Option A: Use a platform plug-in

If the website is built on Demandware, Magento, Hybris, or GSI, it is probable that a plug-in will be used to deploy BVSEO.

Option B: Use one of the BVSEO SDKs

If the website is built using Java, .NET, or PHP, BVSEO SDKs will make the SEO-friendly integration simple. Proceed to the next question to review information that should be considered prior to deployment of the BVSEO SDKs.

Option C: Develop a custom solution based on the BVSEO SDKs

If the website is built using a different technology, Ruby or Perl for example, you will need to develop a custom solution. The BVSEO SDKs are open-sourced, published in GitHub, and provide a reliable guide for those developing a custom solution. Proceed to Section 2, which is also relevant to custom solution development.

1. Will server-side coding be possible?

• Yes – BVSEO integration requires a server-side deployment to inject search-friendly contents into the source code.
• No – If you are unable to make server-side changes, you cannot implement the BVSEO on your site. Contact Bazaarvoice Support for information about alternate SEO resources.

2. Is a page-level cache involved? (Akamai is often used for page level caching.)

Caching may be used to improve the speed and efficiency in ways that affect the BVSEO integration. Consider the following questions related to caching.

• Yes – If the pages where BVSEO will be implemented use a page-level cache, increase EXECUTION_TIMEOUT to 2000ms. This will ensure that SEO-friendly contents are always included in the cached version.
• No – No additional effort.

3. Does the page use the complete URL as its cache key?

Caching may be used to improve the speed and efficiency in ways that affect the BVSEO integration. Consider the following questions related to caching.

BVSEO uses bvrrp, bvqap, bvsyp, and bvpage as URL parameters to manage pagination. http://example.com and http://example.com?bvrrp=stuff are unique pages and must be treated as unique pages by page-level caching systems.

• Yes – No additional effort.
• No – The cache system or URL masking system must be updated as part of the deployment.

4. Will a local cache be used to reduce server-side calls to the cloud?

BVSEO makes an HTTP or HTTPS request to seo.bazaarvoice.com (seo-stg.bazaarvoice.com for staging), which returns formatted HTML as a string. While our cloud service contains a cache for exceptionally efficient delivery (often sub 20ms), some clients opt to add an additional layer of local caching.

• Yes – If a local cache is going to be used, Bazaarvoice recommends a maximum TTL of one hour.
• No – No additional effort.

5. Will a proxy be needed?

BVSEO must have access to seo.bazaarvoice.com (seo-stg.bazaarvoice.com for staging) via HTTP or HTTPS. IP addresses are not available. Because BVSEO uses floating IP addresses in the cloud, we do not guarantee that IP addresses will remain consistent. If the firewall requires an IP address, a proxy must be set up to provide a consistent IP address. The SDKs contain proxy configuration options.

• Yes – Effort will be required to set up the proxy. Use BVClientConfig.PROXY_HOST and PROXY_PORT to point the SDK at the proxy when deploying the SDK.
• No – No additional effort.

6. Will firewall settings need to be adjusted?

BVSEO must have access to seo.bazaarvoice.com (seo-stg.bazaarvoice.com for staging) via HTTP or HTTPS. If the firewall restricts access to this address, adjustments will be needed.

• Yes – Effort will be required to open up access.
• No – No additional effort.

7. Will SSL connections be required?

While the content retrieved from seo.bazaarvoice.com does not contain any data that needs to be protected, security policies may require that all server-side connections are protected by SSL. SSL support is available in the Java SDK v2.1 (and above) and .NET SDK v2.1 (and above).

• Yes – set BVClientConfig.SSL_ENABLED to true when deploying the SDK.
• No – No additional effort.

8. Are the pages using schema.org Microdata?

Bazaarvoice only supports and recommends schema.org microdata for structured markup. Other formats have been tested and have not yielded results as desirable as this format. Bazaarvoice uses the schema.org/Product page to guide our tagging.

• Yes – Continue to the next step.
• No – Refer to Getting started with schema.org using Microdata .

9. Do the pages already contain schema.org markup?

If the page where BVSEO is being deployed contains any schema.org markup, meticulous attention to detail must be used to ensure that the schema markup does not conflict.

• Yes - All schema.org markup must be properly nested in a single hierarchy. Carefully audit the HTML output to ensure that proper schema.org code hierarchy is present.
• No – Read on for instructions on how to include schema.org markup on your pages.

10. Do the pages already contain a schema.org type, also known as a parent class?

Pages must only contain one schema.org type, such as schema.org/Product, schema.org/Event, schema.org/LocalBusiness, schema.org/Person, etc.

