ECommerce & Reviews when generated by 3rd Party uses Javascript
-
Hi all,
I am trying to optimize our product pages and I know one of the important factors is showing customer reviews. While we have plenty of reviews to show they are collected by a third party (Shopper Approved) and the way we have been told to display them on our pages is via a Javascript. My question is, is this sufficient for search engines to be able to crawl and interpret the Javascript or are we missing out on user generated content since it is displayed via Javascript. If so are there best practices or recommendations to help us?
Thank you!
Dinesh
http://www.MyFairyTaleBooks.com <- this is the site in question if it helps. -
Dinesh,
Go look at the code for any site using BazaarVoice and you'll see that they have found a way to do this. If Shopper Approved doesn't think this is important enough to fix then perhaps you should look into another review vendor.
Regards,
Everett
-
Hi Everett,
Below is the response I got back from the owner of Shopper Approved, it really does not make much sense to me as I am not a developer but is what he is saying below hold true that it is indeed difficult to implement?
Thanks,
DineshHi Dinesh,
I talked to our main programmer here in the office, and adding a noscript tag with some testimonials in it is easy. The issue is that it is very difficult to change the reviews once they're there, without involving the installation of additional files, additional programming, and testing on the clients end, which opens a huge can of worms.
There's just not an easy way to do it.
We've explored every way we can think of to try and add text reviews to our client's pages dynamically in the past, and javascript is the only cut & paste way to do it universally across all platforms, but the downside is that Google can't read it.
If your programmer has any ideas as to how we can pull it off and make it drop dead simple (cut & paste), then I'm definitely open to it. Otherwise, the next best option is for you to display the reviews via the javascript widget primarily for Social Proof benefits, and then for us to get as many review pages and 5-star ratings indexed in Google as possible to send you as much traffic as we can.
Anyway, let me know if your programmer has any ideas.
Thanks,
Scott
-
@Dinesh, I had been reading this thread and decided to get Shopper Approved for my clients. I talked to Brendan and he told me all about Shopper Approved. I was comparing ResellerRatings.com, TRUSTPILOT.com, ReviewCentre.co.uk, and Local.viewpoint.com.
Shipper Approved seems to have the most value. Tell Scott Brandley that you are landing him 2 subscribers. I see there is an affiliate link there. Your affiliate commission % is 25% lifetime of the customer.
PM me and I'll have my clients use your affiliate code. We are probably going to sign up next week.
-
Hi Everett,
I have the good fortune of actually having a relationship with one of the co-owners Scott Brandley since MyFairyTaleBooks was one of the first stores to implement Shopper Approved back in 2009/2010.
So I reached deep into my rolodex and contacted him this afternoon (he answered!) and I gave him the explanation you provided above and he said he had no idea that was the case and he had me write it up and email him so he could pass it over to development to get a fix in place right away! I will keep you posted on how things go, but it sounds promising that they will get it done.
I guess the whole relationship building thing Moz'ers push actually has some merit huh
Thanks again,
-D -
OK so Shopper Approved is one of the review sources used by Google Shopping. That's great! They sound like a really good service. All I would change would be to put the noscript tag in the code with all of the content that appears via the script. Let us know how it goes. If they can fix that issue for you I think I'll keep them in my back pocket in case someone asks for a good review service.
-
Hi again,
So Shopper Approved I believe is 100% legit the way it works is the review is captured at the order confirmation page, meaning once the order is placed and paid for a window pop's up and asks them three basic questions. Then on the backend I have it configured so after 2 weeks (since our products are personalized) we send 3 more questions asking them to rate the delivery, the product and customer service. I do not think there is actually a way to enter a review outside of this process or even manually (I could be wrong!)
If you Google Shopper Approved MyFairyTaleBooks you will see all the pages that they generate and are listed by Google.
Also in the back end system they claim to have a feed / partnership with Google in by which they provide the "Feed" of reviews directly too them. I am not sure how they do this but they make me complete my profile with Store Name, Address, etc
EDIT - Also shows up here for example http://www.google.com/products/seller?hl=en&q=myfairytalebooks&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbm=shop&source=og&zmi=myfairytalebooks.com&sa=X&ei=vP7RUajTG4aH0QGX14HYDQ&ved=0CDYQqQwwAA
Thanks,
-D -
Also see my follow-up response above.
-
I'd like to add that you want to make sure you're going with a company that doesn't hire people to leave fake reviews on your site to populate that content. The Shopper Approved website says that all reviews are from "actual paying customers" so I'm guessing you're ok there.
I looked at the Shopper Approved site and saw this:
"Every rating you collect is added to a static, search engine optimized page, that can show up in Google, Yahoo, and Bing to boost your reputation."
