Panda Question on Aggregated Testimonials - Need Input
-
Hello Moz Friends,
I am investigating some online reputation management tools to help boost testimonials across the web for my various business locations. One thing I am finding is that many tools offer syndicated and aggregated content that can be displayed within our website for that location from various review sites across the web.
My question is, will this type of aggregated content have a negative impact on our site, considering Google Panda is aggressively going after sites with thin content, aggregated content, etc.? I like the idea of showcasing positive testimonial from across the web on that business location's website testimonials page, but do not want to do it if it will ultimately lead to a penalty and site devaluing.
Does anyone have any insight into whether or not aggregated testimonials on one page of our site will have a negative impact overall, a negative impact on just that one page's ranking ability, or should have no affect?
-
Well, there are a lot of sites that aggregate reviews. But they're generally adding some sort of other value. I wouldn't actively try to spread the same review. Content gets scraped every day, why pay for something that's going to happen anyway? That's my general take on things like this.
Looking into the situation a little deeper, I think this particular effort is about rep. mgmt. The first thing that has to happen is actually fixing the issue, or issues, with the business. No matter what's done, traditional approaches to reputation management are just a bandage if a real problem exists.
What you can do instead is something similar to the Reputation Management Workout section. It's a pretty good overview of how you can generate real reviews. Once those start coming in, you can iframe them or use them as an image.
I've seen a case, here on the Moz forum, where a site appeared to drop considerably after including reviews on their site. I'm not 100% sure that was the root cause, but it was also the only change. So if you're feeling feisty, you can try it out and let me know.
That particular site was using Schema markup for an aggregate rating without the other reviews. So you can see there are a lot of possible ways to do this inappropriately.
Actual, unique, reviews that are properly marked up should be kosher in HTML form. Just be careful to avoid general review spam/schema spam.
-
I think that you could display these reviews on a page that is noindexed or within a frame that is not crawled. But, I agree with Travis that it is a little risky to display this content that is highly duplicated across the web - especially placing it on a lot of your own pages.
-
Thanks Travis.
I really appreciate the honest feedback. I was thinking along those lines, but wanted to be sure.
I am investigating allreviewsites.com as a possible solution, and one of their selling features is the ability to syndicate content where available, so if someone posts a review on our site, it can be automatically fed to sites that accept UGC from other sites, such as yellowpages, merchantcircle, etc. You are saying that this is bad? is it seen as duplicate content or just a bad user experience for those few potential customers who may run into the same review on multiple sites? even if its seen as duplicate content, wouldn't we be okay since we are the original source of the content?
-
There are a lot of sites that aggregate UGC. But they tend to do something with this aggregated UGC that adds value. If you're super concerned, there's always the possibility of an iframe.
It's kind of funny that I've referenced this whiteboard Friday twice in the last few days, but I think it's a great starting point for part of what you're trying to do. Part of your situation is referenced as an anecdote.
I would definitely avoid any product/service that spreads duplicate UGC across the internets. (Review on Yelp! gets placed on numerous other review sites... that sort of thing is bad.)
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
-
I just found original business name for client - its not the same as GMB or any aggregate site. What to do?
the business filing with the Secretary of State is a name of an individual (e.g. Matthew Smith, M.D.). This is on reflected on Localeze and such. However, the business is operating under a name "Healthy Body and Minds Clinic", which is the Facebook, Google My Business, and website name and info. So, how is it best to get consistency in NAP with the two different business names being used? (Ideally, no change in State registration or filing for a DBA). Thanks much! One idea I have seen is to include both and separate them by a colon. As in "Healthy Body and Minds Clinic : Matthew Smith, M.D." I appreciate any suggestions or tips to help. Thanks.
Reviews and Ratings | | Marky_Mark0 -
Adding Google Reviews to Testimonials Page
Can anyone verify if it is allowable to add Google reviews to your testimonials page? I know you can't use schema on these reviews. If it is allowable, should these be images so that they don't get indexed and flag duplicate content? Thank you in advance for your help. Rita
Reviews and Ratings | | AAEPA20110 -
Does Google's 3rd Party Reviews Guideline Update make Review Aggregators Obsolete?
Good day!We are concerned about Google's updated Guidelines in ratings and reviews, specifically as quoted in the SEO Roundtable: "The new guidelines specifically disallows you from using 3rd party reviews, found on other sites, and marking those up on your site."https://www.seroundtable.com/google-updates-reviews-markup-guidelines-22608.htmlThe Guidelines are here https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/reviews#local-business-reviewsWe enlist the use of a 3rd party aggregate for one of our client's (service business). Since, in effect, it is a 3rd party review site, and what the shortcode does is copy reviews from that third party site and mark them up on the client website. What do you guys know about this update, and what are is your take on what the update says and how it relates to a 3rd party review aggregators? Thanks!
