Why does Google return 1 star reviews in local listings as the "most helpful"?
-
I have a client who has recently received two 1 star reviews on Google local (unhappy customer and unhappy customers boyfriend). This is affecting an otherwise flourishing business as these two 1 star reviews are displayed prominently when you search for the brand in Google. They have since received more positive reviews, however Google insists on displaying, what they term, the "most helpful" reviews first.
Why are these 1 star reviews deemed "most helpful"? In all honesty, they aren't even really that helpful, with the latter verging on slanderous. We are in the process of reporting this one as it personally attacks a member of staff, however, whilst we tentatively wait weeks for a response, I wondered if anyone has any idea on how G decides which reviews are "most helpful"? When there is no option for other users to rate these reviews as helpful (such as on play store).
-
It's my pleasure, and good luck with this, Silkstream!
-
Thank you Miriam. As always, you have been most helpful!
-
Hey There,
If memory serves, Google switched to using Most Helpful as the default setting some years ago when they partnered with Zagat. Prior to that, it had been ordered in terms of recency. I am not positive about this, but I believe 'Most Helpful' is determined via an algo that may include a combination of the authority of the reviewer + recency + review language and other factors. In your case, there is some reason that the algo thinks it is helpful for people to see those negative reviews - and I can totally see how much of a pain this is, given that the rest of your reviews are largely positive and you even have more recent, positive reviews.
I'd definitely take a look at the review profiles of the 2 people who left the negative reviews. If they've left lots of other reviews, their authority could be playing a role in this. If the reviews are, indeed, libelous, this post may help you in reporting:
http://www.localsearchforum.com/local-reviews/3931-how-remove-slanderous-google-reviews.html
Sorry not to have more definite information about this, but it's one of those algo-related things that likely puzzles many business owners and about which Google is not very forthcoming.
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
-
PPC: How do we get our reviews into AdWords?
Hi there, I know that Google have sadly discontinued ratings extension in AdWords but does anyone know a get-around for this? If possible, we'd like to show off the good reviews we have from Google My Business' Knowledge Panel in our ads. We're an online product/service so I don't want to link GMB through the location extension if possible (it doesn't make sense for anyone to pay us a visit in real life). Is there a better way of linking our AdWords to our GMB or is there an alternative extension/ AdWords feature we can use to get review ratings in our ad? Thanks 🙂
Reviews and Ratings | | Fubra0 -
Marking up an iframe with reviews schema. Possible? Ethical?
Hey there fellow Mozzers! I work with a broad variety of clients, many of them local businesses, and they in turn sometimes find a vendor that stumps me. This is one of those special cases, where the vendor is doing some shady stuff with reviews schema. First, they're taking reviews from third party sites and filtering them to only show 4 and 5 star reviews (red flag #1), then they're asking us to post them to the website (red flag #2) and finally they are marking them up with schema (red flag #3). If this were my vendor I would have fired them when they started telling me Google doesn't care, doesn't enforce the guidelines, and all that other nonsense, but hey, I'm not the client and I have to make good for them. I did flat out refuse to place these reviews as they asked, but they came back with a "solution", that I'm not sure I trust. They're telling me they can't remove the schema (red flag #4), but they can iframe it onto the website. Their logic, which is wrong, is that Google can't/doesn't crawl iframes so therefore the reviews can be displayed without any negative consequence. I obviously have some ethical concerns with this, but I have to provide the service to my client whether or not they share my values. However, I can object on professional grounds if I think they will take on undue risk. My only problem here is that I have no documentation for how this proposed solution would work. Working through this logically still leaves me with a gap, and that's where you folks come in!
Reviews and Ratings | | brettmandoes
A) We know that Google crawls iframes
B) We know that Google can apply schema within iframes (works with YouTube embeds)
C) We know that content within an iframe is technically on another website, so it doesn't normally apply to your website
D) I don't know how specifically reviews schema would interact with an iframe
E) I don't know if this would result in Google triggering an alarm and blocking the business I'm hoping you guys can help me figure this out. Ethics aside (making me cringe to type that) is this technically feasible without risk, or would this still be a risky move? For the record, another client tried filtering their reviews while marking up with schema against my recommendation and got caught, and received a penalty alert. They were removed from results until the problem was fixed.0 -
Enabling Rich Snippets for Reviews and Ratings
Hi everybody, Going to install schema AggregateRating code so our website will appear with 5 stars snippet in SERP. Researching other websites and see two main approaches: Site displays all its reviews on the page where the snippet is
Reviews and Ratings | | Ryan_V
http://www.meatheadmovers.com/movers/los-angeles.aspx Site displays only a few reviews on the targeted page, and the rest can be found on the other page, where they marked up with schema as well.