• Yes – Make sure the schema.org/Product type is a <div> tag that contains both the BVRRSummaryContainer and BVRRContainer modules.
• No – Add a type to the page. Bazaarvoice recommends adding schema.org/Product. Refer to the Java, .NET, or PHP examples for sample code.
  • Add the schema.org/Product class into a <div> tag that contains both the BVRRSummaryContainer and BVRRContainer modules.
  • Add the product name within the schema.org/Product class using
    <div itemprop=name>[ProductName]</div> or <meta itemprop="name" content="[ProductName]" />

11. Do the pages have canonical tags?

If canonical tags are used on pages where BVSEO is implemented, these tags must either be updated or removed when the product contains more than one page of reviews, which is typically more than eight reviews. These canonical tags must be removed since BVSEO is paginating the product page so that all reviews are in the search engines’ index. Canonical tags that point away from a pagination URL will cause search engines to ignore the paginated content.

Note: Refer to Best practices for more information on pagination.

• Yes – When any of the BVSEO pagination parameters are present (bvstate, bvrrp, bvqap, bvsyp, bvpage), do either of the following:
  
  1. Remove the canonical tag. This is the most common solution.
     
  2. Append the "name=value" pair to the canonical URL.
• No – No additional effort.

This example shows Ratings & Reviews integration of BVSEO.

This example shows Ratings & Reviews integration of BVSEO with optional configuration parameters.

This example shows Ratings & Reviews integration of BVSEO for implementations that do not use BVRRSummaryContainer. All other code examples include the summary container.

This example shows Seller Ratings integration of BVSEO.

This example shows Ratings & Reviews integration of BVSEO using the local file system for file retrieval, instead of the cloud. Refer to Select a file method in Best Practices for more information.

This example shows Ratings & Reviews integration of BVSEO using a proxy.

This example shows Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers integration of BVSEO.

Sample.aspx

Sample.aspx.cs

This example shows Ratings & Reviews integration of BVSEO.

You can also use the following HTML code snippet.

This example shows Ratings & Reviews integration of BVSEO with optional configuration parameters.

You can also use the following HTML code snippet.

You can also use the following HTML code snippet.

This example shows Seller Ratings integration of BVSEO.

You can also use the following HTML code snippet.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="ex_simple_srd.aspx.cs" Inherits="Aspx_Examples.ex_simple_srd" %>

This example shows Ratings & Reviews integration of BVSEO using the local file system for file retrieval, instead of the cloud. Refer to Select a file method for more information.

You can also use the following HTML code snippet.

This example shows Ratings & Reviews integration of BVSEO using a proxy.

You can also use the following HTML code snippet.

<%@ Page Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeBehind="ex-simple-rr-cloud-proxy.aspx.cs" Inherits="Aspx_Examples.ex_simple_rr_cloud_proxy" %>

<!DOCTYPE html> <head runat="server"> <title></title> </head> <body> <h1>Reviews Integration of BVSEO</h1> <h2>using cloud for file retrieval via a proxy</h2>

This example shows Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers integration of BVSEO.

You can also use the following HTML code snippet.

Use this example code to return Seller Ratings content.

<?php
//Please provide cloud_key and bv_root_folder
require('bvseosdk.php');
$bv = new BV(array(
'bv_root_folder' => '',
'cloud_key' => '',
'page_url' => '',
'subject_id' => 'seller'
));
?><!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>BV SDK PHP Example - GetContent</title>
</head>
<body>
This is a test page for SellerRatings: getContent() <br>
GetContent() will return Seller Ratings content <br><br>

Use this example code to return Questions & Answers content.

Use this example code to return aggregate rating and review content. Bazaarvoice recommends this code for PDPs.

<?php
//Please provide cloud_key, bv_root_folder and subject_id
require('bvseosdk.php');
$bv = new BV(array(
'bv_root_folder' => 'Main_Site-en_US',
'subject_id' => 'subjectID',
'cloud_key' => 'company-384757834788734',
'page_url' => 'http://www.company.com/category/sub-category?query=value',
'base_url' => 'http://www.company.com/category/sub-category',
//Ensure the protocol, http:// or https://, matches the production site.   
));
?><!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>BV SDK PHP Example - Simple Ratings & Reviews (recommended method)</title>
</head>
<body>
<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product">
<meta itemprop="name" content="ProductName" />
<div id="BVRRSummaryContainer">
<?php echo $bv->reviews->getAggregateRating(); ?>
</div>
<div id="BVRRContainer">
<?php echo $bv->reviews->getReviews(); ?>
</div>
</body>
</html>

Use this example code to return Ratings & Reviews and aggregate content.

Use this example code to return Questions & Answers content.

