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!
-
Good topic! So, the guidelines currently state:
- Ratings must be sourced directly from users.
- Don’t rely on human editors to create, curate or compile ratings information for local businesses. These types of reviews are critic reviews.
- Sites must collect ratings information directly from users and not from other sites.
My question is, is the service you are using publishing your reviews anyplace else but on your website? In other words, are the reviews posted on your site appearing anywhere else?
-
Thanks for your response, Bernadette. This is Jen from Link Right Media actually : ). To clarify, I'm talking more about companies such as Nearby Now that collects reviews, marks them up, and adds them to the client's website.
-
Jason, thanks for posting this. We have been aware of this update, and have taken action accordingly. The reviews that are on certain client websites generally are unique reviews given directly the client, and not posted on third party review sites, so we don't generally have a problem.
The policy that we've taken, even before these guidelines were published, is that we don't duplicate reviews. So, if a review is on a third party site, we generally don't post it or copy it elsewhere. That's duplicate content, and we try to refrain from that.
If you are posting or copying reviews from other websites and putting them on your own site, I recommend refrain from doing that--not only because of Google's updated guidelines.
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
-
What is the best practice way to attribute a Google Review?
An example might be a local directory site, where multiple businesses are featured. To flesh out the respective business profiles, Google Reviews are included. Copying/pasting would be the definition of duplicate content. I wonder though if hyperlinking to the review itself would be enough? For a random example: "you literally have never had better ice cream. cutest shop in charleston sc" - Mandee Jalbert, Google Review Google doesn't appear to have a review embed option- am I wrong? If not, would the above attribution via the "Google Review" hyperlink be sufficient to head off any potential dings for duplicate content? Thanks! Stephen
Reviews and Ratings | | PerfectPitchConcepts
Thanks for your thoughts! I feel like this might make for a good presentation at our SoundBoard conference someday soon.0 -
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 -
Google My Business right had side block disapeared for a brand search
Hi Just redeveloped my site and went live end of April Since then whenever i do a branded search the GMB 'pack' has always shown on the right hand side whenever i do a branded search but it has disapeared as of the last couple of days. Any ideas why this can happen ? and is it anything to worry about or just a google 'glitch' that should right itself soon? If not any ideas how to fix ? (accounts and website all properly linked) etc When i go to GMB dashboard and click 'View on Search' it does show up as it should, but not when i go to do a google search for the brand name !? All Best Dan
Reviews and Ratings | | Dan-Lawrence1 -
Marking up an iframe with reviews schema. Possible? Ethical?
Hey there fellow Mozzers! I work with a broad variety of clients, many of them local businesses, and they in turn sometimes find a vendor that stumps me. This is one of those special cases, where the vendor is doing some shady stuff with reviews schema. First, they're taking reviews from third party sites and filtering them to only show 4 and 5 star reviews (red flag #1), then they're asking us to post them to the website (red flag #2) and finally they are marking them up with schema (red flag #3). If this were my vendor I would have fired them when they started telling me Google doesn't care, doesn't enforce the guidelines, and all that other nonsense, but hey, I'm not the client and I have to make good for them. I did flat out refuse to place these reviews as they asked, but they came back with a "solution", that I'm not sure I trust. They're telling me they can't remove the schema (red flag #4), but they can iframe it onto the website. Their logic, which is wrong, is that Google can't/doesn't crawl iframes so therefore the reviews can be displayed without any negative consequence. I obviously have some ethical concerns with this, but I have to provide the service to my client whether or not they share my values. However, I can object on professional grounds if I think they will take on undue risk. My only problem here is that I have no documentation for how this proposed solution would work. Working through this logically still leaves me with a gap, and that's where you folks come in!
Reviews and Ratings | | brettmandoes
A) We know that Google crawls iframes
B) We know that Google can apply schema within iframes (works with YouTube embeds)
C) We know that content within an iframe is technically on another website, so it doesn't normally apply to your website
D) I don't know how specifically reviews schema would interact with an iframe
E) I don't know if this would result in Google triggering an alarm and blocking the business I'm hoping you guys can help me figure this out. Ethics aside (making me cringe to type that) is this technically feasible without risk, or would this still be a risky move? For the record, another client tried filtering their reviews while marking up with schema against my recommendation and got caught, and received a penalty alert. They were removed from results until the problem was fixed.0 -
It's been over a year of going back and forth with Google My Business team
It's been over a year of going back and forth with Google My Business team regarding my GMB page. It was active for 2+ years prior with over 20+ reviews. I email GMB weekly to find out the status of the page and they keep saying it is a technical glitch and they are waiting for an update. Would love to get any advice on how to resolve my business page so it appears again on the Google maps or who I can contact to resolve this issue. This is our third time creating a new G+ business page https://plus.google.com/+LocalSEOSearchToronto
Reviews and Ratings | | LocalSEOSearch_john0 -
Bug In Google System. Google Says Is Not Bug.
Hello Moz fellowship. Ive been learning and following SEO and local optimization for many years. MOZ has been a SEO playbook and bible for me. Im running into a transparency issue with Google and need some help please. I sent Google GMB this email:Hello GMB "Hello GMB There is a bug in your system that revises a previously posted review date to a become a new current post date. The bug occurs when someone updates a previously posted review with new pictures or deletes and updates new pictures. When the deletion occurs and new pictures are uploaded, the old review becomes the new date of the picture updates. This bug allows an old review to become a new review. I can send screen shots and can explain how I found this out if Google would like. Basically it doesn't show a true representation of the time line of posted reviews. Thank you"Google GMB support on the phone says it is not a bug. The problem is that its show non-factual and untruthful timeline information to potential consumers because of the original review date changes. The rep says that example: a reviewer from 3 years ago original review could show up as the most recent review with the most recent date. The main problem is, any consumer shopping and doing research would misinterpret this as being the newest review when it was not. On GMB dashboard the date gets revised to show the latest date. There is no notation that the review is old or that there has been a modification to the original review. So where is the transparency on Google's side to show the customer the actual real date of the review? This problem opens up a can of worms for millennials trying to make it happen and for business owners that are trying their best to become better at their service, etc. Especially when you want the newest review and not something from years ago or months ago or dealing with a potential harassing customer who knows the bug exist and will take advantage of the flaw and constantly update his review so it shows as being the 1st all the time. How does the online customer know this is happening?thank you.
Reviews and Ratings | | Carwrapsolutions0 -
Google Knowledge graph card
Hi everyone, I've got quite a lot of good reviews on Google My Business, but I don't know how to get these to appear on my Knowledge Card. Any ideas for importing these across? I'd also like to include my social media tags in this card, but the HTML that I've tried to use has added the text to my homepage, whereas I wanted it invisible on the homepage but the social tags to show up in search. Cheers!
Reviews and Ratings | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
How to Google Product Reviews?
Hello, I have a client that sells only 1 item. What will be the best way to start getting reviews? I thought about opening a placess account, so the reviews will also start showing on his Adwords campaign. Or can I get products reviews on google+ ? Thanks
Reviews and Ratings | | ogdcorp0
