot. We use to send handout reviews or video instructions about how to create a Google plus account...and it didn't go to well. Now that we know they have a G+ account , all we have to do is ask for a review; how to do this?
Reviews and Ratings | | echo1
What are the latest strategies so that the review will stay there? have them log in, search for the business name and write the review? give them the direct link? is the searcher's path important? should we look for users who are engaged more in their circles? Thanks!0