Even if you have a reviews tab on a product overview page, users appreciate seeing review content when they scroll down the page. Without reviews on the overview page, search engines perceive your overview pages as stale. Adding eight reviews to the page substantially increases the freshness score in the Google algorithm. Additionally, pages with some visible reviews (not under a tab) more consistently receive rich snippet stars in Google search results.

Follow these steps to set the number of reviews to display on the product overview page:

1. From Site Manager, locate the implementation you want to configure.
2. Select Edit next to the implementation to open configuration.
3. Under User Experience, select Display Options, and select the Ratings & Reviews tab.
4. Scroll down to the Reviews on First Page text box. Enter the number of reviews you want the page to show.

If you don’t have access to Configuration in the Bazaarvoice Portal, file a support ticket to set the number of reviews.

This element of the BVSEO strategy is most likely to help your existing pages rise in search results for target phrases.

Sorting by relevance is better for both SEO and conversion. The relevance algorithm looks for reviews that are rich with content and recently published, so it loads your initial display of reviews with content that attracts search engines. This element of the BVSEO strategy improves a page's content-to-link ratio, density of target keywords, and the volume of synonyms and adjectives that support target keywords.

Follow these steps to set the sorting methods available to users:

1. From Site Manager, locate the implementation you want to configure.
2. Select Edit next to the implementation to open configuration.
3. Under User Experience, select Display Options, and select the Ratings & Reviews tab.
4. Scroll down to Review Sorting. Under the Review Sort Options list, check the Most Relevant box to enable relevance sorting.

If you don't have access to Configuration in the Bazaarvoice Portal, file a support ticket to set the sorting methods.

Extensive testing confirms that both users and search engine bots react most favorably when your site contains multiple pages for a product, and when pages after the overview contain about 30 reviews each. Whether you use the BVSEO SDKs or implement your own solution, ensure that no more than 30 reviews appear on each page.

If you considered pagination in the past and concluded that it was difficult to implement, be aware that the current BVSEO implementation method has simplified the process significantly. This element of the strategy is most likely to increase long-tail traffic.

The new pages that result from pagination are the optimal place to target keywords that contain the word "reviews." In most cases, adding "reviews" to a logical place in the title and heading tags will help the pages rank highly for competitive search phrases like "[your shoe brand] reviews" or "[your hotel name] reviews."

This element of the BVSEO strategy is most likely to help your pages rank highly for phrases that contain the word "reviews."

Google awards rich snippet stars to web pages that contain social review content with clean and proper schema.org markup, and that do not hide important details. Rich snippet stars are the stars that appear in Google search results, as shown in the following image.

The following notes and suggestions are based on the BVSEO team's experience with hundreds of clients since the launch of Google's rich snippet stars.

• For rich snippet stars to display successfully, Google's search engine bots must not perceive that review summary content is hidden by CSS in any way. You might have to alter the way tabs are implemented, or implement reviews outside of a tab, if rich snippet stars don't show up in search results within 3-4 weeks of your implementation.

• While the Google Structured Data Testing Tool is very helpful, it is much more generous than Google Web search.

• When Google first launched rich snippet stars, the company maintained an allowlist and blocklist (sometimes called a "whitelist" and "blacklist") for awarding the stars. Remnants of the lists might still be active.

• The decision of whether or not to display rich snippet stars is up to Google. Once the schema.org code is in place, wait a few weeks. If the steps in the "Structured markup and rich snippet stars" section of the FAQs do not work, review Google's rich snippet troubleshooting guidelines at Rich snippets not appearing .
• BVSEO code is consistent across our clients, and is operating smoothly on their millions of web pages. If there is a problem, confirm that BVSEO is properly configured for schema.org type, then focus on the environment around the BVSEO code.

The BVSEO SDKs support both cloud SEO and local file method (previously "smart SEO") configurations. Cloud SEO is strongly recommended over the local file system configuration for the following reasons:

• Cloud SEO files are more up to date.
• Cloud SEO is more reliable and stable.
• Bazaarvoice is responsible for cloud SEO file publishing processes, which reduce internal maintenance responsibility for the client.
• Cloud SEO is often faster at retrieving content than the local network and file system.

If technical limitations make the cloud-based solution not feasible for your site, Bazaarvoice also offers a downloadable daily zip file that contains everything you need to make your implementation SEO-friendly.

If you need to use the local file method, complete the following steps and refer to the local code examples for your platform to complete a local SEO integration.

Note: This procedure uses the ZIP format of compression, which is standard for Windows. Alternatively, you can receive files in the GZIP format, which is standard for UNIX systems. If you want to use GZIP, go to the SEO page in configuration and select the GZIP option for Compression type. If you are not using configuration, file a support ticket to use the GZIP format.

