Using the Ratings & Reviews configuration, you can customize how user-generated content (UGC) is displayed on your website.

Note: If you collect and display UGC in multiple locales and languages, be sure to style localized content after completing the steps in this section.
In-depthQuick Start

After you add the Bazaarvoice hosted display code to your website, you can configure and style the display. In particular, you can use the Style Detector and Style Editor to import and customize fonts, colors, borders, and background settings. You can also customize the text and labels displayed alongside Bazaarvoice content on your site.

Note: You can enable and configure the latest V2Bazaarvoice hosted display if you have implemented the bv.js loader file. Contact Bazaarvoice Support to get started.

Design considerations

We recommend that you design your content display to be the following:

Make ratings and reviews easy to find:

  • Use prominent stars that contrast with the dominant page color.

    Accepting stars as your main rating graphic of choice boosts usability and your brand because the meaning of the star is ubiquitous and easily understood. Stars work for many different products and services, thanks to their generality. And stars can be styled with your brand's accent colors to help them stand out on a page.

  • Display as many reviews as possible on each page without creating clutter (up to 10 reviews).

Enable users to digest multiple reviews quickly:

  • Design reviews so that each review has a clear visual fingerprint.

  • Use contrast in type (size, weight, and color) to convey hierarchy.

    Mixing in new font sizes and colors to your style guide can boost usability. Variety helps to give the user a clear starting point and makes complex content easier to digest. It prevents information overload by highlighting primary elements (such as review titles) and scaling back less important elements (such as dates).

  • Create visual anchors to make jumping from review to review easy. For example, add a Next Review button or prompt.
  • Use white space to define review regions.

    White space is essential to making your content easier to scan and read because it:

    • Defines and shapes review regions
    • Makes the presentation of content more appealing and attractive
    • Reduces eye fatigue when increasing the line height of the body copy to at least 150% of the font size
    • Allows you to position elements both horizontally and vertically, helping to create logical groupings of similar content

  • Display large review titles.

Emphasize the authentic, personal nature of the review content. To illustrate the idea that your reviews come from real people, use visual cues such as the following:

  • Word bubbles
  • Large quotation marks
  • Italic text
  • Avatar icons
  • User information grouping

Make relevant review information easy to find:

  • Create large graphical elements.
  • Use clear and inviting calls to action. For example, add "vote to promote" style buttons to promote helpful reviews.
  • Provide an accessible design, so you can display more reviews without overwhelming users.
  • Set type in narrow column widths.

The following example shows a Ratings & Reviews display with reviews in different languages, reviews with content, and ratings-only reviews:

In addition, you can use the "blur test" to determine if customers can scan an implementation easily. An implementation with visual anchors and a clear information hierarchy creates a distinct fingerprint. It is easy for consumers to scan or quickly get the sentiment of multiple reviews without reading each one.

The following example shows a common design layout.

When you remove color and textual information from your layout, the ease of the design becomes apparent:

Apply styles from your website

Use the Style Detector page to discover your website's fonts, colors, borders, and background settings and apply them to your Bazaarvoice hosted display implementation. After styles are detected, they are added to the list of available options on the Style Detector and Style Editor pages. Note that existing style options are not removed, and updates made to styles in the Style Editor are not reflected on the Style Detector page.

Tip: You can ask your implementation team to make specific fonts available to you in addition to the fonts obtained through the Style Detector.

We recommend you use the Style Detector first and then modify the styles as described in Customize display details.

Watch this short video to learn how to use the Style Detector:

To apply styles to headings, HTML tags, links, and buttons of the Bazaarvoice hosted display, complete these steps using the Style Detector:

  1. Sign in to the Bazaarvoice Portal .
  2. From the upper-right corner, select the settings icon settings icon.
  3. Select Configuration.
  4. Select the Bazaarvoice instance.
  5. Select Go to Configuration. The Site Manager appears, listing the available deployment zones and implementations.
  6. From the Implementations section, select Edit next to the implementation you want to configure.
  7. Under the User Experience section, select Style Detector.
  8. Type the URL of a product display page on your company's website in the Step 1 - Enter a web address to detect styles from field, and then select Get Styles. Colors and fonts detected on the site are displayed on the Style Detector page.
  9. In the Step 2 - Review detected styles section, review the styles suggested for each element of your site's hosted display:

