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
-
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 -
How many Google reviews can I collect at once?
I work for a University with 10,000+ students and alumni that could submit reviews. But how many reviews should I be collecting at one time? I don't want to overload the reviews and put up a red flag in Google...any insight on how much is too much?
Reviews and Ratings | | GabeGibitz0 -
Snap Pack & Yelp/Angie's list Page authority
Hey gang, First off thank you for any advice. I know we are all busy trying to make our money so I really appreciate everyone who chimes in. Links to studies and articles are also much appreciated. So. I am by no mean an SEO expert, I prefer to dabble in outreach and authentic link building campaigns. So you can imagine my frustration when I pull off a successful campaign, get about 4 or 5 great real links, raise in organic, but don't budge on the maps. I have noticed something. 1. My competition's yelp page has a couple more reviews than me (btw it's a locksmith site, I know it's a rather spammy industry, I don't do black hat...) BUT their yelp Page Authority is like 46! Same thing with their angies list, BBB, etc etc. MINE IS 1 across the board. Now I know the internet is changing. There is usually no reason for a locksmith site to have a viral blog. Google is looking toward more Citation based authority for local ranking factors. (Or at least that's what they say, I feel like their algorithm is not yet advanced enough to catch all the spammers.) So I am going to have an ethics meeting with my company and make sure we are alwyas treating our customers fabulously as well as sometimes intentionally asking for a review, not just on google, but across all of our web 2.0 platforms. BUT How do I get MY page authority on these directories higher? By back linking to them? DO you guys think these companies actually had campaigns to get links to these directories? Did they just PBN em'? Am I stuck in 2013!? Much love guys.
Reviews and Ratings | | Meier0 -
Google crawling item page reviews
Hi Moz community, I've been trying to do some on-site work and noticed that our product pages reviews may not be totally optimized. It used to be that all of the text from the reviews appeared in the actual code of the page, but now none of that text appears, so it may not be getting crawled. The change was most likely released when we had an item page redesign. However, when I Google a review snippet, it does seem to come up, so maybe Google is crawling that data despite it not being SEO optimized. Is this really an issue if the review snippets are showing up in search, there's been a lot of talk that Google is now better at crawling javascript. Thanks
Reviews and Ratings | | znotes0 -
Google+ Places Reviews
Hi There, Am I right in saying that Google Places reviews cannot be reviewed easily if at all. I have advised a client wirth a negative review to instead respond to the review and get clients to place good quality reviews. However, they seem to think if I ring Google they will just remove them and that Google has confirmed this. I am pretty sure I am right but before I jump through pointless hurdles with Google to be told I am, I want to make sure. Has anyone been successful in removing negative reviews from Google. Kind Regards Neil
Reviews and Ratings | | nezona0 -
Google Places - Main Location Change = New Page?
I have my main Google Places / Google+ Local page in Detroit where I've had it for probably 5 years and have 10 5-star reviews. It shows up pretty well in the local listings. I recently moved to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and while I'm still doing business in Detroit and have an office location, my main location is now Sioux Falls. I've started a new Google+ page here, but it's not doing very well and I don't have many reviews. Which of the following should I do? 1. Create New Page and Leave the Old page where it is Create a new page for Sioux falls and leave the old page in Detroit. It will take some time to build up the new location profile. 2. Change the Address of the Old Page (Detroit) to my new address in Sioux Falls Could I change the address of the old page (Detroit) to my new address in Sioux Falls, then create a new page for Detroit? This would hopefully have my page with all of the reviews, which has been around for awhile, in my new main location and I could create a new page for Detroit. Does anyone have any experience with this? What do you think would be the best approach?
Reviews and Ratings | | JaredDetroit0 -
How can I avoid duplicate content when building a review widget?
My website has a profile page for each of the home improvement contractors who signs up. They accumulate reviews on those pages. I want to build a review widget to display our reviews on our contractors' websites. How can I avoid duplicate content issues for the reviews? Example of a profile page with a few reviews: http://www.thehomefixers.com/members/425/waterheaters-plus-llc.php
Reviews and Ratings | | menachemp0 -
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