Hosting your own reviews is vital for SEO - more feedback from Google

Last week we had a very interesting discussion with a Google staffer. In this case we went through every constituent of a client's website, item by item. The Google expert stressed one factor above all: the value, from an SEO point-of-view, of hosting independently verified reviews on the website.

Independently verified reviews, he stressed, meant just that: reviews of the business in question posted to the business's own website via a recognised third-party. Not - he went on to add - Google's own reviews shown on the business's website or an aggregated feed of reviews from external sources.

In other words, this:

Or this:

Or this:

But not this:

Or this:

Or this:

In fact, Google positively discriminates against any kind of duplication - if its crawlers find content in two locations, they effectively ignore it from an SEO perspective. 


Conclusion

It is straightforward: host independently moderated reviews on your own site. They will count towards your SEO score and considerably improve your chances of appearing in the Google 3-pack:

And high up in organic local search: