08/25/2010


One of the goals of the NotesAppStore is to assist with Google search. Google WANTS to be able to know more about each site. One of the ways is to read "microformats" from the site. This is formatted XML data to tell Google which sites have reviews, which are very important to buyers of products. And because Google lives off advertising, product reviews are critical to its business model. This is why I added the microformats to the NotesAppStore, because Google likes good data.

So, to make it easy for Google to find Lotus Notes and Domino products, I have added microformats to the NotesAppStore. They come in two flavors:

Google says it best:

About review data When review information is marked up in the body of a web page, Google can identify it and use it to understand and present the information on your pages. For example, it can be used to create rich snippets to be displayed on a search results page. Review information such as ratings and descriptions can help users to better identify pages with good content. You can mark up either individual reviews (for example, an editor's review of a product), or aggregate review information—for example, the average rating for a local business or the total number of user reviews submitted.

Here is a sample of a Google search result showing an "aggregate rating" for SpamSentinel, showing 24 reviews and the aggregate 5 star rating:





Here is an example of an "individual review", showing the reviewer name and the 5 star rating:




As more and more reviews are written to the NotesAppStore, Google will show the ratings right in the search results. Users will click on these preferentially to non-rated products, leading to more website visits and (hopefully) more product sales for all NotesAppStore vendors.