Issues with copying online forum reviews on own website
-
Apologies- I asked a similar question the other day but did not word it as clearly as possible.
We are looking at having a text box of 'What customers say' on our product pages using reviews written about us online (to remain factual) and wanted to know if this created any issues relating to search engines finding matching content on two separate websites? Will this have any SEO implications as effectively we are 'plagiarising' the content in the eyes of the bots even though it is just customer opinion of our own products right?
Thanks in advance.
-
1. The reviews are on 3rd party review websites e.g. widgetreview.com
2. We do have a lot of original content on each of the product pages. We were ideally looking to add value to customer experience as we have sorted the original content side already. Permission wise we thought as they are on a public forum we could extract them-but good point we will verify before proceeding.
Any other thoughts are much appreciated.
-
Oh OK that makes sense - it will be a worthy investment!
As far as copying over content, here are my thoughts:
- Are these reviews on competitor websites? If so they would probably take a dim view of you using their reviews. I would make sure I got permission to republish reviews originally posted somewhere else.
- It's still technically duplicate content, but it does add value for your customer, and as long as you have a good amount of other copy on the page (original product description, accompanying how-to article or buying guide) then you're probably OK - in my humble opinion at least.
The main issue is getting permission to pull those reviews from somewhere else. And if the review is the only (or majority) content on these product pages then it's probably not a good idea.
-
Thanks for the prompt response.
We are looking to invest in a review platform in the New Year but in the mean time wanted to utlilise some of the countless reviews found online. Any thoughts about whether copying them over would have any negative implications for us?
-
Why are customers reviewing your products somewhere besides your website in the first place?
I would strongly encourage you to set up a system that allows customers to review your products on your web pages. That way you don't have to go to all the work of finding and copying reviews out on the web and you get a bunch of unique content for your product pages.
I don't know what your budget is like but my company uses BazaarVoice and we have enjoyed using their platform for customer reviews. There are several good User Generated Content services out there that you can plug directly into your website.
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
-
Dr. location website and blog
I use Moz Local to sync my Endocrinology medical clinic website to search engines and directories and it has helped me a lot. However, I want to start a blog that deep dives into Endocrine based issues like diseases and conditions. The issue is I am not sure if I should just add the blog to my Endocrinology Medical Clinic website or Start the blog off on a completely new domain because one day I might want to sell my Endocrinology Medical Clinic but keep my Endocrine based blog. What do you suggest? Also do any of your services help submit blogs without a physical address to search engines and directories like Moz Local?
Content Development | | Viewpoint-Endocrinology0 -
Website update frequency as ranking factor
Hellooo, Anyone have more info about this issue? I own 1 e commerce site, and one blog about soccer. Both are brand new, e commerce is older few months, with more backlinks and soccer blog with very few profile links from soccer forums. The soccer blog, was updated regularly 2 times per day, and I saw a tremendous rise on visits. Later on , I stop to update it, and then traffic drop immediately . Notice that I stop to build links at least 1 week before I stop to post content. But the site still enjoyed an increase in traffic even after I stop to add fresh links , and traffic dropped once I stop to create fresh content. The other e commerce site, wasn't updated at all, but I was building links and I saw similar increase in traffic. Niche of the e commerce is very boring (industrial) and none of competitors own a blog. Site is quite big, with not even half of links from competitors but I almost outrank them all with internal linking on competitive keywords. (note that site have over 200 pages with at least 300 words each in contrast with competitor sites of 20 pages). Then I added a blog and I saw similar increase in traffic with the soccer blog. Once I stop to update again the blog, traffic dropped again.. anyone with similar experiences?
Content Development | | nyanainc0 -
One Page Website Blog Content Question
Hi guys, I'm new to the art of SEO and am learning every day from all the fantastic content here, I have a question that I can't find an answer to, hope it doesn't stump you like it has me... I have a one page website (www.neilwilliamsvoiceover.com) that I need to put more content on for SEO purposes but needs to be kept as one page. I've set-up a blog via blogger, and have that on the website but it's in iframe, which I've now discovered is ignored by search engines. So, my question is, is there a way to pull my blog feed into the website and have it recognised by search engines as content for the website? Would I use an RSS feed or feed burner or something else completely?! Thanks for your time and help in advance.
Content Development | | BamMK0 -
Online Publisher networks (Splash Press) Question
Hi, If you can get into a network as a writer it's great because you can expose your brand on high auth websites without the hassle of having to build a relationship with each site - once your in, your into all the websites on the network. So question is, isn't this going to be bad for SEO, I assume all the websites are on the same server and I have seen some where they interlink in the network. Apart from that though they look really great, good fresh content, high DA/PA, lots of social activity etc. A couple I have come across are: Splash Press & Alloy Digital (If you know of any more please post them up).
Content Development | | Bondara0 -
Spam reviews
We would like to see any tips or experience with filtering out spam reviews. We operate a website where consumers can post their reviews on / experience with certain companies. We do receive a fair share of fake reviews (the "to good be true reviews" about certain companies and also sometimes negative review about their competitors).We filter these as good as we can. For some companies, we receive a large number of reviews which individually seem to be ok (text-wise but also when checking IP addresses and e-mail addresses), but if you read all these reviews in sequence then there is something off, i.e. they seem to lack the linguistic variance that is normally present in consumer written reviews. We feel someone is trying to manipulate here but this someone is covering his tracks. Do you have experience in this regard or can you provide us with additional data points to look at?
Content Development | | NewBuilder0 -
My WebSite has two sections with overlapping, or redundant articles on the same topics. Google is only listing one or the other article in Search Results. What should I do to have both pages (similiar but unique content ) to be listed?
My Web Site has two sections with overlapping, or redundant articles on the same topics. Google is only listing one or the other article in Search Results. What should I do to have both pages (similar but unique content ) to be listed? Example: http://www.womenshealthcaretopics.com/pregnancy_week_12.htm http://www.womenshealthcaretopics.com/pregnancy_12_weeks.html
Content Development | | docjamesmd0 -
Content issue
Hi, Quick question; I have set up a micro site in which i was going to take some of the content from my reviews and recipes my customers have posted and have them placed on my other site. The site i currently have is a large site receiving over 200,00 visitors every day. Will this be affected as duplicate content if i was to do this as i do not want to affect my rankings. Any suggestions what i can do to get round this? Cheers
Content Development | | wazza19851