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.
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:
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?
-
Hi Eroc,
Yep, this is a super common issue for SEOs. My company's site has reviews load in JavaScript, and Google even crawls and indexes those as if they're separate pages.
Google wants to read everything it can, so you've got to figure out the cost/benefit of this situation. If you really do have all of the product information, I'd guess that visitors entering through page 2 of reviews wouldn't be the worst thing, especially since Google would probably choose the page with the reviews most relevant to the query.
The main issue from my perspective is wasting Google's crawl budget on your extra review pages. If that's an issue that will significantly help your site (likely if you have a lot of products), you'll want to noindex those reviews like Ikea. There's no other method that will stop Google from wasting it's crawl budget.
Hope this helps!
Kristina
-
Hi Eroc,
I don’t see any value throwing review content by blocking in robots.txt, (no offence to IKEA
). I recommend to configure product pages as it won’t generate pagination issue for having too many reviews.It can handled by loading all comments on same product page (till load time won’t hurt) and display to user in chunks (without changing the url). If your page support 50 reviews (without hurting load time) remove the “Add Review” button after 50 review’s so you won’t receive new review’s or add moderation to simply chose which 50 comments you want to show because every review will not have same impact (and good enough to publish :P).
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
-
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 -
What do the symbols in the profile avatars in Google listing reviews mean?
A client of mine noticed that some of their customers that leave GMB listing reviews have special symbols in their profile avatars (please look at the attachment). Is this a sign of a influencer? Has anybody else noticed this? r6mhX
Reviews and Ratings | | BigChad20 -
Paying for Reviews Penalty?
Hello, recently came across a company that has been paying people directly for reviews. I of course do not recommend this and realized the ethical implications and even the lawsuits that can come from this, but does Google have a manual penalty for fake reviews or do they just algorithmically discount ones that raise red flags? I have never really had to worry about this in the past. I know you can flag fake reviews to them on an individual basis, but does anyone have history of knowing specific situations where a company was manually punished for doing this? Just curious and I kind of wanted to give them strong documentation to knock it off. Thanks in advance.
Reviews and Ratings | | jeremyskillings0 -
Do people receive notifications when you respond to their Google reviews?
If someone leaves a review of your business on your Google My Business listing, and you respond to that review, will they receive an email notification of your response to their review? We are working with a client who has unanswered reviews from several years ago, and though it's best practice to respond to all reviews, we didn't want to respond to reviews from 2013 if the person (who has likely forgot about their experience with the business in question) is going to get an email notifying them of our late response to their review. Thank you!
Reviews and Ratings | | BlueCorona1 -
How does decimal rounding of reviews to stars work in ios appstore? Starting from which average review score to get full 5 star rating?
How does decimal rounding of reviews to stars work in ios appstore?
Reviews and Ratings | | lcourse
Starting from which average review score to get full 5 star rating? Duolingo has a 5 star rating, but I doubt that they really have an all time review average larger than 4,75. In the google playstore their average of the android version is 4,6. Does anybody know how apple calculates the star ratings or has an URL reference where this is explained?0 -
Why does Google return 1 star reviews in local listings as the "most helpful"?
I have a client who has recently received two 1 star reviews on Google local (unhappy customer and unhappy customers boyfriend). This is affecting an otherwise flourishing business as these two 1 star reviews are displayed prominently when you search for the brand in Google. They have since received more positive reviews, however Google insists on displaying, what they term, the "most helpful" reviews first. Why are these 1 star reviews deemed "most helpful"? In all honesty, they aren't even really that helpful, with the latter verging on slanderous. We are in the process of reporting this one as it personally attacks a member of staff, however, whilst we tentatively wait weeks for a response, I wondered if anyone has any idea on how G decides which reviews are "most helpful"? When there is no option for other users to rate these reviews as helpful (such as on play store).
Reviews and Ratings | | Silkstream0 -
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 -
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