    • Select See where this applies to list where the element is displayed on your site's hosted display. You can refer to the Style Editor page for examples of the elements. Here is an overview of how the detected styles relate to style elements in your display:

      • Accent Color applies to icon (star and bar) styles
      • Neutral Color applies to icon (star and bar) styles
      • Headings applies to font styles for headings
      • Body applies to background and font styles
      • Links applies to font styles in links
      • Subheadings applies to font styles in subheadings
      • Buttons applies to background, border, and font styles of buttons
      • Hover Buttons applies to background and font styles of buttons
    • Change the selected style option by selecting the sample color or drop-down arrow and choosing a new option.
    • Select Apply Configuration to include the style change when applying the detected styles to the configuration in step 6. Styles are not applied to your implementation unless you select this check box.
  10. In the Step 3 - Preview Display section, select Preview Display to review how styles will look on the hosted display after you apply them.
  11. Repeat steps 3 and 4 to change and preview settings.
  12. To apply the selected style configurations to your hosted display, select Apply to Configuration in the Step 4 - Apply detected styles to configuration section.

You can refine your display settings further by customizing the following:

Customize display details

The Style Editor page enables you to perform the following tasks:

  • Turn on display modules for Questions & Answers, inline ratings, and Review Highlights (if these features are enabled in your implementation). Ratings & Reviews are turned on by default and cannot be turned off.

    Tip: Even if you add integration code to your pages, you must turn on each display module on the Style Editor page to make the module visible on pages.

  • Customize styles of Bazaarvoice display modules. Select Style Guide above Fonts on the right to learn how to map the Style Editor menu options to the various display components. For example, you can customize the fonts and stars used in the Review Highlights display module.

To view the Style Editor page:

  1. Sign in to the Bazaarvoice Portal .
  2. From the upper-right corner, select the settings icon settings icon.
  3. Select Configuration.
  4. Select the instance.
  5. Select Go to Configuration. The Site Manager appears, listing the available deployment zones and implementations.
  6. From the Implementations section, select Edit next to the implementation you want to configure.
  7. Under the User Experience section, select Style Editor. For each feature enabled in your implementation, the Style Editor page renders a preview of the display elements.

    The left side of the page is referred to as the preview, and the right side of the page is referred to as the Style Editor. The Style Editor page may take a few minutes to load or render the preview.

    8. Note: The Bazaarvoice hosted display will generate CSS on your web page when you’ve fully integrated. We do not recommend customizing or overriding the generated CSS. If you override your Bazaarvoice-generated CSS, we cannot support any unexpected problems that you encounter.

Turn on display modules

You must turn on each display module, except Ratings & Reviews, to display it on your website. Even if you add integration code to your pages, you must turn on the module on the Style Editor page to make the module visible on pages.

  1. On the Style Editor page, select the locale to preview from the drop-down list, if applicable. This is for preview purposes only; you cannot configure styles in each locale. Styles are applied to all locales.
  2. If Questions & Answers, inline ratings, or Review Highlights is enabled in your implementation, turn on the ON toggle switch to the right of each feature section in the Style Editor to turn on its display module so that it is shown on your webpages.

Enabling the V1 toggle is necessary to display the V2 implementation on your webpage. Switching this toggle off can negatively impact the performance of the V2 display.

Note: To display the V2 implementation, turn on the toggle switch to the right of the V1 feature in the Style Editor.

Follow the steps in the next sections below to style the elements of your choice.

Choose what is displayed in each module

For each module, you can determine what is displayed on the page. For example, you can choose to include a "Write a review" link in the rating summary but exclude the "Ask a question" link. Or, you can choose to display the most helpful reviews side-by-side at the top of the reviews section.

Note: You can enable and configure the latest V2Bazaarvoice hosted display if you have implemented the bv.js loader file. Contact Bazaarvoice Support to get started.

