Yahoo! Local Adds Editorial Reviews
It is very interesting to watch Local Search grow and mature. Today I found a WebmasterWorld thread named Yahoo Local Integrates Editorial Reviews. That is right, instead of the normal user reviews, they have added professional editorial style reviews. One example is of Connie’s Pizza in Chicago, IL, with an editorial review.
WebmasterWorld members note that the link to vote if the review is helpful or not, is missing from the editorial reviews and is only an option for the user reviews. Here is one member’s concern;
I agree with you about the potential problem of Editorial reviews trumping user generated reviews. A novice user could easily interpret the logo’d Gayot review as the authoritative opinion on the business.
On the other hand, when I buy a book from Amazon the first review is always the editorial review, and then I scroll down to read user reviews. I know the difference between the two, but I can’t speak for novice users. This would be interesting to explore.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
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Barry Schwartz is the Editor of Search Engine Roundtable and President of RustyBrick, Inc., a Web services firm specializing in customized online technology that helps companies decrease costs and increase sales.
Yahoo Local has had local reviews for a very long time (maybe even since their launch). I’ve seen the Gayot reviews for quite sometime. I should know…I was keeping a close eye on their launch while working at citysearch. :-)
The editorial comments are from Gayot, witch are the same as on local.google.com.
Search for the same restaurant in Google Local and you will see that the same comment is related in cache. In that case no big news ;-) Greetz from Holland.
Very unhappy with Yahoo Local. They (or the company advertising) have sole discretion in eliminating reviews. I have tried unsuccessfully to post a review for a contractor that did a lousy job and the review keeps getting deleted. Yahoo Local tells me they reserve the right to do this. This should not be called a review system if they don’t allow anything but good reviews.
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