1. Set up a daily process to download and decompress a ZIP file that contains the search-friendly content for your product pages.
2. Ensure that the unzipped files are available via your web server's file system.
3. Implement the SEO integration SDK with the Internal File Path variable set to the location of the unzipped files. Refer to Implementing BVSEO for instructions on downloading and implementing the SDK in the server-side programming language you use.

Note: It is important that you update the ZIP file daily. Downloading and updating less frequently reduces the freshness of your website content to search engines, and therefore reduces the value of the SEO implementation.

I use a specific eCommerce platform. Does Bazaarvoice offer plug-ins?

Yes. Bazaarvoice offers Demandware, Magento, Hybris, and GSI plug-ins to deploy BVSEO. Contact your Bazaarvoice sales or technical services representative for more information.

My website is built using a different technology, such as Ruby or Perl. Can I use the BVSEO SDKs?

If your website is built using a different technology, you will need to develop a custom solution. The BVSEO SDKs are open sourced, published in GitHub, and provide a reliable guide for developing a custom solution.

How do I use BVSEO with an API?

BVSEO does not support APIs. For API documentation, refer to developer.bazaarvoice.com.

You can use caching to improve speed and efficiency in ways that affect BVSEO integration.

I use a page-level cache. How do I ensure that SEO-friendly content is always included in the cached version of my page?

If implementing BVSEO on pages using a page-level cache, increase EXECUTION_TIMEOUT to 2000ms.

Does the page use the complete URL as its cache key?

BVSEO uses bvrrp, bvqap, bvsyp, and bvpage as URL parameters to manage pagination. The following URLs must be treated as unique pages by page-level caching systems:

• http://example.com
• http://example.com?bvrrp=1360/reviews/product/5/10246.htm

If you are not following this method, the cache system and URL masking system must be updated as part of your BVSEO deployment.

I use a local cache. How do I ensure that SEO-friendly content is always included?

It is very common to use a local caching system to reduce the number of calls that the system makes to the cloud SEO servers. The SDK does not include caching services, but the response from the SDK can be cached. TTL (time-to-live) for the local cache should not exceed three hours.

Does the page contain canonical tags?

Canonical tags appear in the page's source code as <link rel="canonical" href=. On pages where BVSEO is implemented, canonical tags must be updated or removed when the product contains more than one page of reviews. (One page contains eight reviews.) BVSEO paginates the product page so all reviews are in the search engines’ indexes. Canonical tags that point away from a pagination URL will cause search engines to ignore the paginated content.

Note: Refer to Best practices for more information on pagination.

BVSEO appends pagination parameters to your URL in the form of name/value pairs. When any of the BVSEO pagination parameters (bvstate, bvrrp, bvqap, bvsyp, bvpage) are present, perform one of the following actions:

• Remove the canonical tag. This is the most common, recommended solution.
• Update the code that generates the canonical tag for your page to append the name/value pair. Use the appropriate pagination parameter as it appears in your URL for the name and an appropriate value depending on the parameter. For example, if your page uses the bvstate parameter, you might append bvstate=pg:2/ct:r/st:p to the canonical tag in your page.

If rel="canonical" is present in the page, does the canonical URL match the URL of the page being evaluated?

It's not uncommon for canonical tags to point to an alternate URL. If the canonical URL points away from the page being evaluated, get the source code from the canonical page and use that instead.

Can you add rel="next" and rel="prev" links to my pagination links?

Adding rel="next" and rel="prev" to links is not a recommended practice. Bazaarvoice's testing and interpretation of Google’s pagination guidelines proves that these tags should not apply to a list of reviews. The tags tell searches to default to the first page of reviews only, even if more relevant content exists on a subsequent page. For more details about this recommendation, read Google's paginated content guidelines .

Bazaarvoice recommends using the cloud-based file method. It requires less effort and is more reliable than the local file method, which requires more effort and long-term management. Refer to the "Select a file method" section of best practices for more information.

Note: The questions and solutions in this section apply to the cloud-based file method.

Is a local cache used to reduce server-side calls to the cloud?

BVSEO makes an HTTP or HTTPS request to seo.bazaarvoice.com (seo-stg.bazaarvoice.com for staging), which returns formatted HTML as a string. While the cloud service contains caches for exceptionally efficient delivery (often less than 20ms), some clients opt to add an additional layer of local caching. If a local cache is used, Bazaarvoice recommends a maximum TTL of one hour.

Is a proxy used?

If the firewall requires an IP address, you must set up a proxy to provide a consistent IP address. BVSEO must have access to seo.bazaarvoice.com (seo-stg.bazaarvoice.com for staging) via HTTP or HTTPS. BVSEO uses floating IP addresses in the cloud, which cannot guarantee consistent IP addresses. To set up a proxy, use BVClientConfig.PROXY_HOST and PROXY_PORT to point the SDK to the proxy.

