Product review based on sales data - How much should we link out?

[BobGW]

Hello,

We're doing a product review series based on sales data.

How much should we link out? Consumersearch is the number one position with full sources for "best X product"

Consumersearch has flaws it looks like. The data reads correct but the products they are promoting are not the best based on our own customer service informal interviews.

Was wondering if we should include all data in the field including competitors and display our sources, or if we should just list in-house data.

Any other advice for this is appreciated too.

Thanks.

[Todd_McDonald]

Hi BobGW,

I'm assuming when you say "we're doing a product review based on sales data" you mean that you're reviewing a product that has been a good seller for you? Or, perhaps you're reviewing a few products in a category and and writing up your review based on which ones sell the best and have the best reviews?

For me, linking out depends a little on what type of site you have, and more on what is going to provide the best experience for a user.

It sounds to me like you have one product that fits in this product grouping and you'd like to do a review of competing products along side yours.

In this situation, I probably wouldn't link directly to the competitors (but I would certainly site any appropriate research with links), but I likely would include links to other third party sites that discuss your product as well as the competitors products. This information combined with your own should help users feel like your being as objective as you possibly can.

Bottom line is though, consumers are suspicious if you have a dog in the fight. Perhaps you could give your product or a trial of it away to a few bloggers or members of the press in your industry in hopes that they'll provide some feedback on their own sites. If it's favorable, you could then mash-up this content in a variety of ways which might include a side-by-side comparison of your product (along with this new third-party information) stacked against competitors, or perhaps quotes from the third party services that reviewed your product along with your own internal sales data.

I can't be certain that's answering you question, but the bottom line for me is link as it makes sense for users, and use the rel=nofollow attribute if you aren't 100% sure that where you are linking is credible. If you can avoid linking to a competitor and still have a useful set of content, I'd do it.

[BobGW]

It looks like I wasn't clear about the question but you still helped.

We are doing like a 10-part "Best 5 Products" (Best Red Shoes Blog Post, Best Blue Shoes Blog Post, etc) that includes the best products in different categories (each different blog posts) along with a buying guide like consumer reports. There will be a beautiful 10-button menu at the top that organizes the whole review. Goal is to do such a nice job it's not scalable. We'd like to draw off of external sources as well as our own interviews.

Except for consumer reports pretty much all the reviews are done by competition.

Maybe we could say that we pull from a variety of sources off the web through this consumer reports article combined with interviews.

How do we do this and word this? We don't have much in the way we can do with external bloggers this industry.

Thanks!

[Todd_McDonald]

"Maybe we could say that we pull from a variety of sources off the web through this consumer reports article combined with interviews."

I would probably go that direction. Or, you could mention a list of the locations you pulled information from, but not link to them. I might word it as something like:

"Our review data comes from primary sources including our own internal recorded data, interviews, [whatever else] as well as secondary sources including consumer reports, and the following other sites: [list competing sites you pulled data from but don't link].

Fact is, if you are pulling data from competitors mentioning them and letting people know where your data is coming from is the right thing to do (as you've been saying). However, I probably would withhold the link and just list the site name in this situation.

If there is a way to generate more reviews from other sources that you wouldn't mind linking to (like bloggers, other consumerreports type sites, perhaps look at niche forums/communities for users reviews, etc.) I would certainly pursue that route as well.

Good luck!