Will there be an SEO impact if I switch my rich snippets from reviews to votes?

[davo23]

So, we currently have rich snippets showing for reviews on our site. We've made some new product pages that have reviews on them, but they are hidden behind a tab. Because of this our rich snippets haven't been showing in the serps, so we've been looking for a way to get them showing for these new pages. What we've found is that we can change the rich snippets from reviews to votes, which will show an aggregate score on the page, and this will get the snippets appearing in serps again as votes.

What we're concerned about is, if we make this change to these new pages, they will automatically change everything on our review pages and all snippets on our sites will change from reviews to votes (not just the new pages). What we want to know is, if we make this change do you think that we may see a negative seo impact (aside from maybe having a lower CTR)?

Thanks!

[TakeshiYoung]

Why would you want to use votes? If the reviews are on a separate tab, why not just include the aggregate rating on the page itself, in order to get the rich snippets showing? You may also be able to implement the tabs in such a way that you still get review snippets.

[davo23]

We've already tried using the aggregate rating on the page from the reviews, but when we do this the snippets won't show in the serps... We also have the option of redesigning the new pages, but it would be an absolute last resort due to lack of resources at this stage.

[TakeshiYoung]

How long did you test the aggregate ratings for? It can take a while for Google to catch up. I don't see why votes would work but ratings wouldn't.

[davo23]

We put the new pages up about 6 or 7 weeks ago, so it has been some time now. From looking at the google help page it states under the Aggregate reviews section for count,

"The total number of reviews for the item on your site. Note: Whenever you include count, the page must also contain review markup for each reviewed item. count should only include reviews on your own site."

and for vote:

"Specifies the number of people who provided a rating with or without an accompanying review. A page must specify at least one of count or votes."

I could be interpreting this wrong, but I understood it to say that if we're using count for reviews, the reviews need to be visible. If we use votes, they reviews don't need to be visible on the page.

[TakeshiYoung]

As long as you aren't being deceptive about it, it should still work.

Just put your code into the rich snippet testing tool and see if the semantic markup is implemented properly.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

[davo23]

Yeah, we're definitely not being deceptive, we have a tab that says Reviews which open up when a user clicks on it. We've tested in with this tool but it says it won't show because the text/reviews are hidden to the user, which is why we tested it with a the vote aggregate data and this was the only way we could get it to show...

[TakeshiYoung]

Ok. Well, to answer your original question I don't think the semantic markup will negatively impact your rankings, but it's not the ideal implementation (the rich snippets will say "votes").

[davo23]

Great, thanks for the help though!

[vivekrathore]

No. it will not affect your organic rankings on Google if you change from reviews to votes. Keep the tab, but add the aggregated ratings on the page. It will be a snapshot of the reviews. and link the snapshot with the tab as well.

Reviews are always better than votes because reviews keep your visitors engage and build trust of your site. They spend time in analyzing/reading the reviews which help them make a decision. Reviews increases your time on site. For example I want to buy shoes and visited a shoe website. I see votes, some are positive or negative but I don't know what's positive / negative about them. But if I get reviews I can specifically see the pros/cons, I get a better insight before coming to a buying decision.

Rich Snippets can have a huge impact on your website’s performance. However I don't see them helping rankings directly but indirectly they help a lot. It can help you see:

1. Better clickthrough rates from search results
2. More qualified traffic and better conversion rates

They also help you communicate a clear, unique value proposition and establish a competitive advantage.

Google’s ultimate objective is: to create the best search experience for users, so they can find the best, most relevant results. The better Google Search is able to help its users find the best search result before they click through (to ensure that each click is the correct one), the better the experience for their users.

Hope this helps you