Should firewall settings be adjusted?

BVSEO must have access to seo.bazaarvoice.com (seo-stg.bazaarvoice.com for staging) using HTTP or HTTPS. If the firewall restricts access to this address, adjustments are needed.

Are SSL connections required?

While the content retrieved from seo.bazaarvoice.com does not contain any data that needs to be protected, security policies may require that all server-side connections are protected by SSL. SSL support is available in the Java SDK v2.1 (and above) and .NET SDK v2.1 (and above). To enable SSL connections, set BVClientConfig.SSL_ENABLED to true when deploying the SDK.

How do execution timeouts work?

The SDK configuration includes two execution timeout settings: EXECUTION_TIMEOUT and EXECUTION_TIMEOUT_BOT.

• EXECUTION_TIMEOUT—Defines the maximum amount of time allowed for the completion of the BVSEO injection for normal end users.
• EXECUTION_TIMEOUT_BOT—Defines the maximum amount of time allowed for user agents defined in the CRAWLER_AGENT_PATTERN field.

Note: If the BVSEO injection exceeds the allowed timeout, the system will revert to a JavaScript-only injection.

Does the SDK include bot detection?

Older versions of the BVSEO SDK included a bot detection feature that completely blocked the injection if a user agent was detected. The BOT_DETECTION configuration was removed from the BVSEO SDK beginning with version 2.1. If you want to replicate the bot detection functionality, set EXECUTION_TIMEOUT equal to 0.

Bazaarvoice supports and recommends schema.org Microdata for structured markup, as it yields the best results of all formats we have tested. Bazaarvoice uses the schema.org/Product page to guide our tagging.

Answer the following important questions to ensure that your schema.org markup is set up correctly.

Are you using the latest version of Ratings & Reviews?

Ensure that you are using the latest version of Ratings & Reviews to deploy important updates. Check your Configuration settings for updates.

Does the page contain schema.org markup?

If the page where BVSEO is being deployed contains any schema.org markup, you must pay meticulous attention to detail to ensure that the schema markup does not conflict. All schema.org markup must be properly nested in a single hierarchy. Carefully audit the HTML output to ensure a proper schema.org code hierarchy is present.

Rich snippet stars are the stars that appear in Google search results, as shown in the following image.

Read this blog post for information about successfully displaying rich snippet stars.

Refer to the following questions to ensure that Google's rich snippet stars appear in search results for your product pages.

Is the page using schema.org Microdata?

For best results, pages should use schema.org Microdata. For more information, refer to Getting started with schema.org using Microdata .

If there is a schema.org/WebPage declaration, are all other schema.org elements nested within it?

While the schema.org/WebPage declaration is not required, many web sites use it. It's required that WebPage be the outermost schema.org-related node.

Is there a schema.org type relevant for the content?

For rich snippet stars to display, include a schema.org type on the page. The schema.org/Product type works well for most eCommerce websites. However, other types such as LocalBusiness, Recipe, Event, or Restaurant hierarchies might be more accurate for your page.

Note: schema.org/Product is excluded by default in BVSEO markup because it must open before the Bazaarvoice module and close after it. Before February 2015, Bazaarvoice enabled this feature by default. However, it is no longer recommended for schema.org/Product to reside within the Bazaarvoice containers.

Is the product name listed within the schema.org/Product class?

The product name should be within the schema.org/Product class using <div itemprop=name>[ProductName]</div> or <meta itemprop="name" content="[ProductName]" />.

Is a schema.org/Organization type present in the page?

While it seems logical that Google would display rich snippet stars for organizations, it did not when Bazaarvoice last tested it. Bazaarvoice recommends schema.org/LocalBusiness for organizations with a physical location.

Is there only one schema.org type?

Google will display rich snippet stars only for sites that contain a maximum of one type.

Is schema.org/AggregateRating correctly nested within schema.org/Product (or the type that best fits your content)?

AggregateRating, and all sub-elements, must be nested within schema.org/Product.

Is schema.org/AggregateRating present and NOT hidden by CSS or NOSCRIPT?

BVSEO hides portions of the HTML to reduce flashing while AJAX content decoration occurs. However, aggregate rating markup and pagination links must not be hidden by CSS or a NOSCRIPT tag. For example, wrapping the BVSEO content with <div style="display:none;"> prevents Google from rendering rich snippet stars.

Does itemprop="name", as declared in the type, match the content of itemprop="itemReviewed" supplied by BVSEO?

BVSEO code may look repetitious because itemprop="itemReviewed" is repeated many times. However, rich snippet stars display more consistently when both AggregateRating and Review schemas contain this tag, which confirms that the page is still addressing the same item. This is especially true for pages with extensive markup.

