atlrus wrote:
Yet another idiotic idea from Google, I think they must have given a 5-year-old the control over the search engine business...

To be honest, I am shocked the results have not yet turned into "5 star" ratings on every page, lol. Just a matter of time, I guess.

I think it's a nice idea, but it's a lot like communism: a great idea on paper, but a terrible idea when real people are involved.

The honor system, which these ratings apparently rely on, seems amazingly naive, especially for Google.

--
Ryan

@rlange

--The honor system, which these ratings apparently rely on, --seems amazingly naive, especially for Google.

Agreed, some have said it's them 'weeding' out the b-hats. This just *feels* like a simple mess. I don't believe it was planned; IMHO it's an indication of changes going on @ the plex right now - simple as that.

This is Facebook related. They can't handle FB having that much power over the net.

One thing I don't feel is google being "naive".
That being said, it would be foolish to try and game the snippet system or putting it up where it's not relevant. There are simply too many ways that could be used (by google) to detect if these were being manipulated - bounce rate pre&post snippet; correlation of snippet reviews with reviews on google checkout / reseller ratings; rate of growth in reviews as a % of web page traffic, etc. etc.). For all you know, encouraging snippets may be a way of having website owners use Google checkout (as they can give snippet sites that "also" use Google checkout, better authority status).
In short, there are simply too many ways that gaming of snippets can be detected IMHO.
What worries me, is that people like us who have had rating data for over a decade but chose not to put it up (until now when we can showcase it through snippets in SERPS). Hope Google doesn't interpret this as spam, specially as we (the small site that we are) have far more ratings than even Amazon for certain products.

Hi All


I thought of implementing rich snippet to my product site. Just before implementing, I searched for the web to check if it is safe or not. I stumbled upon this forum and after reading the views, I am now confused whether to implement it now or not.

My website has got real reviews over the years and that is being implemented to show up in the rich snippet. Thought of implementing rdfa over microdata.

Well, if google has implemented this option, there must be something in Google's mind to check the manipulation in ratings. This should be only implemented in ecommerce sites where actual sale is made. Based on the sale, the review and ratings options should be available in the site and based on this genuine ratings, the star rating in the SERPs should be calculated.(just my thoughts) Also, there must be some option to check the ratings and reviews from duplicate ips and logins. Google must differentiate between the fake reviews and real reviews based on valid grounds. Also, a distinguished value of work should be given to the content and other factors of SEO to rank the website along with the rating factors, so that all those work done on the website doesn't seem valueless based on the reviews while ranking in the SERPs.

I would like to have your valued advise whether should I implement rich snippet in my website or not? If yes, which one to use - rdfa or microdata?

I implemented on my own sites; and I use microdata (schema.org) Very happy with the results.

Hi netmeg,

is the microdata being supported by all the browsers? am not sure of that. as [some sources say] that microdata cannot implement all the statements that rdfa can do. is that applicable...

[edited by: Andy_Langton at 11:49 pm (utc) on Apr 18, 2012]
[edit reason] Removed non-authoritative link [/edit]

I first noticied this back in late January and the manipulation of it was starting to get out of control. I think they finally addressed this somewhere within the update code named "Snippets" [insidesearch.blogspot.com...]

At least, I'm pretty sure.