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.
Is giving away something for a Google Review bad?
-
I have a friend whose client is giving away something for free if you leave a Google Review for his site. I recall that being not well liked by Google and could potentially end up in a Penalty. The site is ranking really poorly in Google but well in Yahoo/Bing so I am wondering if that is what happened.
What are you opinions?
-
So I advised him to remove it asap and wait until google has recrawled the site without that on there.
What is the next step? call Google and ask to review the site to see if there was a penalty?
-
Trying to get Google to undo a negative could never be a fun proposition I assume.
-
Based on the Google policy beeneeb quoted, it is a clear violation to give away items (i..e pay) for a POSITIVE review.
If you were to approach your customers and offer a giveaway item for simply completing a review, without any suggestion that the review is positive, then I don't see any Google violation.
This approach also has the benefit that most of your site's clients will infer that the gift is for a positive review, and offer one.
The drawbacks are you could give away items for a bad review. The other risk is a trigger-happy Google employee could take action against your site. If that happens, you would have to clearly explain that you did not violate the policy and request any punishment to be lifted.
-
Without getting into the good vs. bad conversation, my mind wanders into the necessity of giving anything away for clients to give you a review.
If a company has a strong client base, it could be as simple as asking for a review via:
- Face to Face Meetings
- Social Media
- Mailers
With a properly worded request, and an easy to follow link, many clients will give you the review without any incentive. Simple loyalty goes a long way.
While I am sure more people might fill reviews out for a prize/gift, but is that the way a business receives accurate, non-biased reviews?
Reviews are great for a number of reasons, including SEO and placement in Google Places pages, but they also serve a different purpose.
When a person gives an honest review, positive or negative, that information can be passed on to the business owner to continue what is successful or look at the needed changes to get back on track. This actually happened with my business recently, as there ended up with a few complaints about my staff. I had to look long and hard for solutions to tighten up the ship, and luckily those truthful reviews didn't get lost in a bunch of ego stroking fake reviews.
Honesty is always the best policy, and false or inaccurate reviews will be found out at some point.
-
Hi Dave,
Most websites that have a review structure frown upon giving something in return for a review. Yelp is very clear on these guidelines:
http://officialblog.yelp.com/2009/09/to-solicit-or-not-to-solicit.html
On the Google site, this is known as a conflict of interest:
"Reviews are only valuable when they are honest and unbiased. Even if well-intentioned, a conflict of interest can undermine the trust in a review. For instance, do not offer or accept money or product to write positive reviews about a business, or to write negative reviews about a competitor. Please also do not post reviews on behalf of others or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with the place you are reviewing."
Source: http://www.google.com/support/places/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=187622
I hope that helps!
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 Webmaster Guideline Change: Human-Readable list of links
In the revised webmaster guidelines, google says "[...] Provide a sitemap file with links that point to the important pages on your site. Also provide a page with a human-readable list of links to these pages (sometimes called a site index or site map page)." (Source: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/35769?hl=en) I guess what they mean by this is something like this: http://www.ziolko.de/sitemap.html Still, I wonder why they say that. Just to ensure that every page on a site is linked and consequently findable by humans (and crawlers - but isn't the XML sitemap for those and gives even better information)? Should not a good navigation already lead to every page? What is the benefit of a link-list-page, assuming you have an XML sitemap? For a big site, a link-list is bound to look somewhat cluttered and its usefulness is outclassed by a good navigation, which I assume as a given. Or isn't it? TL;DR: Can anybody tell me what exactly is the benefit of a human-readable list of all links? Regards, Nico
On-Page Optimization | | netzkern_AG0 -
Why does Google pick a low priority page on my site?
Hi Guys. One of my pages ranks quite well for "mid year diaries 14-15" on Google. The problem is it's a really specific product page (A4, Hardback, day-to-a-page diary I think). It would be much better for the user to land on our mid-year diaries category, not really deep into the site. Why is Google prioritizing this product page over our general 'mid year diaries' category? Especially when the category would relate to the search more accurately? I work for TOAD diaries and I think our page rank is 10 for this search. Eagerly awaiting some insight 🙂 Thanks in advance everyone! Isaac.
On-Page Optimization | | isaac6630 -
Inches or " Feet or ' Does Google translate the symbols?
I have a client who sells things that the size is important. In their industry some people say "15 Inch Blue Widget" and others say "15" Blue Widget" using the symbol " for inches. On the page I know we could say both to cover all the bases but I want to get the title right. In their industry there is not one more preferred than the other. Does anybody know if Google translates ' to feet and " to inches. Should I work both into the title for a product or only one?
On-Page Optimization | | JoshuaLindley0 -
Will Google penalize my website if I hide the H1 tag?
If I hide H1 tag (title on the homepage) with CSS, how Google handle with my site?
On-Page Optimization | | joeko0 -
How to properly remove pages and a category from Google's index
I want to remove this category http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ and all the pages in that category (e.g. http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/7386.html ) from Google's index. I used the following string in the "Reomval URS" section in Google Webmaster Tools: http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/* is that correct or I better use http://www.webdesign.org/web-design-news-all/ ? Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | VinceWicks0 -
Website accessible on http and https. Is it bad?
We noticed that our website is accessible on: http://www.example.com and https://www.example.com Both the versions have page rank of 4. Though on https version we have added canonical tag indicating http:// version as preferred. Is this fine or we need to use 301 redirect and let the site be accessible only on http:// version??
On-Page Optimization | | CyrilWilson1 -
Right way to block google robots from ppc landing pages
What is the right way to completely block seo robots from my adword landing pages? Robots.txt does not work really good for that, as far I know. Adding metatags noindex nofollow on the other side will block adwords robot as well. right? Thank you very much, Serge
On-Page Optimization | | Kotkov0 -
Does a page's url have any weight in Google rankings?
I'm sure this question must have been asked before but I can't find it. I'm assuming that the title tag is far more important than the page's url. Is that correct? Does the url have any relevance to Google?
On-Page Optimization | | rdreich490