Attack of the Italics!

I had random links pop up in my reviews too, and I was asked to remove them once. Swear I didnt put them there.

The formatting is added for various reasons by EF - italics for emphasis (for reasons you mentioned) and links to strengthen Search Engine Optimization. You should be able to go back and edit reviews to take out the italics but there is nothing to be done before the fact.

I saw that in your review and wondered how and why it was there..It's the gremlins doing it!

Darn gremlins!

It is redundant but, then again, it's not done for fun - it's done because someone wants it done.

Right... so someone wants it done.... but then someone else asks us to get rid of them. Like jedent mentioned, she's been asked to take out links that * she didn't put in * . I'd like to hear one big universal "yes" or "no" to formatting in reviews. It's a little confusing right now.

Oh, hmm, well I don't know what their official policy is.

That would be fantastic. Right now we get that Eden "doesn't" add formatting, yet the reviewers personally have seen differently.

That's good to know.

Honestly, though, I had asked about this quite a while ago and was pretty much told that it must be something that I was doing wrong. It would have been nice to be told that it wasn't my fault, especially after I felt like I had been disciplined for something I didn't even do. link

Yeah... I think it's your post that I remembered from a while ago. That's why I was confused--because we didn't add the formatting we were asked to remove!

It's cool that In the pink is going to provide us with some answers though. I can't wait for this to be cleared up!

Cool! Thanks. The links do make more sense than the other formatting, I was just wondering why a word in my review was hyperlinked to someone else's review of another product. Wouldn't it make sense for the link to be to the actual product? Oh well. I won't question the judgment of the SEO team on that--they're professionals!

Thank you for another mystery solved!

I'm glad this has finally been addressed. I wish that it had been resolved when it was first brought up on the forums, though. Back then, you passionately denied that you were adding links to reviews and said it was some kind of "glitch" in the system. This explanation makes more sense and I wonder why it was not given to us in the previous thread.

I think the problem may be that different people are taking care of different things and not everyone knows what everyone else is doing. The Search Engine Optimization team probably does not usually fall within Victoria's scope of understand-to-do (or however it should be put--operating on low blood sugar!)So when it was first brought up the forums, Victoria wasn't aware that it WASN'T the reviewers doing it. Remember that the admins can't always read every post of every thread. Maybe if we'd emailed her our problems, she would have looked into it on the spot and we would have received answers much sooner.

As is, I'm just glad that we all understand what's going on now :]

I'm also glad we know.

The thing is- I have a few e-mails I've sent quite a while ago that have gone unanswered, so e-mails don't seem to be the end all to be all. And, sorry to point this out, but you posted on the forums about this as well, and it seemed to work.

I don't expect Victoria to know every single thing that is going on at EF- that would just be too much for any single person. I know she's very busy, and don't expect her to handle every aspect of the webiste, since that's not her job. But, yes, I am a little peeved that I got an automatic response that told me I was doing something wrong, and that it was my fault. The ball stopped there, and now that I've come to find out it in fact wasn't my fault, I'm left with a few uneasy feelings about how everything was handled.

Yeah, I see your point. There have been other threads and, I imagine, other emails that asked the same question that this thread does. I started this thread not to specifically alert Victoria to it, but more to see what other people were experiencing. Probably, if Victoria hadn't replied to this thread, I would've shot an email over asking more specifically about the matter after learning about how other contributors were dealing with this problem.

I'm not saying that emails are the cure to every ailment. Some of my emails to staff haven't been responded to and some of them contained misinformation in their responses. I don't know where or how the glitches in communication occur, just that they do. I'm sorry that you felt like you were accused of doing something wrong when in fact it was completely out of your hands. But, look on the bright side! All contributors had the same problem, and even though it took a while to figure out just where the misunderstanding was occurring, we've finally solved this together.

In the future, though, I really hope that problems like this get resolved on the first try!

Epiphora is absolutely right. I looked at that review. She wrote a fantastic review and it's full of crappy links. (*Wants to start a revolt!!!!*)

The first time, she uses the "Hitachi Magic Wand" and it links to the forum instead of a product. That's stupid, I'd bet that Eden does sell the Hitachi, but I didn't look.

There are FIVE links to a product that doesn't even look like the picture for the product that she's reviewing. I'm assuming it's the same. There is one link to SOMEBODY else's review for the same product. All for the name "Acuvibe Mini."

I'm really with Epiphora on this one. It makes her look bad. I seem to remember that "In the Pink said on another forum that the product should be linked to at most ONCE. Also given that rank is determined by activity and review ratings, it can be negatively affected by sending the "reader" to another review on the product. (Sending the "reader" to another review on a different product is relatively pointless. I know that's happened with me.)

After being told several times that this has never happened and will not happen, I admit to being really irritated.

I know why. This has to do with the way that internet search engines rank a company. The more links both internal, and external that a "site" has, the higher the ranking.

If Eden wants links, then let the reviewers add relevant ones. NOT CRAP. In the end, we'll just go back and delete them. I know I will.

The review does seem a little over-linked, but they're not really crap. The link to the forums is to a thread that compares the Hitachi to the Acuvibe and other similar products. Epiphora's review is built around this comparison, so that link is actually somewhat relevant. The other (many, many) "Acuvibe" all link to the actual product page except for one, which links to another review of the Acuvibe. I am not seeing the "FIVE links to a product that doesn't even look like [...] the product that she's reviewing". The picture on the product page IS of a pink Acuvibe, but that's because it's the default color. I'm not sure the SEO team has time to notice that the colors are even different, much less fix the URL so it directs to the page with the right color.

The two things I am absolutely on board with:

1. Too many links to the same URL. Only one is really needed. Hyperlink-happiness actually makes a page look BAD. It might optimize search engine rankings, but if someone comes to the site, takes one look at all the reviews that are studded with hyperlinks like chocolate chip cookies with too many chocolate chips (say it ain't so!), and leaves because of a hyperlink headache... Then what's the point? There is a balance.

2. Linking to other reviews of the same product is silly. All the other reviews of the same product are already featured on the left sidebar when you read any one review. Linking to them again within a review body is insulting to the reviewer who wrote the current review and detracts from the overall readability of the review.

This thread is probably considered "closed" by the admins because Victoria already answered the original question. We have learned that the SEO team is responsible for the linkage. Epiphora's best bet is to email Victoria to see if a request can be sent to SEO to be less heavy-handed with hyperlinks. I believe Victoria herself has the power to take out hyperlinks in existing reviews... do reviewers themselves have this power? I could be wrong.

I'm sorry this happened to you, Epiphora. I hope it gets fixed soon.

I agree with both your points. I can handle a couple links, if they are relevant. But linking to other reviews is just lame, as is excessively linking the same text over and over.

Thanks Victoria for answering this. The picture issue bothered me, not because of color, but because there was some product angleing that made it look like a slightly different model.

I agree, that email is an appropriate method of communication, but the forum helps keep everyone in the loop as well.