Schema markup abuse for ratings
-
A competitor recently jumped very high in the SERPS after adding Ratings markup schema to his site. His site shows in the serps with a 5 star rating for a software product.
Here's his site: http://bit.ly/11hp2KX
The source of the "rating" appears just to be hard coded schema markup, not connected to anything external or impartial.It appears at this point that Google is taking this markup data at face value, and maybe is giving it some authorityHave you seen this kind of abuse in your vertical?
-
I've had good luck filing a webspam report through Chrome rather than WMT. Might be worth a try.
-
Ok, thanks. That's what I thought. I'll file a webspam report and see what happens. Won't hold my breath though. Not the first tricky thing these guys have done, and won't be the last I'm sure.
-
Yes, you can't actually vote for the product, they just include hReview-aggregate which is intended to show an average of user votes, but since there's no implementation of a voting system it seems they're just filling out the blanks by themselves..very similar to what I saw in this other site I was telling you about.
-
Link wasn't hot, but I fixed that. It's working for me now. Thanks for your comments.
-
The link doesn't work for me either, but if as you say the markup is hard-coded (not real users voting), I did see it a while ago, the boost lasted around two weeks, then as Kevin points out it backfired (site got penalized) and they removed it, although it wasn't probably the only reason since they were implementing many other 'tricks' at the time.
-
I have not seen anything like this (could not get the link to work though). Seems odd that Google would take this at face-value even though it appears to. Seems like a great way to exploit the system in the short-term, but most likely backfire soon afterwards.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
New Customer spammy markup warning
I just won a new customer, yippie. Bad news after i got the full story it seems they have a google penalty against them. It could be an old malicious employee with back links. The error in GSC is spammy markup, would anyone else care to take a quick look and see what the main issues are, im not sure of the tags or all the additional info and alternate names, they are relevant but maybe too much in rich snippets. the site is aipctshop.com. Thank you in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | bendh0 -
What does Google's Spammy Structured Markup Penalty consist of?
Hey everybody,
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | klaver
I'm confused about the Spammy Structured Markup Penalty: "This site may not perform as well in Google results because it appears to be in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines." Does this mean the rich elements are simply removed from the snippets? Or will there be an actual drop in rankings? Can someone here tell from experience? Thanks for your help!1 -
Incorrect Schema
Hi I have recently noticed that by mistake our eCommerce site was incorrectly using the schema mark up featured product sliders, upsells and category pages. Example: Im aware that google is not a fan of misusing the mark ups. Would the above have a negative effect on rankings?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MikeZur1 -
Question regarding Aggregate Rating
We have a directory site with multiple listings. Currently, our page structure is fragmented for each of the tabs (about, products, reviews, etc) with canonicals going back to the main listing page. This includes the reviews as well. Review aggregate is marked up and the stars are rendering in the SERPs. We are planning to break out reviews to /reviews and including a paginated series, then all of the tabs (about, products, NOT reviews) will be javascript loading content so no more fragmented URLs. Right now, I suspect that the stars are rendering on the main listing page because the review page that is currently fragmented has a canonical back to the main listing page. The main listing page also is marked up with the review aggregate. if we break out /reviews, all of the reviews will live on /reviews. If we break out /reviews to it's own URL, will we have to have a small amount of reviews on the main listing page to have the stars render in the SERPs for the main listing page?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | imjonny0 -
Using PURL.org/GoodRelations for Schema Markup
Hello awesome MOZ community! Our agency uses JSON-LD for our local business schema markup. We validate our markup using Google's Structured Data Testing Tool. All good! Recently, I discovered a competing agency using our similar JSON-LD markup (that's ok) and "http://purl.org/goodrelations" markup. The latter appears to be–potentially–black hat SEO. Why? According to MOZ, "there is no conclusive evidence that this markup improves rankings." BUT, the purl.org markup has provided an opportunity for "keyword stuffing". Using purl.org markup, the agency has stuffed/used 66 of the same keywords into the validated markup. I would love to get feedback from the MOZ community. Can schema markup–of any kind–be used to "keyword stuff"? If so, why aren't sites getting penalized for this? Is this practice flying under the elusive algorithm radars? Thanks! Your feedback, insight, and snarky remarks are welcome 🙂 Cheers!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SproutDigital0 -
Schema Markup for regular web pages?
I'm a bit confused about what Schema markup should be applied to such regular, informative web pages.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | gray_jedi
We have a few pages describing our technology and solutions. These pages are not products or news articles. And they are not something that should be reviewed/rated. What Schema markup should be used for a standard run-of-the mill web page?
Is there a good reference / tutorial for optimizing the schema markup of an informational website? Any advice is much appreciated, thank you!0 -
It's possible a bounce-rate attack manipulate SEO?
My site has been visited by unusual users with one second session times. This leaves my analytics data confused.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CompraBit0 -
Abused seo unintentionally, now need a way out
Hello, I have been in contact with a smo to optimize my site for search engines and social media sites. my site was doing great from last 4 years. but suddenly it started dropping in ranking. then i came and joined seomoz pro to find a way out. i was suggested to categories content in form of subdomains ... well that put a huge toll on my rankings.. thanks to suggestions here i have 301 them to sub directories. Now another huge question arises. i found out that my smo guy was taking artificial votes or whatever youc all them on twitter, facebook and g+ ...twitter and facebook's are understandable but i am getting to think that these votings on g+ might have affected my site's ranking ? here is a sample url http://www.designzzz.com/cutest-puppy-pictures-pet-photography-tips/ if you scroll below you will see 56 google plus 1s... now the big question is, i have been creating genuince content. but nowt hat i am stuck in this situation, how to get out of it ? changing urls will be bad for readers.. will a 301 will fix it ? or any other method. thanks in advance
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | wickedsunny10