How does google know if rich snippet reviews are fake?
-
According to: https://developers.google.com/structured-data/rich-snippets/reviews - all someone has to do is add in some html code and write the review. How does google do any validation on whether these reviews are legitimate or not?
-
Hi Lingke!
Good feedback from everyone here. I just wanted to be sure to throw into the mix that fact that John Mueller specifically stated last December that Google does not want markup on on-site testimonials:
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/wY1vF2RRos4/discussion
More on this here:
-
My guess is that Google is getting better and better at detecting false review data. There is a lot of academic research around this area, particularly in accounting fraud, where patterns created by humans to appear random do a poor job of actually representing standard data. A popular example of this is called Benford's Law where leading digits of certain data sets (like electricity bills) are more likely to be lower digits (starting with the number 1, for example). When people try and fake the data, they don't tend to follow this law.
Google has huge data sets on validated reviews and known-fraudulent reviews. If there is a way to detect unbelievable reviews, you got to believe Google is working on it.
That being said, this is probably the best reason not to start posting fake reviews... it's illegal.
-
The answer here is "no" Google has no idea if they are fake or not. Google may be able to tell if the reviews are duplicated on other sites (as it can do with other content) and so could in theory not rank the pages with the duplicate content/reviews. A common recommendation we give to a small business is to not copy reviews from other sites for this reason, and usually reprinting reviews are a violation of the TOS of the review site. I would speculate that Google could look at the overall reputation/authority of a site to see if they display snippets, but that it really only a guess on my part.
The only thing that Google can validate, to a degree, are the reviews that come through Google+ type profiles. They can do things like see if a profile was created, gave a single positive review and then the user never logs in again. That would obviously be a suspect pattern and there are for sure other examples. I have seen Google sometimes do things like look at a business, see if it has a validated Google Local profile and if they do, Google will pull in reviews from review sites and display them in the Google local cards. There is a bit of validation there as the business has taken the time to verify itself in Google Local.
That said, I would say many users can tell a fake review a mile away. We bring focus groups onto a review site I help with and they can tell when things look "off". I would not waste my time with fake ones for that reason alone.
Also, if you do have legitimate reviews, you do need to make sure the markup is correct if you want the snippets to show in the SERPs. If your markup is not valid the snippets will not show up. The Rich Snippets testing tool can help with this
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
-
Why google is catching my website late
Hello, I hope you all guys are doing great. Recently, I published my over my website and within almost 10 mins, it was indexed completely and I also personally checked it in google search console. The URL was indexed but the problem is, it does not appear in Google Search. Sometimes in search result I notice Google shows a result who is published 10-30 mins ago but this is not the case with my website. All articles just show in Google SERP after 1-2 days. What can be the reason behind this, although DA, PA is good (28-31).
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HansiAliya0 -
JavaScript encoded links on an AngularJS framework...bad idea for Google?
Hi Guys, I have a site where we're currently deploying code in AngularJS. As part of this, on the page we sometimes have links to 3rd party websites. We do not want to have followed links on the site to the 3rd party sites as we may be perceived as a link farm since we have more than 1 million pages and a lot of these have external 3rd party links. My question is, if we've got javascript to fire off the link to the 3rd party, is that enough to prevent Google from seeing that link? We do not have a NOFOLLOW on that currently. The link anchor text simply says "Visit website" and the link is fired using JavaScript. Here's a snapshot of the code we're using: Visit website Does anyone have any experience with anything like this on their own site or customer site that we can learn from just to ensure that we avoid any chances of being flagged for being a link farm? Thank you 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | AU-SEO0 -
Does google give any advantage to Webmaster tools verified sites?
Hello friends, I am seeing a strange pattern. i register 2 new domain and make sites on them and add no backlinks nothing only put content and did on page seo right. After 1month of google indexing. both sites are not showing in search for the targeted keywords, but as soon as i add them to Google Webmaster tools they both automatically comes to the 16th and 24th number for their specific keywords. So my question is does Google give any advantage to sites which are verified and added into its webmaster tools in terms of seo or authority?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RizwanAkbar0 -
Whats up with google scrapping keywords metrics
I've done a bit of reading on google now "scrapping" the keywords metrics from the analytics. I am trying to understand why the hell they would do that? To force people to run multiple adwords campaign to setup different keywords scenario? It just doesn't make sense to me...If i am a blogger or i run an ecommerce site...and i get a lot of visit regarding a particular post through a keyword they clicked on organically. Why would Google wanna hide this from people? It's great Data for us to carry on writing relevant content that appeals to people and therefore serves the need of those same people? There is the idea of doing White Hat SEO and focus on getting strong links and great content etc... How do we know we have great content if we are not seeing what is appealing to people in terms of keywords and how they found us organically... Is google trying to squash SEO as a profession? What do you guys think?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | theseolab0 -
Blogger Reviews w/ Links - Considered a Paid Link?
