In my previous post, ‘Online Reviews Set To Impact Real Estate Agents’, I mentioned how customer reviews appearing right beside a real estate agent Google Search could ultimately impact which real estate agent a customer may decide to employ. Click here to view previous article
But what if the customer reviews actually appeared right beside your company website?
Google’s Sidewiki is about to change the way your customers can use the internet.
In an announcement from the Official Google Blog: Sidewiki “allows you to contribute helpful information next to any webpage. Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page.
In developing Sidewiki, we wanted to make sure that you’ll see the most relevant entries first. We worked hard from the beginning to figure out which ones should appear on top and how to best order them. So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries.”
At this point the comments or customer reviews are only visible to other users of Google Sidewiki.
Sidewiki users can post a comment, but can’t edit the comments of others.
Michael Arrington of TechChrunch explains that “Other users can read and vote comments up or down. All those votes will create a user ranking for each individual that will determine where their comments fall on the Sidewiki. The higher the ranking, the higher comments appear. The goal, Google says, is to help move better content up and move spammy stuff to the bottom where it won’t be seen. Website owners who have claimed their sites always have the right to the first comment on any URL they control.”
Almost every real estate company relies on their ability to promote their websites & their listings via a one way conversation across the web, but now Google’s Sidewiki allows public commenting on your site & your listings whether you like it or not.
You can find the Google Sidewiki download link here