Are there any structured markup conflicts?

Use only one type of structured markup. Pages should not contain data-vocabulary.org or hreview (microformats) content. All structured markup should use schema.org format.

Does outbound or inbound syndication of my content run the risk of being duplicated?

Bazaarvoice syndicates content across hundreds of brands and retailers and is not concerned about duplicate content causing issues. When content is duplicated or syndicated between a brand and a retailer (in either direction), it is beneficial for several reasons:

• Good user experience—Since products are sold and displayed on both retailer and brand sites, shoppers want to discover feedback from people who have used the products, and they expect feedback to appear wherever they are online. If there were no reviews or a diminished number of reviews, it would contribute to a poor user experience.
• No Google issues—Duplicate content is defined by Google as "substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content or are appreciably similar." Since reviews are only a subset of the product page, and they are mixed in between the retailer’s and the brand’s reviews, we do not anticipate issue with duplicate content. Bazaarvoice has never received notice from clients that they received a duplicate content penalty or warning in Google Webmaster Tools, the system Google uses to tell webmasters if they do something wrong.
• Syndication delay—Bazaarvoice developed a feature into our platform called “syndication delay." Any content that is marked to be syndicated to another site has to wait for seven (7) days before it is syndicated. That way, Google has time to index the content on the original site, and then when it finds the same review on another site, it knows that the content has been shared. Since all of this adds so much value to users, there is no issue with Google. Syndication delay is configurable via a support request through the Support Community .

Bazaarvoice recommends that every website on our platform includes variety of content sources. There are a number of ways to do this, and our client services teams can help craft a robust content strategy for your website. Syndicated content should be a portion, not the entirety, of any content generation strategy.

I want to find out if Google is indexing my UGC. Where do I start?

• Find a product page that has more than one page of review content.
• View the source code of page 1, which is the default load of the product page.
• In a separate browser window, view the source code of the search-friendly version of page 2.
• It is easiest to review the source code in a text editor after you have processed it through Tabifier . To use Tabifier, copy the source code, paste it into the Code in text box, and select the Tabify button. Then, copy the code from the Code out text box into your preferred text editor (BBEdit, TextPad, or similar) for analysis. Do this for both page 1 and page 2.

Is Google indexing my UGC?

Bazaarvoice has developed metadata that describes UGC on your website so you can assess if Google is indexing this content. You can choose the appropriate command from the options in the following list and perform a Google search of the bolded text using your domain in place of client.com. These searches will return a list of URLs where reviews are indexed and the total number of indexed pages.

Note: If you are using the Bazaarvoice API, these commands will not return any results since metadata is not included in the API. The Google search engine has the most advanced website indexing capability. Google has the largest search engine market share worldwide and goes to the greatest lengths to decipher advanced website coding techniques in an effort to know exactly what a user sees when visiting a page. Other search engines such as Bing, Baidu, and Yandex typically follow Google's indexing capabilities within 1-2 years.

The following searches will help you determine what Google is indexing.

• site:client.com intext:bvseo_fps—This search returns pages implemented using Bazaarvoice's most current client-side (JavaScript or "hosted display") solution. If you implemented our platform (or upgraded) since November 2013, use this search option.
  
  
• site:client.com intext:bvseo_bulk—This search returns pages implemented using Bazaarvoice's most current server-side solution. If you implemented our platform (or upgraded) since November 2013 and completed "Smart SEO" or "Cloud SEO" implementation step,use this search option.
• site:client.com intext:bvseo_pps—This search returns pages implemented using Bazaarvoice's legacy client-side (JavaScript or hosted display) solution. If you implemented our platform on your site before November 2013 and haven't made many changes since, use this search option.
• site:client.com intext:bvseo_lps—This search returns pages implemented using Bazaarvoice's legacy server-side solution. Historically, server-side content is the only type of content that search engines could read. If you implemented our platform on your site before November 2013, and haven't made many changes since, use this search option.

What add-ons can I use to filter search results?

You can append the following add-ons to the above commands to filter your search results.

• intext:co_hasreviews—Append this command to return only pages that have reviews.
  
  
• intext:co_noreviews—Append this command to return only pages that do not have reviews.
• intext:bvpage2n—Append this command to return pages of review content beyond the first 8 reviews. For example, consider a product that displays 8 reviews on the first page, 30 reviews on the second page, and 12 reviews on the third page for a total of 50 reviews. This query will return two URLs for bvpage2n.
  
  
• intext:bvpage1—Append this command to return only the first page of review content.

Perform the following diagnostic searches in Google.

Note: These searches will only work if BVSEO is in a live environment where Google can find the code and content. If BVSEO is not accessible to Google, skip diagnostic queries and proceed to Manual Verification.