As part of my daily routine, I checked out inbound.org and stumbled upon an article about Grey Hat SEO techniques. One of the techniques mentioned was sending product to a blogger for review. My question is whether these types of links are really considered paid links. Why shouldn't an e-commerce company evangelize its product by sending to bloggers whose readership is the demographic the company is trying to target? In pre e-commerce marketing, it was very typical for a start-up company to send samples for review. Additionally, as far as flow of commerce is concerned, it makes sense for a product review to direct the reader to the company, whether by including a contact phone number, a mailing address, or in today's e-commerce world, a link to their website. I understand the gaming potential here (as with most SEO techniques, black-hat is usually an extreme implementation), but backlinks from honest product reviews shouldn't have a tinge of black, thus keeping it white-hat. Am I wrong here? Are these types of links really grey? Any help or insight is much appreciated!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | b40040400 -
How do I know what links are bad enough for the Google disavow tool?
I am currently working for a client who's back link profile is questionable. The issue I am having is, does Google feel the same way about them as I do? We have no current warnings but have had one in the past for "unnatural inbound links". We removed the links that we felt were being referred to and have not received any further warnings, nor have we noticed any significant drop in traffic or rankings at any point. My concern is that if I work towards getting the more ominous looking links removed (directories, reciprocal links from irrelevant sites etc.), either manually or with the disavow tool, how can I be sure that I am not removing links that are in fact helping our campaign? Are we likely to suffer from the next Penguin update if we chose to proceed without moving the aforementioned links? or is Google only likely to target the serious black hat links (link farms etc.)? Any thoughts or experiences would be greatly appreciated.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BallyhooLtd0 -
EXPERT CHALLENGE: What link building strategies do YOU think will work after the latest 3/29/2012 Google algorithm change?
FOR ALL SEO THOUGHT LEADERS...What link building strategies do YOU think will work after the latest 3/29/2012 Google algorithm change? NOTE: My hope is that the responses left on this thread will ultimately benefit all members of the community and give recognition to the true thought leaders within the SEO space. That being said, my challenge is a 2 part question: With the 80/20 rule in mind, and in light of recent algorithm changes, what would YOU focus most of your SEO budget on if you had to choose? Let's assume you're in a competitive market (ie #1-5 on page 1 has competitors with 20,000+ backlinks - all ranging from AC Rank 7 to 1). How would you split your total monthly SEO budget as a general rule? Ex) 60% link building / 10% onsite SEO / 10% Social Media / 20% content creation? I realize there are many "it depends" factors but please humor us anyways. Link building appears to have become harder and harder as google releases more and more algorithm changes. For link building, the only true white hat way of proactively generating links (that I know of) is creating high quality content that adds value to customers (ie infographics, videos, etc.), guest blogging, and Press Releases. The con to these tactics is that you are waiting for others to find and pick up your content which can take a VERY long time, so ROI is difficult to measure and justify to clients or C-level management. That being said, how are YOU allocating your link building budget? Are all of these proactive link building tactics a waste of time now? I've heard it couldn't hurt to still do some of these, but what are your thoughts and what is / isn't working for you? Here they are: A. Using spun articles edited by US based writers for guest blog content B. 301 Redirects C. Social bookmarking D. Signature links from Blog commenting E. Directory submissions F. Video Submissions G. Article Directory submissions H. Press release directory submissions I. Forum Profile Submissions J. Forum signature links K. RSS Feed submissions L. Link wheels M. Building links (using scrapebox, senukex, etc.) to pages linked to your money site N. Links from privately owned networks (I spoke to an SEO company that claims to have over 4000 unique domains which he uses to boost rankings for his clients) O. Buying Contextual Text Links All Expert opinions are welcomed and appreciated 🙂
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | seoeric2 -
My Google PR is Decreasing HELP!
We have just started in on an SEO campaign after a year or so break from engaging in active SEO efforts. Our rankings and organic traffic seems to be increasing but we just dropped from a PR 5 to a PR 4 after being a PR 5 for probably a couple years. We are not doing anything black hat or sketchy and try hard to make sure all of our links are relevant and quality links. Does anyone know why this might have happened or if it is an indication of anything?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | MyNet0