Using structured data for reviews - for negative or warnings.
-
We all use review markup today and we use it linearly as only a vote up or down. My question is around a site that will judge the negative impacts of given chemicals introduced into certain waterways. (Sorry, I must protect the client so I cannot give out all the info; I hope this is enough for a reasonable understanding.)
Is there anyone who has ever used or is aware of any markup that does not result in a star? So, if we use the current system, we end up where a bad chemical gets a ton of single stars. In essence what we are measuring is degrees of Positive. With four stars there is no zero positive, but 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% (Ok unless it is aggregated).
I want to be able to show degrees of negative and obviously stars would be confusing. So, have a symbol that connotes a negative (skull and crossbones, X, !!, etc.) and the more of these someone marks shows more displeasure or more danger. Are there any ideas for this or any occurrences already on the Internet you may be aware of?
Preference would be to be able to at some point have search engines show them as snippets.
Thanks to all you Mozzers,
Robert
-
Hello Robert,
That I know of there is no micro-data markup for your specific need. However, you should be able to use the review rating for now. You can show the skull and crossbones or happy faces or whatever you need to show to the user, and then use the Rating or AggregateRating schema to translate that into what Google needs, which is essentially a number range from 1-5. These would show up as starts in the SERPs, but you could show them with whatever icons you like on your website.
-
Hello Fabioricotta
Thanks for the well thought out answer. If we were individually coding each review that would work but we are working with a lot of searcher generated reviews and wanted something that would be recognized by the search engines as well for the review.
I do give you credit for great thinking on this though! Thanks a ton. (Sorry, I went dark for about 10 days and did not answer back.)Robert
-
Hi Robert,
Have you try special characters on meta description? Instead of showing the first 5 letters on your meta description, you can use something like this character "" to represent your review about it. Does it work?
You can find the complete list of UTF-8 symbols here: http://www.w3schools.com/charsets/ref_utf_symbols.asp
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
-
Reviews for Plastic Surgeons and Other Businesses where Anonymity is preferred
Howdy, fellow mozzers. I would like to hear some thoughts on how to go about review generation for industries, where anonymity is preferred - like plastic surgery, DUI/DWI law, even intimate-related stores etc. Far not everyone would want to have their profile attached to a plastic surgery procedure, especially in private areas; or have their face by a review about them getting out of jail for drunk driving etc. We have clients in those industries and many clients of theirs would love to leave reviews, as long as they don't have to login with Google or other accounts. We sure use those testimonials on the website, but, again, faceless testimonials can look fake. Any advice?
Reviews and Ratings | | DmitriiK1 -
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 -
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 -
The relationship between Google Reviews and SEO?
I have recently started working with a client with bad reviews on Google (2.1/5). Apart from the fact consumers are likely to see these reviews and decide against buying the service the company offers (causing a decrease in traffic), are there any other negative effects on the SEO?
Reviews and Ratings | | sophiecrosby970 -
Best process for asking customers to leave reviews?
This might be too off-topic for Moz, but I think many of us might face the same issue, so I thought I would ask. Love them or hate them, we get 90% of our business from being #1 on Trip Advisor. My biggest competition is trying very hard to take over that #1 spot, so we are working to keep it. Has anyone found a seamless way to ask customers for TripAdvisor reviews? We email, text, ask over the phone. But here the problem, Trip Advisor is not the easiest site to leave a review on. If you are on your phone, they want you download the app. Some people don't like to download apps. Or, if they have the app already and click "yes" to open the site in the app, it goes to the app store instead. There doesn't seem to be as much of an issue on the PC, but most people do everything from their phones now. And if something is a little bit hard, people are less likely to go out of their way to leave a review. So, here's my question. Has anyone found a better way? Maybe a form on my website? Or a process that seems to work better? This does have some SEO implications in that my Trip Advisor page does show up in search results quite a bit as well as much home page. Sometimes they are #2 and #3 together.
Reviews and Ratings | | CalicoKitty20002 -
Google Plus Reviews
Hi, I am working with a brick and motor store and trying to figure out the best ways to obtain Google plus reviews. Personally speaking I think the best way to receive a review is at checkout. Checkout can take about 10-15 min and would be a great time to ask for a review. However, I run into a problem with logistics in obtaining the review and needed help deciding which option to choose or if another option existed? Option: 1. Ask the customer to give a review on our companies Google account? However, this leads to multiple reviews from a single entity, which I would only assume is not a correct way to obtain reviews. 2. Ask the customer to sign in to their Google account. This can be a little invasive and I do not want to turn the customer away from a sale. Am I missing another alternative? Any help would be great, thanks!
Reviews and Ratings | | Mike.NW0 -
Grade Us vs 5 Star Reviews?
We need to get some more reviews, so we're looking at either getting Grade Us or 5 Star Reviews' services. Does anyone have strong feelings about either one? Or another service? Thanks, Ruben
Reviews and Ratings | | KempRugeLawGroup0 -
How to display reviews from review sites on your own website?
Is there a good way to display reviews that people have left on sites like Yelp, City Search, Google, etc on your own website without triggering duplicate content issues? It's hard to get reviews, so I'd like to make the most out of the ones that I get.
Reviews and Ratings | | atstickel0