Sports Comments and Movie Ratings in Google
Did you know that now you can rank movies or TV series directly in Google? Lately, Google has been experimenting with another option that enables contributing directly in the search engine – comments for live TV programs. But let’s start from scratch.
Some time ago we’ve already written about On-SERP SEO and the future of Google search without clicking. The search engine constantly strives to provide as much information as possible – flight schedules, sports results, movie reviews or information about the nearest hotels. We’re being given a great amount of news even without clicking on a search result. Already more than half of the searches don’t require entering any websites.
Recently, Google has been examining its newest solution – the possibility to add movie, TV series or book ratings and to comment on sports events and live TV shows, the latter one being an absolute novelty in the industry. This is a real Google’s tribute to the community which allows a single individual to contribute to what the search results look like. Thanks to Google My Business, we’re already well familiarized with the option of publishing comments, however, now it can be observed on a larger scale.
Ratings and reviews in Google
You can rate and review searched films, series, books, video games and music albums. Unfortunately, for the time being this option is available only in English.
All reviews and ratings are public, so it’s impossible to publish them anonymously. In order to add them, you need to sign in to your Google account. Then, on your profile you can see all the reviews you’ve written so far.
Below you can see exemplary ratings and reviews on the very iconic movie – Forrest Gump.
And now it’s time for a TV series – Dexter:
User comments for live TV shows in Google
Another way of contributing to Google is adding comments to live TV programs. Google implemented this option for sports events in 2018 and it already worked during the 2018 World Cup. Today, it’s available for selected sports and languages.
How does it work? After entering a search query concerning a given sports event (e.g. the match France vs. Croatia), click on “more about this game” and then on the “comments” button that can be found in the bottom right-hand corner.
Note: It works solely when you search from a US location so it’s not available in many countries.
Comments for sports games are described in more detail in Google Search Help.
The novelty on the market – comments for live TV shows
7.01 Google, together with Search Engine Land, confirmed the revolutionary solution and introduced the possibility of comments for live TV programs in the search results. For the time being, comments for live TV shows are in the testing phase and work only in mobile searches in selected locations.
Search Engine Land provides an example of a popular US TV program – Bachelor – and below you can see live comments added there:
So should we be afraid that Google will change into a social media platform? Not necessarily. However, the search engine undoubtedly aims to keep the users on the search results page for as long as possible and to provide them with all the information they need right away. The number of direct answers is constantly increasing, therefore, SEO is supposed to improve not only the position of your website in the search results but also the way it’s displayed, the space it takes in the search engine as well as the methods of incentivizing users to click on the link.