Edit the URLs in these searches to replace example.com with the domain you are testing. Then, load the URL from a web browser.

Does this diagnostic query provide results on BVSEO for unpaginated URLs?

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&filter=0&q=intext:bvseo_bulk+-inurl:bvrrp+site:example.com

Does this diagnostic query provide results about BVSEO for paginated URLs on pages 2 and above?

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&filter=0&q=intext:bvseo_bulk+inurl:bvrrp+site:example.com

If the answer to both questions is yes, load one of the pages listed in the search results and continue to Additional verification. If not, proceed to Manual Verification.

Does page 2 contain a canonical tag that points to a different URL?

This is one of the most common mistakes. If the page contains a rel="canonical" tag, the URL must contain the bv pagination parameter. In most cases, clients wrap the canonical tag with a conditional and do not include it when any of the following parameters appear on the URL: bvrrp, bvqap, bvsyp, bvstate, and bvpage. Refer to Canonical tags for more information.

Is the word reviews emphasized in the heading of pages 2–n?

To improve rank for search phrases that contain the word reviews, we strongly recommend appending the word reviews to the <title> and <h1> tags when bvrrp appears in the URL.

Once Tabified, how many total lines of code were present in the page 1 code that was audited?

Across all Bazaarvoice clients who have properly deployed BVSEO, clients with clean and minimalistic HTML are given rich snippet stars much more consistently. Bazaarvoice has noted that pages with approximately 600 total lines of code tend to get rich snippet stars in 100% of diagnostic searches while pages with over 4,000 lines of code per page tend to get stars about 60% of the time.

View the HTML source code to investigate the following questions.

Is BVSEO code found in the HTML source code?

Search for BVSEOCPS_GEN in the source code (use Ctrl+f or Command+f to run the Find query). If it is not found, search for BVRRSourceID. If neither of these are found, BVSEO is not in your page. Contact your developer to review the Bazaarvoice integration.

Do pagination links work properly?

If pagination links are intentionally disabled in the BVSEO configuration, proceed to Additional verification.

Note: Search-friendly pagination is recommended a majority of the time.

1. Find a product that has more than one page of reviews. While viewing the source code, search for begin-pagination. Shortly after that, there should be an HTML link that begins with <a href=, and contains either bvrrp or bvpage.

Note: If {INSERT_PAGE_URI} appears, pagination links are not working properly. You need to redeploy BVSEO using an SDK.

If you are using the Ratings & Reviews configuration, the following code should appear:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Product">
<div id="BVRRContainer">
<!--begin-bvseo-reviews-->
<meta itemprop="name" content="Product Name" />   
<!--begin-aggregate-rating--> 
<div id="bvseo-aggregateRatingSection" itemprop="aggregateRating" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/AggregateRating">
<span class="bvseo-itemReviewed" itemprop="itemReviewed">Product Name</span> is rated
<span class="bvseo-ratingValue" itemprop="ratingValue">4.8571</span> out of 
<span class="bvseo-bestRating" itemprop="bestRating">5</span> by 
<span class="bvseo-reviewCount" itemprop="reviewCount">14</span>.
</div>
<!--end-aggregate-rating-->
<!--begin-reviews-->
<div id="bvseo-reviewsSection">
<!--content removed for example-->
</div>
<!--end-reviews-->
</div>
</div>

<a href="http://www.softsurroundings.com/5/23986/P/Newport_Beach_Pant/View_All/?bvrrp=4398/reviews/product/2/23986.htm">

Note that the page number appears immediately after /product/. Take note of the page you are attempting to load. The full URL will also appear in the address bar after the page loads.

<ul id="BVSEO_meta" style="display:none;important">
<li data-bvseo="bvDateModified">y_2020, m_11, d_30, h_16</li>
<li data-bvseo="ps">bvseo_bulk, prod_bvrr, vn_bulk_3.0.12</li>
<li data-bvseo="cp">cp_10, bvpage2n</li>
<li data-bvseo="co">co_hasreviews, tv_34, tr_250</li>
<li data-bvseo="cf">loc_en_US, sid_12345, prod, sort_[SortEntry(order=SUBMISSION_TIME, direction=DESCENDING)]</li>
<li data-bvseo="diagnostics">clientName_YourClientNameHere</li>
</ul>

If you don’t use the Ratings & Reviews configuration, find BVRRSelectedPageNumber in the HTML source code. The number after the tag will indicate the page number.

If you confirm that the appropriate page of content loaded, pagination links work properly. Return to a product page, not the paginated version, and proceed to Additional verification.

BVSEO content is not found. Why?