To choose options, select Edit to the right of the module title. Here are the available options:

  • Rating summary
    • Include or exclude the Write a review link in the rating summary.
    • Include or exclude the Ask a question link in the rating summary.
    • Determine the layout of the rating summary: minimal or detailed.
  • Reviews
    • V2 onlyInclude or exclude the Review this Product star buttons in the reviews section.
    • V1 onlyInclude or exclude the Write a review button in the reviews section.
    • Include or exclude the primary ratings distribution and secondary rating summary at the top of the reviews module.
    • Include or exclude the most helpful billboard at the top of the module, which displays the most helpful favorable and critical reviews. This feature is displayed only if the product has:
      • more than 10 reviews
      • one positive review (four or more stars) with at least three positive helpfulness votes
      • one critical review (three or fewer stars) with at least three positive helpfulness votes.
    • V2 onlyInclude or exclude a carousel of user-generated visual content.
  • Questions & Answers—Include or exclude the Answer this question button below a consumer-submitted question.
  • Inline Ratings
    • Include or exclude the average rating in addition to the stars.
    • Include or exclude the number of reviews in addition to the stars.
  • Review Highlights—Include or exclude the Bazaarvoice logo in top-right corner of the Review Highlights module to show review authenticity.

Customize fonts

You can customize the following font settings used for text:

  • Font family
  • Font color
  • Font size (in pixels)
  • Line height (in pixels)
  • Character style
  • Capitalization

For links, you can customize font settings for these link states:

  • All—Font changes are applied to all link states
  • Link—Font changes are applied to the default state only
  • Active—Font changes are applied to the active state only
  • Hover—Font changes are applied to the hover state only
  • Visited—Font changes are applied to the visited state only

For buttons, you can customize font settings for these button states:

  • All—Font changes are applied to all button states
  • Button—Font changes are applied to the default state only
  • Active—Font changes are applied to the active state only
  • Hover—Font changes are applied to the hover state only

Before beginning:

  • Use the Style Detector to discover the fonts and colors used on your website and apply them to your Bazaarvoice hosted display implementation.
    Caution: When you use the Style Detector and apply the detected styles to your configuration, you’ll override and permanently lose the current style configuration. Before you use the Style Detector, view the Style Editor page and make note of your current style configuration.
  • Verify the list of fonts and colors available for selection in the Style Editor. Select Manage Styles above Style Editor, and then add or remove fonts and colors.
Caution: Before you change a style setting, make a note of it. Changes made on the Style Editor page are automatically saved and cannot be reverted, though you may be able to use the Ctrl+Z or Command+Z keyboard shortcuts to undo your last change.

To customize font styles:

  1. On the Style Editor page, expand the Fonts section of the Style Editor to customize how fonts are displayed for labels, links, buttons, and other elements.
  2. Select the element you want to customize from the drop-down list.
    Tip: If you select All, your font selections will be applied to all elements. If you select a link or button, you can further refine the element you are customizing by its state, by selecting options such hover, active, or visited.
  3. Customize the font details, such as font family, color, and style, to your liking.
  4. Select to preview your changes. Be sure to preview style changes for all features (Rating Summary, Reviews, Questions & Answers, Inline Rating, and Review Highlights) to make sure you are satisfied with how and where your style changes appear.
    5. Note: If you used Manage Styles to add a new font, you could select the new font within your style configuration, but you cannot preview the font on the Style Editor page. If you proceed to deploy the configuration, the new font should be displayed successfully on your site, if the correct font files were uploaded to your server before you implemented the BV loader file.

To customize the font size of text within the submission form fields (reviews, comments, and questions & answers submissions):

  1. On the Style Editor page, expand the Fonts section.
  2. Select Field placeholder text from the drop-down list.
  3. Customize the font details, such as font size, font family, color, and style.
    Note: To prevent auto-zoom issues on mobile applications, we recommend selecting a font size of 16 pixels or above.
  4. Select to preview your style changes for reviews, comments, and questions & answers.

Customize page headers

Note: The following font settings are applicable only if you are using the latest V2display.

You can customize the font settings used for page headers (for example, My Review) in the single-product submission form:

  • Font size
  • Font color
  • Font family
  • Character style

Before beginning:

  • Use the Style Detector to discover the fonts and colors used on your website and apply them to your Bazaarvoice hosted display implementation.
    Caution: When you make changes using the Style Detector you’ll permanently replace the current style configuration, though you may be able to use the Ctrl+Z or Command+Z keyboard shortcuts to undo your last change. Before customizing your style configuration, view the Style Editor page and make note of your current style configuration.
  • Verify the list of fonts and colors available for selection in the Style Editor. Select Manage Styles, and then add or remove fonts and colors.

