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.
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)
-
Hi Sam!
It might be helpful to start with a little clarification here - in Local SEO, the term 'testimonials' tends to indicate direct-to-business owner content while the term 'reviews' typically indicates content that exists on a third party platform. In researching this topic, it would likely be better to search for 'reviews' rather than 'testimonials' as you are talking about third party reviews.
Mike Blumenthal wrote a great little post about this earlier this year:
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/04/24/using-google-reviews-on-your-website/
Hope it helps!
-
I would agree with everyone here that duplicate content isn't really an issue here. And it's really not the concern it once was. I personally would take a screen shot though, just to show where the original is for your audience. I also heard somewhere that you can't republish Yelp testimonials elsewhere, or maybe it was Google+, and have them still featured on the original source. So you may want to double check the rules around testimonials for those two sites.
-
If you're really worried about content duplication, I would do as you suggest, placing them as an image. Personally, I wouldn't lose sleep at night if I copied and pasted some reviews from my G+ Local.
(Former?) Google employee, Matt Cutts once posted a video claiming that duplicate content won't hurt you unless it's spammy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vi-wkEeOKxM&feature=youtu.be
If you're still on the fence, what I would also suggest is to try asking the same question at Google's Webmaster Central Help Forum. I think you'd get a fairly definitive answer possibly from a Google employee like John Mueller.
-
Differently from (as an example) facebook, google + API doesn't provide a mean of extracting customer reviews. So programmatically you can't, given you rule out scraping them.
Manually you can do whatever you want.
As for content duplication, is a risk, but there's no such thing as content duplication penalization, when facing duplicate content google just make a choice, indexing one or another.
And to have google consider your content duplicate, you really need to copy everything, and have you page share the vast majority of the html with another page.
-
Having a testimonials page on your website is a great idea. It shows the clients going to your website that you are a good provider. I would think you could just place "Review from Google+" or "Review from Yelp" at the bottom of a comment.
Here is our testimonial page: http://www.essentialpest.com/testimonials/
We don't place reviews from other websites. The testimonials we have posted came from emails, letters, etc. - However, I would think that if you linked the word "Google+" from "Review from Google+" with a link to that review, it would just be proof that review does exist.
This may be useful to you. http://moz.com/blog/getting-reviews-the-right-way-for-local-businesses
Good luck!
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
-
Schema Code Not Working – Used Business Review Bundle Plugin
Debt Collectors – Debt Collection Agency Melbourne Hi Moz Community One of our client website JMA Credit (https://www.jmacreditcontrol.com.au/ ) We have installed Business Review Bundle Wordpress plugin to display our Google Reviews on our website. https://richplugins.com/business-reviews-bundle-wordpress-plugin Enabled Rich snippet option – to display aggregate rating Schema code available on the source Also, tested on structured data testing tool – it shows everything is fine https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jmacreditcontrol.com.au But, Aggregate rating (star) not displayed on the SERP Page Waiting for valuable response to get this issue fixed
Reviews and Ratings | | Bhisshaun0 -
Not showing up in Google Local Pack despite being #1 ranked for keyword
Hey everyone, This has been an on-going problem that we've been having for a select location of ours. We've been #1 ranked for the keyword "dog groomers near me", however we don't show up in the Google Local Pack (top 3 locations box). We have a high 4.9 rating with 20+ ratings, and the other locations that DO show up have a 2.4 and 3.6 rating with less reviews! I've exhausted every resource and have even geo-tagged our specific photos on our landing pages. I'm not sure what to do anymore as we're already #1 ranked on every similar keyword. Thank you, Anthony
Reviews and Ratings | | anthonydegalbo0 -
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: https://www.target.com/p/ultra-soft-fitted-sheet-300-thread-count-threshold-153/-/A-13973172?showOnlyReview=true 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?
Reviews and Ratings | | Eroc2 -
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 -
Does anyone use an embeddable Google review widget?
Currently, I use an embeddable Yelp review widget on my site. The widget I use has been helpful, but is no longer actively maintained and I'd prefer to show Google reviews instead. Does anyone have a recommendation for a widget to embed Google reviews?
Reviews and Ratings | | Dions0 -
Why are certain words formatted as bold in Google+ Reviews?
Hey guys, I noticed that certain words within reviews left on Google+ pages are being shown in bold text. The original reviews do not feature bold text, but when shown in snippets they appear. I attached a photo below for a college's G+ page. Any insight would be great! 0ZHfhnP
Reviews and Ratings | | TomBinga11250 -
Migrating Reviews from Old SIte
We recently changed our Website to Word Press and I would like to move the old reviews to the new site. I am concerned Google might not understand the reviews showing up all of a sudden. The old reviews were on a sub-domain (store.domain.com). I will be able to match the dates and text as well as names. Any advice or Best Practice on this? Thanks!
Reviews and Ratings | | Chris6610 -
Too many reviews too quickly?
Is there any sort of guideline on this? Right now, we have very few google reviews. However, I've cross referenced a list of our happiest clients with people who have g+ accounts. There are at least 12 clients, I feel strongly would write us g+ reviews if I asked them to. I want to just get the word out today, but I'm worried if 8-12 reviews in a week would red flag us. I've heard that getting too many reviews to quickly can be a problem, but I'm thinking that more like 100 than 10, but I have no idea. Most of my competitors don't have any reviews, and the most any of them have is 10. I don't know if that matters at all either in terms of triggering a red flag. I'd appreciate whatever insight you all could give. Thanks, Ruben
Reviews and Ratings | | KempRugeLawGroup0