Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Hi Ira! Mike Blumenthal wrote about this same question at LocalU in 2014. See here. The discussion in the comments there is quite good.

Thanks.  That is the strange thing - I have had this plugin (and haven't added anything new) in at least year.  I am not sure how to markup the author field, but will look into.  I just tried to send you a private message, but I am not sure if it went through.  Thank you again for the quick response!

Hey There! It sounds like a new GMB listing is in order to me. Like you, I'm a Local SEO, but without having complete knowledge of the situation, I'm making a general guess instead of giving informed advice. It's not unheard of for marketers to pay to consult with others marketers when in doubt. If, with the business' whole scenario before you, you're not 100% convinced you know the right course to set, it could be invaluable to to reach out to someone else in the industry and offer to pay for their time to consult with you while looking at the actual business and its history and goals. In your shoes, if I wasn't sure my advice was perfect, that's what I'd do

Hi Cornelius, You'll have to apply schema markup in order to get these to show up. You can read about how to implement this here: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/intro-structured-data How long it takes will vary on how frequently Google crawls your site.

Can you please tell a bit more on "make it fun" part?

I suspected that those related products being marked up might not have been good. Good to know. We'll for sure test that out. Thanks for the recommendation on the blog post and for your help!

It can, yes. Also, Google's having acknowledged the schema doesn't necessarily mean that it will show the rich snippet on the SERPs. It's still good to have it, though, and you very well may start seeing it appear.

Hi Etna, I don't have anything official from Google that I can point you to but I think this is fine. There are lots of examples of this in the wild, for examples: http://www.sainsburysenergy.com/products-and-services/reviews.html Your intent also isn't manipulative so I don't see what Google could be upset with you about. Just make sure to attribute the reviews appropriately and to show a balance. Sorry, I don't have anything more concrete to point you to. Craig

Thank you for your precious help. Kind regards, Jonathan

While I do agree with the above comments, Backlinks aren't the only factors that determine rankings. I have to respectfully interject that Backlinks while not the only factor, is a HUGE factor, and becomes even more so it seems when all other factors are met with quality. Now also remember, RANKBRAIN DOESN'T TREAT ALL NICHES EQUALLY, it will decide on rankings for each niche by using different percentages of algorithms. So what works for one niche, isn't going to work for another always. A quote from the link below: " Within Google, there are a number of core algorithms that exist. It is RankBrain’s job to learn what mixture of these core algorithms is best applied to each type of search results. For instance, in certain search results, RankBrain might learn that the most important signal is the META Title. " Read this and have your mind blown: http://techcrunch.com/2016/06/04/artificial-intelligence-is-changing-seo-faster-than-you-think/ Now in my niche, if you're 95% sure the rest of your SEO is on point, backlinks can alter serps ranking more directly than I've seen almost any other factor so far. I say this because I've been disavowing backlinks for one client for the past 5 months now, I see direct correlations between me removing bad backlinks and seeing keyword rankings improve. I have also seen than when one of our EPA backlinks were redirected ( while they did a redesign on the directory we were in ) our Domain Authority plummeted and our keywords took a bit of a tumble. I've also seen competitors climb to page 1, using black hat backlink tactics, such as sitewides, article spinning and just using keyword rich anchor texts in articles for sites with DA of 20 - 40. They have a site that is a shell compared to others in the industry, really don't have anything else besides these backlinks that could be helping them, and that they do until penguin is re-released. I understand many claim that I shouldn't be able to know this because there are just too many factors, but after a year analyzing my competition, backlinks are what gets them visible in our niche at least. Top 3 factors for Keyword Ranking has been said to be: Rankbrain Backlinks Quality Content

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.

HI there No, there is no evidence that responding to reviews will help you rank better in search. Don't look at responding to reviews as an opportunity to rank higher in search (because it won't happen) - look at it as an opportunity to directly engage someone who had an experience with your product or service; whether good or bad. It will speak volumes about your brand if users see that you are actively engaging and responding to users. That, ultimately, is more valuable in the eyes of users, not rankings. Remember - you're trying to please users, not search engines. Please users, and search engines will catch up. Shameless plug - I wrote a post awhile back on customer engagement and why it matters that dives a bit deeper and gives some examples Hope this helps! Let me know if it doesn't! Good luck! Patrick

