How to address reviews that show up in Google but come from a business's own website?
-
One of my clients has a competitor who has a fairly poor reputation based on reviews on Google and Yelp. But, this competitor allows people to review them on their own website, and their "4.8" rating based on 250+ "reviews" show up in search engine results. I assume they are using schema markup to encourage that. My question is whether there is anything we can do to report this to Google, or otherwise make sure the general public is not fooled by these reviews?
-
I think that if you want to call this vendor dishonest you need to delve deeply into how the Reviewability service works, learn enough about it that any reasonable person would consider you to be an expert on how their system works, and then come to a conclusion that is firm enough to present in court.
Many review services allow vendors to contest reviews, place reviews on hold while disputes are being settled, hand-pick the reviews that they will display on their website, show only reviews above a certain score, and more. These are frequently-employed practices that any vendor can adopt - if they subscribe to a review service or not.
It is always good to back your clients when you have solid information. In many instances, weasel hunts are best turned over to attorneys.
-
Thanks for the response. The competitor is using a service called Reviewability. On their policy page, they say that "The review may optionally then be posted to the subscriber's website." at the discretion of the subscriber. So they can post all the good reviews, and hide the others. http://reviewability.com/review-policy/
Given that policy, do you have any further thoughts on the matter?
-
Keep in mind that there are many different kinds of reviews. Each of them attract a different type of reviewer.
If your competitor is using a third-party review collection system - even if it is on their own site - the reviews that they receive might be legitimate. By that, a 4.8 out of 250 visitors says that they have done a good job.
Lots of the people who go straight to Yelp or Google+ could be trolls who run there and complain about anything. They might not even be customers. They might be evil competitors - or even evil clients.
So, it is important to consider the platform, the numbers, the methods before making any judgement.
-
Hi Ira,
It's a very good question and it is currently a way that companies are trying to "Cheat the system". From what I have experienced in the past, the company in question are just making the best of Schema as it is meant to be used. For this reason they are theoretically not doing anything wrong in Google's eyes.
If there reviews are genuine then there is no reason why they can not be used and your client is within their right to use the same tactic.
If you are genuinely worried that this client is doing something wrong or unethical/fraudulent I would give Google a call directly and raise it with one of the technical team. I would mention that you have seen the site using this and provide them with the example, just explain that you are thinking of using the technique but you wanted to check first that you are not doing anything wrong.
The team at Google on phone support are great and they have always been able to help with any questions I have had in the past.
I hope that helps, good luck finding a solution.
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 to make Google show reviews from Facebook and Google My Business?
I wonder if there is anything I can do to increase the chance that Google shows stars that indicate the average score of our reviews from Facebook or Google MyBusiness for the keywords where we rank nr. 1, for instance our brand name?
Reviews and Ratings | | AudunBK0 -
Do Product Ratings or Reviews Improve Google Rankings?
The is a lot of info on the web about how business reviews/ratings improve local search result rankings. However do product ratings or reviews improve PDP/PLP/Homepage (not local) rankings?
Reviews and Ratings | | rigelcable0 -
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 -
Review stars dropped off in Google from Rich Snippets (started in October '17 - Jan '18 timeframe)
Our review stars from Rich Snippets are not showing up in Google for Novus products. I believe these are structured correctly or at least there are no errors. We have tried to troubleshoot on our own and asked multiple SEO'er's and partners, but have not had success. Turning to MOZ! They were there in September/October timeframe but dropped off in October to January timeframe. example URL: https://www.google.com/search?q=hif+1+alpha+antibody&oq=hif+1+alpha+antibod (It seems to be off all products); This started in October to January time frame so was before the latest algo update.
Reviews and Ratings | | revelkayla0 -
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 -
What affect do reviews have?
Hello all. Currently, I am seriously considering including a customer reviews panel on the product pages of my ecommerce site. Does anyone have any previous experience, bad or good. Also, what sort of affect do positive/negative reviews have on search engine rankings. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.
Reviews and Ratings | | AHC_SEO0 -
Reviews Duplicate Issue
Hi, I have one query, Can we use the reviews displayed in one website to other website. I mean I have one product and has different websites for that. Can i use the reviews that i got in one of my website in my other website. Will it bring any duplicate content issue? Also one more question for example, consider i am running a review website, can i list the reviews that has been displayed in different websites to my review websites . Whether it will bring any copyright issue?
Reviews and Ratings | | WebOps-SEO0 -
Re Posting Reviews
I would like to re post a couple short client reviews on the home page of my site. The reviews are from avvo.com. What is the best way to accomplish this without getting flagged for duplicate content? Should I make an image containing the review text and then link it to the original review on avvo?
Reviews and Ratings | | eddiejsd0