You should find out where that page lives because I couldn't find any review content from several different products in the SERPs, and I didn't see any indexable version of the content in the code on your product pages.
-
Hi Everett,
Thank you for the response just like I suspected I will reach out to SA and see if they will populate a
<noscript>field. </p> <p>Dinesh</p></noscript>
-
The way the page is set up now that content is NOT indexable. The good news is that it isn't indexed on any other domains either. Sometimes these review companies will allow your reviews to be indexed on their domains, but not yours. They claim ignorance, but I think that type of arrangement is downright low. They'd be stealing your content and your traffic.
What I would advise for you to do if you're going to stay with the company is ask them to populate a
<noscript>field with the content contained in the script. This is what BazaarVoice / Power Reviews does, and I've seen it work first-hand. It is a 100% honest and correct use of the noscript tag. The thing with BV/PR is you have to disallow the reviews subdomain from being indexed or you'll have duplicate content on your own subdomain.</p></noscript>
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
-
Duplicate content? other issues? using vendor info when selling their prodcuts?
When building content for vendors that we sell their products? best practices? ok, to copy and paste "about us" info? or will that be flagged as duplicate content.
On-Page Optimization | | bakergraphix_yahoo.com0 -
How to deal with hundreds of externally-generated images with no alt text?
Hi all This is a good one. I work for a webdev company who has clients in the transport industry. Part of our work on their sites involves pulling in transport-related offers from a feed. This includes both text and images, which our site template turns into viewable pages. The problem is that Moz has flagged that these images don't come with alt text, and there are _hundreds and hundreds of them. _I can't add alt text to them all, there just isn't the time or resources. Besides, the list is updated frequently, and new images are pulled in. So... what do? Would it be prudent to noindex them all by default setting? I'm stuck! Many thanks,
On-Page Optimization | | tomcowles
Tom0 -
Does anyone use No Sweat WP Internal Links Lite?
Would you recommend it? Are there any other plugins that you'd recommend instead?
On-Page Optimization | | --Chantal--0 -
Creative ways to dramatically increase content on ecommerce category pages?
I need to signficantly boost the content on the category pages on my ecommerce website. Currently, they're pretty thin, with some only having approx 50 words of unique content. In the past, I've intentionally kept the content on these pages quite light, to keep the aesthetic a certain way. It's a fashion-based site, so it's very much about the visual. However, with the introduction of Panda, I need to change this mindset. But, there must be slightly more creative ways to boost the content to stop the pages looking too text heavy. I'm not talking hidden text or anything, but ways to break it up in different blocks on the page to make it look natural/relevant, while keeping it looking great. Anyone have any good ideas? Or, any links to ecommerce sites that have employed brilliant methods?
On-Page Optimization | | Coraltoes770 -
Ecommerce - how many clicks from the home page should categories be
My client has about 300 products in 20 categories with a lot of overlap. How many clicks from the home page should we keep the products? We're not doing pagination. I'd been told several years ago that all products should be 2 clicks or less from the home page. Is this true today? Thanks.
On-Page Optimization | | BobGW1 -
When Adding content to the site. Should I use the same keyword term on each page or select a secondary keyword to focus on?
I have created a site www.autoinsurancefremontca.com. The index page is SEO for the key term auto insurance fremont ca. I want to add more content on another page of this site. Should I have that page also SEO'd for the same keyword or should I pick another keyword to focus on?
On-Page Optimization | | Greenpeak0 -
Use of
Hi Everyone, Encountered this NOHTMLINDEX tag within the section of a website and I am not really sure how it affects the performance of the website and its use. This meta robots tag has been used on numerous pages like the home page, content pages and forum threads. Is it good to keep it there or should it be removed and why? Thanks in advance! Steve
On-Page Optimization | | sjcbayona-412180 -
Notonthehighstreet.co.uk - duplicate content? a reason to not sell via 3rd parties
A mixture of questions and discussion Question 1. can the following two pages be considered duplicate content http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/gardenbeet/product/deer-head-wall-art http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/1/1/219933-deer-head-wall-art-by-garden-beet.html both pages are indexed and both pages have different meta - aimed at different search combinations Discussion The search for 'deer head wall art gardenbeet' is generated by my PR company - we have done loads of print advertising for this item yet the sheer mass and volume of noths.com stops my store http://www.gardenbeet.com/garden-wall-art/58-deer-head.html from obtaining the number one position. All is fair in the business world I suppose BUT the original marketing machine for noths.com was claiming that they were assisting the small business owner. I paid them over £600 to join and now they compete with me head on. Stupid me I suppose. Let this be a key learning for those toying with the idea of investing in their own SEO or a 3rd party selling platform. Ho hum
On-Page Optimization | | GardenBeet0