How the hell do you get microformat to show up on google serp?

[max.favilli]

Preface:

• I implemented Microformat aggregate review (http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate) for our e-commerce website and included only on the homepage. The vote and count are actually coming from real reviews we are getting from our customers, and in the homepage some reviews are shown prominently and a link points to the full list of all the reviews.
• Microformat markup is correct, validated in GWT.
• Have been online for a while (probably a couple of years).
• Our website: http://www.gomme-auto.it

The star rating never showed up. When checking competitors I could see their microformats where not showing up either.

But now things changed, if I check one competitor (the market leader www.gommadiretto.it) searching for it with their brand name “gommadiretto” no star rating is showing, but if I search for tires of a specific manufactured like “pneumatici barum” I can see their result in serp is showing the star rating for that specific internal page (the brand page) where they simply put the website overall aggregate review microformat mark up, they actually put it on every page.

And that make me scratch my head and start asking myself some questions:

1. is google showing their microformats because they manually awarded them somehow? no other competitor seems to have got the star rating in serp
2. is google showing their microformats because they have so much more reviews than I have? I have around 1700, they have around 11000.
3. is google showing their microformats because their reviews are certified by TrustPilot?
4. is google showing their microformats because they put it in the product page? well of course since I am not putting it there (in the brand page) it's a factor, but isn't it recommended  to put the website aggregate reviews microformat only on one page? and shouldn't we show the brand reviews on the brand page?
5. isn't it best practice/recommended to put the website aggregate review microformat only on one page?
6. is google showing their microformats because of some other reasons I can't see?

What the hell is google criteria for showing the star rating? Does anyone know?

[CandymanKen]

Hi-

Here are a coupe of quick thought for you:

1. I don't actually see the ratings on your home page. I can see that they are in the code but I didn't see them appearing on the page. The only reviews I see are the FB reviews.

2. I read somewhere that Google will sometimes not show the rich snippet data if they think you are light on content. I will find the reference and post it when I do, but that could be a problem for you as well.

Good Luck

Ken

[max.favilli]

Hi Ken, thanks for your time.

those "facebook" reviews are "the" reviews, we ask customers for permissions to post on their facebook wall, and show their review along their picture and facebook profile to get additional trust.

Best,

Max

[Everett]

The Facebook reviews don't appear to have any micro-data markup in the code. They're there, but not marked up. What is marked up is listing your website as the item reviewed instead of the product from what I can see, and the itemscope isn't filled out:

div class="sub-footer" itemscope="" itemtype="http://data-vocabulary.org/Review-aggregate">
            gomme-auto.it

| 
            votato
            9.81
              su
              10
              da
              1704

You should mark up each of the FB reviews with this schema:

http://schema.org/Review

And the aggregate of those reviews with this schema:

http://schema.org/AggregateRating

What they are reviewing is the product on the page, not the website itself. Therefore, you'll be using this schema to mark up the thing that is being reviewed:

http://schema.org/Product

You may want to hire a developer to do this. Schema can be kind of tricky sometimes. Let us know how it goes!

[max.favilli]

Hi Everett, those review on the homepage are not product review, they are website/service review; in other words review from people who bought commenting on the buying process, not the product they bought.

We also have product review, but on product pages, like this one http://www.gomme-auto.it/pneumatici/estivi/riken/maystorm-2-b2/205/55/16/w/91

Also, according to this google guieline: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/146645 aggregate review and review should not go on the same page, either one or another. Which is why we put aggregate reviews markup on these pages instead of review markup.

In that guideline google is not saying it penalize you if you put both on the same page, but still recommend not to.

Are you suggesting the guideline is outdated and not relevant anymore?

[CandymanKen]

Hi Max -

I beleive Everett is correct. The Facebook reviews are not marked up with rich snippet code for google, rather they have FB markup. In addition, the review data you have for the site in the footer is marked up as a product.  It also probably doesn't help that the reviews are buried down at the bottom of the footer.

As an FYi, we recent;y switched over to a reviews service (Yotpo.com) and  that has worked well for us.

Ken

[max.favilli]

Hi Ken,

that's a very good point. And a big question mark in my head. Because:

1. a trustpilot (https://www.trustpilot.com/) sales man repeatedly told me adding their review widget would have made the stars appear, but I can't get any confirmation on this from the web, and sales people from competitors to trustpilot told me that is not true. Trustpilot and others are google partners when it comes to Google Trusted Stores (https://support.google.com/ads/answer/3467841) which means stars showing in AdWords ads (the service is currently not available outside US).
2. wherever google talk about rich snippets and stars rating in serp never mentions any 3rd party review authority.
3. And here I come again to the Google guideline I mentioned to Everett (https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/146645), they state aggregate review and individual review markup should not be put on the same page, is that information outdated? Or anyone tested and verified in reality is adding SERP benefit like showing up the stars rating if added togheter?

If I may ask what kind of metrics improved using yotpo.com? Did you run a A/B test and found an increase in conversion rate? Or a relevant amount of additional traffic?

Thanks a lot for your time,

Max

[Dino64]

Hey Max, did you ever get the stars to show in search? I'm trying to achieve the same thing for my clients, but so far have been unsuccessful. One client has a competitor who has stars for all their pages so been trying to figure it out. I think I have all the right markup, but so far nothing...what a mystery.

Regards, Dino

[max.favilli]

Hi Dino,

yes since I originally posted this question I discovered a couple of things.

First, google loves this schema http://schema.org/Product but stubbornly refuse to show star rating set for http://schema.org/Organization, my competitors where using Product schema on their home pages and landing pages with no relation to any product on the page and getting the stars, so I did the same, and the stars appeared.

So use http://schema.org/Product

Second, google refuse to show star rating for SERP where the search query is for generic common terms keywords, it's showing star rating for branded keywords, and for additional keywords but I have not been able to identify a path/rule, I only realized for branded keywords it show star rating, for common terms it does not.

So if you add star rating http://schema.org/Product markup in a page which is ranking for "Ford Focus" they will appear, but if you put the markup in a page which is ranking for "nice looking cars" google won't show any star.

Hope this helps.

[Dino64]

Right on! Thanks for the tip. Since most of my clients are service based, I'm wondering if it would work as "http://domain.com/services/specific-service..."

Working on it now and will let you know.

Dino

[max.favilli]

Good luck.