An exceptionally low execution timeout may have occurred. To override this, you can enable developer tools and override the User Agent in Safari, as follows:

1. To use Safari's built-in User Agent switcher, select the Show Develop menu in menu bar option from Preferences » Advanced. A menu labeled "Develop" is then displayed in the menu bar.
2. Select the Develop menu and select User Agent > Other. A window is displayed that contains the current user agent.
3. Add the word "googlebot" to the end, as shown below, and select OK.

   

The user agent will now cause the BVSEO SDK to operate using a more generous execution timeout while you are working inside that browser window or tab. You must go through this process again if you open a new browser window or tab.

If results were found for Diagnostic queries or Manual verification, open one of the pages found in search results and view the HTML source to investigate the following questions.

Are the contents refreshing as intended?

Find bvDateModified in the HTML source code. Date stamps are formatted YYYY-MM-DDThh:mmTZD, according to ISO 8601 standard . The date stamp adjacent to bvDateModified should always be less than two days old. For example:

<li id="bvDateModified">2014-06-15</li>

Is your page displaying production content?

Search for data-bvseo="cf” in the source code and look at the characters that immediately follow it. If you find prod, BVSEO is configured to use production data, which is what you want. If you find stg, BVSEO is configured to use staging data and you should contact your developer to fix it.

To verify that you are displaying the correct content, find itemprop="description” in the source code and find an instance where review content immediately follows, as shown in the example below:

<span itemprop="description">I got to try this chicken jerky flavor...

Compare the first few words of that review with the reviews displayed in the page for end users. If a new review has come into the system since the last SEO update, there may be a difference. Run this test a few times to verify.

Are the contents in the proper DIV?

View the source code and rendered HTML using the "inspect element" feature of your browser. Verify that the BVSEO contents are located in the proper <div> tag. To determine this, look for BVRRContainer or BVReviewsContainer in the source code. If the <div> tag opens and closes immediately as in this example:

<div id="BVRRContainer"></div>

The content is not in the proper format. The following code example shows what the <div> content should look like.

Is schema.org format used for structured markup?

Search for schema.org/AggregateRating in the source code. If that is not found, search for schema.org/Review. If neither is found, it is likely that the client is configured to use an old version of BVSEO and the configuration should be updated to use schema.org format for structured markup.

When BVSEO content is injected into the page? Are characters escaped?

BVSEO markup must appear as HTML, not escaped characters. Find begin-bvseo in the source code. If the content appears with escaped characters, as shown in the example below, contact your developer to solve the issue.

<!--begin-bvseo-reviews-->

The markup should look like this:

<!--begin-bvseo-reviews-->

Are search-friendly pagination links hidden by CSS or NOSCRIPT?

BVSEO uses a tested technique to decorate pagination links, but never hides them with CSS or NOSCRIPT. Google will not crawl links that are hidden by CSS or NOSCRIPT. It is a common mistake to add a style="display:none;" property to the <div> tag, which contains BVSEO. Doing so blocks search-friendly pagination.

Step 1: Add bvreveal=debug

1. Add the bvreveal=debug parameter to the URL of any page where BVSEO is implemented.

   Example: http://yoursite.net/ExampleGetContent.aspx?bvreveal=debug

   The bvreveal=debug parameter adds BVSEOSDK_meta and BVSEOSDK_DEBUG lists to the source code, which contain information about your implementation. If there is no UGC, bvseo-msg will provide more details.

   

   Note: If pageURL is not set up correctly, bvreveal=debug will not work. If you do not provide a debug footer, pagination links may be incorrect.
2. View the page's source code to find information about your implementation. This information is included in BVSEOSDK_meta and BVSEOSDK_DEBUG. Refer to the full example code at the end of this section.

Step 2: Check for content

Check if content exists for the requested contentURL, as described in the following steps:

1. Find the contentURL in the BVSEOSDK_DEBUG list. Example: <li data-bvseo="contentURL">http://seo-stg.bazaarvoice.com/myshco-69cb945801532dcfb57ad2b0d2471b68/Main_Site-en_US/reviews/product/1/5000001.htm</li>
2. From the terminal, run the curl –i command. Example: curl –i "http://seo-stg.bazaarvoice.com/myshco-69cb945801532dcfb57ad2b0d2471b68/Main_Site-en_US/reviews/product/1/5000001.htm"

If the curl command does not return content, it could be a firewall issue or no content exists for this ProductID. Contact your Bazaarvoice representative for further troubleshooting.

Error messages

The following error messages may appear when debugging.

• HTTP status code of 0 was returned (or) connection refused to seo-stg.bazaarvoice.com—Indicates that a firewall exists on your network. Outbound requests from your network may be blocked by your firewall. Contact your IT team to sort out firewall issues.
• The resource to the URL or file is currently unavailable—Indicates that something is wrong with the implementation configuration or no content was generated for the specified product.