Google Partners with Bazaarvoice, Brings Consumer Ratings to Product Search and Ads

Under a new partnership between Google and Bazaarvoice, retailers and manufacturers can display their online product reviews and ratings within their AdWords ad campaigns - as well as have them appear in product searches on Google.com.

Bazaarvoice is the first partner to join a new product reviews program from Google that will index product reviews and solicit full-text feeds from aggregators. The feeds will work in a way similar to Google's relationship with Twitter, which allows the search company to index tweets more quickly for delivery in search results.

Product sellers can leverage the companies' integration to insert ratings into their Google advertising. Ads will display the number of users to review a product, as well as the average star-rating they gave under a five-star system. At launch, the ads do not contain any written reviews.

Marketers can deploy the ratings in two relatively new Google ad types: 1) "product extension" ads, which can contain address info, product images, and page links, and 2) "product listing" ads, which can display multiple products in a single ad unit.

Additionally, the program will integrate reviews and ratings on Google's search results pages and product pages. On product pages, participating retailers will be able to incorporate their logos and links, which could in turn generate brand awareness and traffic.

Google indicated Bazaarvoice's social commerce platform was a natural choice to kick off product reviews, since it's used by approximately 800 customers - among them Costco, Best Buy, and Procter & Gamble. User-generated content hosted by Bazaarvoice has generated more than 100 billion impressions to date, according to the company.

Austin-based Bazaarvoice has dubbed its Google-based offering as "SyndicateVoice for Search." Brant Barton, chief innovation officer, told ClickZ the company has no immediate plans to launch the program with other search providers. He said Google approached Bazaarvoice about the integration late last year.

Fashion and home products retailer HSN is among the Bazaarvoice clients that will leverage the integration with Google. In a statement, HSN EVP Brian Bradley said, "The result is real value for consumers, who gain immediate access to authentic customer opinions on our products, and increased traffic and sales for HSN."

Sameer Samat, Google product management director, announced the integration today at the Bazaarvoice Social Commerce Summit in Austin, where the reviews company is based.

Disclosure: ClickZ is a partner of Bazaarvoice, which hosts the iReviews directory for vendor and agency reviews on our site.