Honestly, I was a little negative about the idea of ratings extensions when they first started being syndicated. How will we manage the bad feedback? Will the swamp of reviews associated to aggregators ruin small-to-mid level advertisers’ chances to benefit from this extension?

Consumer Driven Call to Action

After a little introspection and some peer debate, my attitude toward the product flipped. If anything this extension allows brands the ability to take over more space on the page while introducing a more dynamic call to action.

As mentioned in “Image Ads in Search – Yep, They Help” around Google’s other extension products, we’ve seen an average increase in CTR of 13 percent while conversion followed at more than 14 percent. Should we expect to see similar increases for advertisers? If Google eventually picks up more onsite review content…you bet.

By Price Glomski, Search Engine Watch

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