Miva Ratings & Reviews App

[KayfabeRockStar]

It's time to switch a client from an existing review service ... I can't seem to find any reviews or information on the Miva Ratings & Review App (formerly GD). Does anyone have any experience using this app? It also looks like a one time fee, too.

Or are there any other recommended solutions?

Thanks!

[Rick Wilson]

Jason,

I can say it's very popular for self hosted reviews and is an easy to use well designed module. We bought it because GD didn't want to stay in the module maintenance business.

Also Bruce from Phospor has a equally great similar review module.

Both are one time fees (AFAIK on Bruce's side).

The downside to these modules is Google will not trust any reviews where the customer stores the data in a database they could edit. So if you want your reviews aggregated into Google, you'll need something like Shopper Approved, Power Reviews, etc... but those will all be ongoing SaaS type licensing.

[lesliekirk]

Jason,

I can say it's very popular for self hosted reviews and is an easy to use well designed module. We bought it because GD didn't want to stay in the module maintenance business.

Also Bruce from Phospor has a equally great similar review module.

Both are one time fees (AFAIK on Bruce's side).

The downside to these modules is Google will not trust any reviews where the customer stores the data in a database they could edit. So if you want your reviews aggregated into Google, you'll need something like Shopper Approved, Power Reviews, etc... but those will all be ongoing SaaS type licensing.

Bruce's module is great but it does have an annual ongoing SaaS type licensing fee.

[KayfabeRockStar]

I did look at Phospor and they have a recurring yearly fee. Fairly nominal. This client has a hosted solution now, but it's been not good for a while now. Thanks for the tips and fast responses! I'll see what they want to do. This is helpful!

[oliverands]

I've used the Phosphor reviews module and can recommend it. The annual maintenance cost is low, and they provide a few updates a year. I've been very happy with it.

I'm not sure what Rick means by "Google will not trust any reviews where the customer stores the data in a database they could edit," although I'm sure he knows better than I do the value for SEO that reviews can provide. But, for what it's worth, if you have schema markup applied correctly on your product page, Google will show aggregate review results on SERPs. That's where I find the value of having reviews available to Google. Here's a screen shot for one of my products. The review data shown is from my implementation of the Phosphor module.

Review.JPG

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

I did look at Phospor and they have a recurring yearly fee. Fairly nominal. This client has a hosted solution now, but it's been not good for a while now. Thanks for the tips and fast responses! I'll see what they want to do. This is helpful!

FYI: If you can get the client's data in a flat file, we can usually import them into Easy Review for you if you choose 'Professional Installation' and otherwise can provide guidance support if you want to do this on your own. (I.e., we have a very simple import/export feature...and if you have Sebenza's Review module, Easy Review can import them automatically.)

[Donna]

We sell one of a kind items so product reviews don't work for us. Can the Miva review module be configured to show just store reviews? Would I be able to import my existing reviews?
Thank you.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Don't know about the other module, but Easy Review also support Store Reviews. One of our clients uses it this way: melindasfabricshop.com.

[jpatrickm]

Does the Miva module or Bruce's module store the review on the product child variant or the parent? The reason I ask is because Google accepts a feed of 3rd party reviews for paid Google Shopping Campaigns, however it requires a GTIN. The GTIN goes with the child variant so Google is unable to match the review with the customer purchase.

[afiumano]

I am also very curious about the below:

The downside to these modules is Google will not trust any reviews where the customer stores the data in a database they could edit. So if you want your reviews aggregated into Google, you'll need something like Shopper Approved, Power Reviews, etc... but those will all be ongoing SaaS type licensing.

I am getting ready to integrate Product and Store reviews into two websites. I was planning to use Bruce's module. Where does the above come into play in terms of Google not trusting the reviews? It is only for integrating with Adwords / Shopping ads that its a problem? We need this to work for Shopping ads as well as the local serps as oliverands is showing.

[Rick Wilson]

Google will only display reviews in SERPS if you use a SaaS Reviews product that Google trusts. No local modules can achieve that (on any platform).

The driving principle is if the store owner has access to the database the reviews are stored within, Google will not trust those by definition.

[jpatrickm]

We had our own product reviews feed approved by Google without any problems. They just required a certain number of reviews to have valid data set. We're using the old Sebenza module. However, the reviews are now having issues only because they require the GTIN, which parent products do not have. The issue was never that our reviews were self hosted. Our product and customer reviews have been live for over a year.

[Rick Wilson]

It's always possible the info I have is wrong, so if that's the case that's good to know.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Patrick,

Do you mean google wants to see the GTIN within the reviews themselves or just in the schema data. Cause you should be able to pull that (using a custom field or polling the variant code if using them).

[jpatrickm]

Google takes the customer review that we upload to them and matches it with a product GTIN in order to display the review with search results. The problem is that when a customer leaves a review, it is stored in the Miva database with only the parent product ID, seemingly regardless of the module used. The actual product variant that the customer purchased and submitted the review about is lost. So we don't have a valid GTIN to submit with the review. This is not related to the schema data, it's the actual product review XML feed that we submit to Google.