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
-
Any Success Getting Fake 5 Star Google My Business Reviews Removed From Competitors?
Hi, I am working on a competitor who is obviously building up fake reviews using a 3rd party service. I need to build more evidence. A majority of his reviews on Google My Business, they are done by reviewers with very few reviews (no profile pic), and that seem to review 3-4 companies in the Chicagoland area the exact same day. This happens again and again. It started about 1.5 years ago. Before that everything looks normal. Any idea how much proof I need to actually get those reviews and/or his company removed? I am working on getting access to a private group on Facebook where he talks about it. Thanks in advance!
Reviews and Ratings | | vetofunk1 -
Is It Beneficial to 'Like' My Clients Google Reviews?
I have a client who is insisting that all of us in the office 'like' his positive reviews on Google. My boss & I are fine with doing this, but due to the industry the client works in, my staff is questioning doing this or not because they do not want to be associated with his company outside of work. Is there any SEO benefit to us liking his reviews or is this more for him to feel better that people are reading them? Does my staff have anything to worry about if they do 'like' his reviews?
Reviews and Ratings | | Justine.Hedge3 -
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
Reviews and Ratings | | PeterCol120 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Publishing testimonials on your site that are from your Google + (or other review sites page)
Ive got a site with some good Google + Reviews and some other good reviews on other sites that id like to be able to publish on a testimonials page on our website, but im worried about being penalised for duplicate content. Any idea of the best way to get these reviews on to our website, i was thinking about placing the text in as an image, but id prefer to do something semantic if at all possible. (I know that some review sites have javascript widgets you can use to pull in your reviews but for most of the sites we are reviewed on they dont)
Reviews and Ratings | | Sam-P0