Hi Julie, What you are describing about your competitor's reviews does sound suspicious. While you may not be able to figure out exactly what they've done, you do have the option of reporting spam to Google if you become convinced that spam is involved. Regarding posting reviews to Google on behalf of your clients, that is actually also spam, so not a plan you'd want to pursue. Regarding the names used on Google-based reviews, for a couple of years, it was required that users have a Google+ account to leave a review and that this had to reflect their actual name. Just a few weeks ago, Google revoked this policy and users with any type of Google account can now leave a review again. So, if my Google account is HappyPuppy, I can leave a review ... it doesn't have to include my full name anymore. I've tested this, and it seems to be true. So, this may assist some of your customers who would like to leave a review for you on Google but don't want their full name on it. But, at the same time, your industry would certainly seem to be one where getting reviews is going to be a bit tougher than average given that a) privacy is a major concern for clients and b) your competitor who may be spamming his way to a high review count sticks out like a sore thumb for having 10x as many reviews as anyone else. Your question made me do a random search for 'bankruptcy attorney denver': https://www.google.com/search?q=getting+reviews+in+sensitive+industries&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=bankruptcy attorney denver&rflfq=1&rlha=0&rllag=39697170,-104939747,1337&tbm=lcl&tbs=lf:1,lf_ui:2&rlfi=hd:;si: I see everything from 0 to 50+ reviews on the listings of the top 10 companies Google is pulling. And, yep, I do see a pretty high percentage of first-time reviews on one of the profiles I looked at. So, there could be something a bit odd about 50+ people being eager to openly rave about the services received from a bankruptcy lawyer, or maybe people really do feel that way. At any rate, it looks like Denver bankruptcy attorneys are getting more views, on average, than what you are seeing in your city, so there may be hope if you have truly loyal clients who do not mind speaking about their experience and whom you can advise about the recent change Google has made to its requirements for leaving a review. I'd love to see someone write a good, up-to-date blog post on this topic of earning reviews in sensitive industries. If anyone in the community knows of a good one, please share!

Hi guys, Jon Hall from Grade.us here. I stumbled onto this page from Google. Obviously, I'm biased, but I thought I should weigh in at least a little Both Grade.us and GetFiveStars are excellent solutions, and the decision between them will come down to what you're looking for. Grade.us has an exclusive focus on marketers and agencies, and so may not be the best fit for the OP. But those who prefer Grade.us generally value our: - Fexibility:  setup, configure and white-label campaigns on a per-client business - Effectiveness at generating reviews on third-party sites:  create highly efficient, conversion-optimized review funnels targeting review sites like Google and Facebook (as opposed to internal “feedback”) - Pricing:  we’re hard to beat - Crawler-based monitoring:  we have the most comprehensive review monitoring platform in the industry covering not just major but minor and niche sites - Review amplification/SEO tools:  schema-fied "Review Stream" Wordpress/Joomla/Drupal plugin that pulls in your latest and greatest reviews from around the Web into your website as SEO-friendly content and automates sharing them to social media - Advanced, always evolving stuff:  SMS review invites, review email campaign tracking and automation, etc. Hope this helps! I attached a short video demo, too. We're just starting to engage here at Moz, but we're always around to answer questions, demo the product, etc. Jon 152476055

Hey Matt! That's a really good and observant point you've raised. Making it easier for users to leave reviews does necessarily mean it will be easier for dissatisfied or even phony customers to leave reviews now, so an increase in reputation monitoring would be a must. Very true! So, word to the wise from MattAntonio: Be sure you're monitoring those Google reviews on a regular basis!

Hey There, There may be some problems with cross posting Google reviews on your own website, but it's a matter of discussion. Good thoughts on this here: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2013/04/04/the-complete-guide-to-google-pluslocal-reviews-and-especially-how-to-get-them/ When Google+ was a viable option for local businesses, there was a technique you could use to embed posts featuring Google reviews within your website without fear of duplicate content filters, but given that Google+ has now gone the way of the dodo bird, I'm not sure what has happened to website that were doing this.

Nice work!

Hey Brodie, Thanks for following up with further details. I think it's really weird that neither you nor I can find a total number of Google reviews. Had I not been unable to find it, I would have bet the house that this data existed in some sort of quarterly report or something, but if it does, I simply can't find it. Our conversation has made me curious as to what that total number is, now If you can find it, I'd love to see that data!

Thanks Miriam, much appreciated.  I'll check it out see how I get on

So glad to have you here, Brent, asking good questions like this one