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.
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
-
How can I improve my rank on Google Local?
I am bringing this topic up again. Last year, I suddenly stopped ranking for Google Local search results. I tried backing away and hoping it would correct itself, but it has not. When I do a search for myself, I rarely show up in the results anymore, and this image shows AFTER I've zoomed WAY in just to find myself. I think it has something to do with many fishing charters having the same address. I read the Moz article about which signals are most important, but to be quite honest, I don't think any of these competitors really bother with SEO or even have filled out their Google My Business in its entirety. They all have way less reviews than I do as well. I really try to do everything right, but it doesn't seem to help. Is there something small ad obvious that I am missing. Any ideas on what to do?
Reviews and Ratings | | CalicoKitty20000 -
Reviews and Google - whats their relationship?
Hi there, I am trying to do some research in the field of reviews, I have set up successful review systems for local stores, but once I get to businesses that want to get reviews for their products or not a local business I cant get it straight. What should I do, What should I avoid at all costs etc., What are the basic guidelines and advice from Google to get reviews? Please give me advice and resources to anything that would be helpful with this topic and the topics listed below What are Google restrictions and requirements for reviews in a local business and a national business? Schema markup for reviews. Product reviews vs company/store reviews Thanks I really appreciate your time and help
Reviews and Ratings | | Ruchy1 -
Reviews and Propogating
Hi, I am wondering about the best way to ask a customer for reviews. I've read in articles back in 2016 that Google my places reviews will often show reviews from facebook page if they are linked together appropriately. Is this still true? Does anyone know additionally of other sites that do this ?
Reviews and Ratings | | therealtechs0 -
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 -
Customers can review business on New Google Plus
Google Plus for businesses has switched to a new Google+ page that does not have a "WRITE A REVIEW" button available for customers to leave a review for a business. This is preventing us from sending a link to our Google Plus business page directly to customers soliciting a review for our business. Has anyone else noticed this update migration and does anyone have a work around for how to send a link to our customers so they can leave a review on our Google+ business page?
Reviews and Ratings | | bcannon130 -
Local review site discovery
Rand and others have shared a link to a free service where you type in a state location and it shows a list of the most used local listings & review sites for that area. I can't find this service or link anywhere. Was this a service that was on getlisted.org that no longer exists?? Anyone know where it is or where it went?
Reviews and Ratings | | clearlyseo1 -
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)
Reviews and Ratings | | Sam-P0 -
Wondering best ways to optimize for google maps/local listing
I'm wondering if there is any strategy to optimize a client to show up in the local listings. I assume a lot of this is tied to Google + / Google Places for Business. Is it possible to have a company show up in the local listings over a certain geographic area even if they are not technically addressed in that area? Any help is much appreciated. Thanks, Dan H.
Reviews and Ratings | | higherimages0