Reviews and Ratings | | LinkRightMedia0 -
How many backlinks do i need to outrank my competition?
Ok lets say i am doing local seo in atlanta georgia usa for the keyword "wholesale atlanta ga" When you search "wholesale atlanta ga" the 1st result is hallsatlanta.com under geo search citations, which has 5 backlinks from 2 referring domains with the highest pa of 26 1. then www.bufordwholesale.com/ 1st on organic search with 7 dofollow backlinks with highest pa 43 and from 1 domain 2. http://www.yelp.com/biz/e-mart-wholesale-atlanta2nd I am assuming i just need to get my site submitted to yelp for this backlink, perhaps more citations to outrank. 3. www.wlexperts.com/ 3rd on serps with 3 dofollow links, highest pa 31, coming from 2 domains So to sum it up, if i wanted to outrank a new website for keyword "wholesale atlanta ga" technically all i would need is 8 dofollows backlinks, pa 44+, 3 referring domains, 2 local citations ? And of course repeat this same process for all of my keywords?, my on-page seo is already optimized
Reviews and Ratings | | sageb1 -
Reusing reviews from other sites for branded rich snippet taken from brands testimonial page
Hi my customer has had a new website built for their custom home building company which has a testimonials page http://www.precisionhomes.com.au/testimonials.html This testimonials page has duplicate review content taken from another dedicated review site http://www.productreview.com.au/p/precision-homes.html My question is this, if I add review microdata to http://www.precisionhomes.com.au/testimonials.html will google recognize this in Rich snippets and the Brands Knowledge Graph or will it just consider it duplicate content?
Reviews and Ratings | | ravydavy0 -
Started using a 3rd Party Review Company for our Website. Do we need to show the reviews or is a widget (badge) with a link back to review company sufficient enough from an SEO ranking point of view?
Hi All, We have started to use a 3rd party review company and now have the choice of either implementing their re-supplied widgets (Java ) on our site showing customer reviews or use their an API to get this information. The widgets (Java) , would be loaded once the page is actually loaded so I am not sure how and if google will read this information if at all? If we use a widget then we won't be able to implement it with Schema.org although we will be able to use rich snippets to it will appear on any PPC (once we have had 30 reviews). If we go down the API route, it's more expensive for us but we can use the review schema.org for this. Does anyone have any experience of what works best for them ?.. We have a choice of having a widget showing latest reviews or just a badge (which is actually a link to the review site showing our reviews). From an SEO point of view, is one better than the other ? Does google actually read the content of the review or is the link back to the 3rd party review company sufficient enough to help with rankings etc. Am I correct in assuming that by linking to a 3rd party review company and showing our reviews on our site , this will help with rankings as even though the content in the reviews doesn't really say much ,. I did see it was a ranking factor on the survey but not sure how google uses this. ? I've read up some information on reviews etc but wondered what the general consensus was with what others found works best for them Any help greatly appreciated Pete
Reviews and Ratings | | PeteC120 -
Is there a better way to wrap schema on a testimonial page? Example website shown
Hi, Hopefully someone can help my dilemma! I am trying to wrap review schema (schema.org/review). However, it's stumping me because of our WordPress theme "Flawless." If any are familiar with this particular theme you'll know that there is the normal visual/text portion of the page-editing portion of WordPress, but there is also a page-building section which is unique to Flawless. In this instance, a Testimonial "Content/Post Type Item" has been used. This was where the page was constructed and wherein the problem lies. If I wrap schema around it like I normally would, the page distorts on the front end and becomes a garbled mess. I've been trying to solve the problem and the closest I've gotten has been to copy the source-code of the Flawless themed Testimonial Content/Post Type Item into the "Text" portion of Wordpress to replicate the Flawless page-builder. I thought "yay! I can wrap schema around this for sure!" but I'm still encountering some problems. If I'm using the structured data markup helper from Google, and copying and pasting the HTML I'd like (with the corresponding schema "header") I get an error on the Structured Data Testing Tool saying "Incomplete schema data." I've tried looking for plugins that would help me, but all that I've seen adds duplicate content to the page. If there's a way to wrap review schema on this page—it would make my day! Thanks for the help!
Reviews and Ratings | | Shawn1240 -
Customer Testimonial Question
Hi All, Over time we have provided our services to many clients big and small.
Reviews and Ratings | | Mark_Ch
As part of my new website I'm looking to create a simple icon thumbnail slide show on the home page. The slide show will show new customers a icon image of the companies we have helped. My Question
Naturally, we have a full email audit of communication and works being completed for each client. Can I simply place the client icon my slide show without their permission? Regards Mark0