http://www.danielsmoving.com/areas-served/moving-from-arizona-to-los-angeles/
http://www.alexmoving.net/areas-served/los-angeles-movers/ Google shows rich snippet for both in SERP
http://prntscr.com/ak1vcs
http://prntscr.com/ak1vup Though it says here:
"Make sure the reviews and ratings you mark up are readily available to users from the marked-up page. It should be immediately obvious to users that the page has review or ratings content." Our site has over 300 reviews and I don't want all of them to be in targeted page (home page), of course I prefer to go with option #2 if it's within Google guidelines. is it? What do you guys think?1 -
Customers can review business on New Google Plus
Google Plus for businesses has switched to a new Google+ page that does not have a "WRITE A REVIEW" button available for customers to leave a review for a business. This is preventing us from sending a link to our Google Plus business page directly to customers soliciting a review for our business. Has anyone else noticed this update migration and does anyone have a work around for how to send a link to our customers so they can leave a review on our Google+ business page?
Reviews and Ratings | | bcannon130 -
Accessing and Displaying Google Reviews (Url and Structured Data Markup)
Hi, I have a Google+ Page for my business that has 25 Google reviews written by customers, of which I am rather proud that it is an aggregate of 4.9 🙂 I would like to brag more about this on my website and also like it to show up as Structured Data in as many organic results as possible (it shows up on local searches, not a problem). However, I cannot find anything resembling a permanent link to the reviews (other than the about page) on Google... Any clues ? Also, I would like to start including the Google review stars within any other structured data markup that I add to the website (such as a BusinessEvent for example) - But the FAQ's on Google seem to imply that the reviews and aggregates must be on my website and nothing seems to say that I may use the Google reviews or aggregate in my markup. Can anyone point me in the right direction please ?
Reviews and Ratings | | wicko0 -
Google+ Places Reviews
Hi There, Am I right in saying that Google Places reviews cannot be reviewed easily if at all. I have advised a client wirth a negative review to instead respond to the review and get clients to place good quality reviews. However, they seem to think if I ring Google they will just remove them and that Google has confirmed this. I am pretty sure I am right but before I jump through pointless hurdles with Google to be told I am, I want to make sure. Has anyone been successful in removing negative reviews from Google. Kind Regards Neil
Reviews and Ratings | | nezona0 -
Publishing testimonials on your site that are from your Google + (or other review sites page)
Ive got a site with some good Google + Reviews and some other good reviews on other sites that id like to be able to publish on a testimonials page on our website, but im worried about being penalised for duplicate content. Any idea of the best way to get these reviews on to our website, i was thinking about placing the text in as an image, but id prefer to do something semantic if at all possible. (I know that some review sites have javascript widgets you can use to pull in your reviews but for most of the sites we are reviewed on they dont)
Reviews and Ratings | | Sam-P0 -
Yelp Review From My Customer Removed
Hi, A customer of mine told me she created a yelp account just to give me a review. She's a good customer and wanted to show me her appreciation. I thanked her for taking the trouble. About a week later, I see that her review was marked as "not recommended." This was a legitimate review made by a real customer. I'm angry that it was removed for no reason. I noticed a competitor of mine has 18 yelp reviews and all of them show up just fine. I also noticed that this same competitor is paying for ads from Yelp. A couple of years ago, another customer reviewed me on yelp and it was also labeled as "not recommended." So I now have 2 "not recommended" reviews on Yelp that, if you ask me, imply that my reviews are fake. After Yelp and Yahoo merged, I lost the 14 Yahoo reviews I had obtained from customers over the last six years. I have also noticed over the years, that whenever I need to sign into my Yelp business account to update the data, it's locked until some pushy sales person calls and asks to speak to me in order to try to sell me ads on Yelp. Anyone else hate Yelp? They're obviously not really interested in making sure reviews are "real," they're just interested in selling expensive ads.
Reviews and Ratings | | Ophelia6191