SMX West 2011 - Ratings, Reviews & Reputation: Their Growing Impact On Search
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Transcript of SMX West 2011 - Ratings, Reviews & Reputation: Their Growing Impact On Search
REVIEW SIGNALS & TECHNIQUES
Rhea Drysdale
Co-Founder, Outspoken Media
@rhea
REVIEW SIGNALS
Known signals from public records:
• Reviewer location
• Frequency of reviews
• Reputation scores
• Social network of user
• Content aspects
• Sentiment-ish
Google Assigns Reputation Scores to:
Reviewers
AND
Reviews
Per Reviewer Rating patent:“…people, products, advertisers and merchants”
REPUTATION SCORE OF USER’S FRIENDS
USER PERSONALIZATION
USER’S REVIEW HISTORY
Versus…
Or…
REVIEW CONTENT
Preference given to those with summaries and/or descriptions
FRESHNESS
USER’S OWN SOCIAL NETWORKS
What drives social results?
Friends on:• Gmail (with Google profiles)• Twitter • Flickr • Quora• Yelp• Friend’s websites (not shared, profile pull)
Search social beta: &tbs=frim%3A1 (or sidebar)
Aspects
Early screenshots from Mike Blumenthal and Bill Slawski show aspects have been refined over time.
Common Aspects
Common Aspect Sources
• Yahoo.com
• Citysearch.com
• InsiderPages.com
• Judysbook.com
• Niche local sites
Sentiment Analysis FLAWED!
SENTIMENT
After DecorMyEyes update, Google said they took out:
“Extremely poor user experience”
No measurable result from the update.
Details:googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/being-bad-to-your-customers-is-bad-for.html
KEYWORDS?
Filtered from appearing on Place Page
FUTURE SIGNALS
• Improved sentiment analysis? Increased filtering of data sources and signals for irregularly high negative responses (DecorMyEyes)
• Transaction verification with services like Mint.com and SpendGo
QUESTIONS
Do you need reviews to rank in local?
No, but…
Reviews add relevant content and count as social indicators.
Google’s “Related places” on a review-free Place page will draw user’s eyes and potentially clicks drawn to:
Do you need to use hReview?
No, but…
Using hReview and structured markup helps Google correlate your pages with places mentioned.
Can also add rich snippets to the SERPs, which may improve conversions.
More on hReview microformat
What?
Open standard for distributed reviews.
Aims for simple properties common to multiple products, objects and services.
• More on hReview:microformats.org/wiki/hreview
• Implementing hReview with Wordpress:yoast.com/implement-hreview-wordpress-theme/
Ratings
• Use microdata, microformat or RDF markup.
• Google assumes 1 (worst) to 5 (best) rating scale by default.
• Can use anything to classify rating,
Test your rich snippets!
google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
More on reviews (go to the source):google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=146645
SOLICITING REVIEWS
According to Yelp on 3/8/11 @SMX!
• Talk about the site where you’d like a review, e.g. Yelp.
• Use that site’s services and offers to incentivize reviews.
• Create great content, services, products that users will want to review.
• Ta da!
Other methods…
Check with your ecommerce solution!
REVIEW SERVICES
CASE STUDY
ORM Problem Scope
• Very negative review appearing above the fold in the SERPs
• Negative source had optimized the page and built internal links to it
SEO Strategy1. Establish baseline
2. Audit existing reviews
3. Manage fake reviews & conflict of interests
4. Create a testimonials page and strengthen internal/external backlinks
5. Solicit testimonials through exit interviews
6. Develop and promote off-site content
7. Develop and publish video testimonials
8. Publish testimonials and bulk up directories
Results1. Website2. Website3. Website4. Website5. Niche directory6. Niche directory7. Citysearch8. Social profile9. Social profile10.Press mention