Accessing and Displaying Google Reviews (Url and Structured Data Markup)

[wicko]

Hi,

I have a Google+ Page for my business that has 25 Google reviews written by customers, of which I am rather proud that it is an aggregate of 4.9

I would like to brag more about this on my website and also like it to show up as Structured Data in as many organic results as possible (it shows up on local searches, not a problem).

However, I cannot find anything resembling a permanent link to the reviews (other than the about page) on Google... Any clues ?

Also, I would like to start including the Google review stars within any other structured data markup that I add to the website (such as a BusinessEvent for example) - But the FAQ's on Google seem to imply that the reviews and aggregates must be on my website and nothing seems to say that I may use the Google reviews or aggregate in my markup. Can anyone point me in the right direction please ?

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Mark,

Congrats on the good reviews your client has earned. That's terrific! The only URL that I know of is the one you access via the reviews link in various places. This won't take you to an individual URL but will take you to the disembodied popup of Google reviews. Here's an example:

https://www.google.com/search?q=shoe+store+taos&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=shoe+store+phoenix&lrd=0x872b0d5581f30579:0xcfb4f884ee15909,1

You'll notice that when you click on that, there is a brief delay, but then the popup of reviews should load.

Is this what you're asking about?

Regarding re-using Google reviews, I think this is the most recent post I've read on this:

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2014/04/24/using-google-reviews-on-your-website/

[wicko]

See, I am confused by the difference between product reviews and a review of my business. I dont want to show product reviews at this stage (later down the track) .. I want to brag about the reviews of my business (Google+ page, TrueLocal, LinkedIn etc.) on my website and within content I may write. I would also like the aggregated review stars to show in the organic Google results like product reviews show their stars.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Mark,

Local business review stars do show in the search engine results, either for branded search results or for local search results. Last time I looked into this, I believe the threshold was having earned 5 Google reviews for in-SERPs stars to typically appear in the results, but I also recall that there were some cases in which entities with less than that were getting stars. That might have had something to do with lost reviews. Google also sometimes shows in-SERPs stars for other platforms ... Facebook comes to mind.

In terms of bragging about reviews of your business, you just need to review each platform's policy regarding this. I'd linked to Mike Blumenthal's article regarding Google's policy regarding re-using your reviews on your website, but you'd want to do similar research for any other platform to be sure it's okay for you to re-publish reviews from their site onto yours.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Mark,

I don't know a ton about product reviews beyond the concept of them existing within Google Shopping. See: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2014/07/helping-shoppers-decide-with-product.html

This is completely different than local business reviews, which are loosely associated with G+ Local pages and appear in the Local packs of results.

If you wish to re-purpose local business reviews from various platforms (Google+ Local, TrueLocal, Linkedin, etc. as you mentioned) you will need to research their policies to discover whether they permit re-use of their content on your website. I've linked to a Mike Blumenthal post, above, that fully explains Google's policy, but you would need to research the policies of any other platforms to see if they permit re-publication on your website.

In addition to this, some other sources will also show in-SERPs review stars in Google's organic results. Facebook is an example of this: http://www.localvisibilitysystem.com/2015/06/29/facebook-reviews-now-get-you-rich-snippet-review-stars-in-the-local-search-results/

Hope this helps!