Plans to allow Google to index iTunes reviews

Question

Plans to allow Google to index iTunes reviews

I've spent a fair amount of time putting up music, television, and movie reviews on iTunes and would like to know if those reviews are indexed anywhere (on Google or any other engine for that matter) outside Apple's proprietary database? If not, does anyone know if Apple will likely allow all that user driven content to be indexed by search engines at some point in the future?

I may be missing something, but wouldn't allowing the massive amount of user added content (that's added so much value to Apple's review databases) to be indexed be the fair thing to do?

Thoughts?

Christian Hunter

Austin, TX

Posted on May 9, 2013 1:38 AM

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Answer 1

ed2345

Level 9

62,498 points

May 9, 2013 4:08 PM in response to Christian_Hunter

Christian,

Google indexes content on the web. The reviews in the iTunes Store are not on the web. They do not have a URL, and are accessible only through the iTunes application. Although I can't predict the future, Google would likely consider this out of its scope.

The audience at the iTunes Store is by no means small, but for the considerable effort and thought that you put into your reviews, you may wish to find a more appropriate outlet. Amazon reviews, for example, are web-accessible and frequently show up in searches.

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Answer 2

Jul 6, 2014 9:34 AM in response to Christian_Hunter

+ed2345, can you (or anyone for that matter) speak to the logic behind Apple's strategy in basically hiding the reviews of its users from the broader web?

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Answer 3

ed2345

Level 9

62,498 points

Jul 11, 2014 4:40 PM in response to Christian_Hunter

Christian_Hunter wrote:

+ed2345, can you (or anyone for that matter) speak to the logic behind Apple's strategy in basically hiding the reviews of its users from the broader web?

Christian,

As a fellow user, I cannot speak for Apple. However, I would not necessarily interpret it as "hiding." The reviews are simply not on the web so they don't show up in web searches.

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