To style the page header:

  1. On the Style Editor page, expand the Fonts section to customize how the page header is displayed in Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers.
  2. Select Form Fieldset Label from the drop-down list.
  3. Customize other font details, such as font size, color, family, and character style.
  4. Select to preview your changes. Be sure to preview style changes for all features (Rating Summary, Reviews, and Questions & Answers) to make sure you are satisfied with how and where your style changes appear.

Customize stars and bars

You can customize the following settings used for all star states (full and empty):

  • Icon image (rounded or pointed)
  • Icon size

Then, you can customize the color used by each state.

For bars, you can customize the color used by each bar state (full or empty).

Before beginning:

  • Use the Style Detector to discover the fonts and colors used on your website and apply them to your Bazaarvoice hosted display implementation.
    Caution: When you use the Style Detector and apply the detected styles to your configuration, you’ll override and permanently lose the current style configuration. Before you use the Style Detector, view the Style Editor page and make note of your current style configuration.
  • Verify the list of fonts and colors available for selection in the Style Editor. Select Manage Styles, and then add or remove fonts and colors.
Caution: Before you change a style setting, make note of it. Changes made on the Style Editor page are automatically saved and cannot be reverted, though you may be able to use the Ctrl+Z or Command+Z keyboard shortcuts to undo your last change.

To style the icons used in the hosted display:

  1. On the Style Editor page, expand the Icons section of the Style Editor to customize how stars and bars are displayed for ratings.
  2. Select the element you want to customize from the drop-down list.
  3. Select the icon status you want to customize.
    • full applies to filled-in icons, such as the first three stars in a 3 out of 5 rating.
    • empty applies to empty icons, such as the last two stars in a 3 out of 5 rating.
    • all applies to both full and empty icons.
  4. Customize the icon details, such as the image, color, and size.
  5. Select to preview your changes. Be sure to preview style changes for all features (Rating Summary, Reviews, Questions & Answers, Inline Rating, and Review Highlights) to make sure you are satisfied with how and where your style changes appear.
    Note: If you used Manage Styles to add a new font, you can select the new font within your style configuration, but you cannot preview the font on the Style Editor page. If you proceed to deploy the configuration, the new font should be displayed successfully on your site, providing the correct font files were uploaded to your server before you implemented the BV loader file.

To prevent auto-zoom issues on iOS or Android mobile applications, disable viewport zooming or set the font size (in pixels).

  • Disable viewport zooming on your mobile devices by adding the maximum-scale value as follows: 
    <!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0, maximum-scale=1.0, user-scalable=no">
  </head>
  </html>
    Parameter Description
    width-device-width Adapts the device width.
    initial-scale Defines the scale of the website. This parameter sets the initial zoom level (1 CSS pixel = 1 viewport pixel).
    maximum-scale Defines the maximum zoom level.
  • Customize the font size on the Style Editor page. Expand the Fonts section and select the font size. You must set the font size to 16 pixels or above for IOS or Android mobile applications.

Customize backgrounds

You can customize the following background settings used for sections, headers, lightboxes, buttons, and sidebars:

  • Background color
  • Gradient
  • Gradient color
  • Gradient opacity

Before beginning:

  • Use the Style Detector to discover the fonts and colors used on your website and apply them to your Bazaarvoice hosted display implementation.
    Caution: When you use the Style Detector and apply the detected styles to your configuration, you’ll override and permanently lose the current style configuration. Before you use the Style Detector, view the Style Editor page and make note of your current style configuration.
  • Verify the list of colors available for selection in the Style Editor. Select Manage Styles and then add or remove colors.
Caution: Before you change a style setting, make note of it. Changes made on the Style Editor page are automatically saved and cannot be reverted, though you may be able to use the Ctrl+Z or Command+Z keyboard shortcuts to undo your last change.

To style the background settings:

  1. On the Style Editor page, expand the Backgrounds section of the Style Editor to customize how background colors are displayed for ratings, reviews, questions, and answers.
  2. Select the element you want to customize from the drop-down list.
    Tip: If you select a form or button, you can further refine the element you are customizing by its state, by selecting options such as normal or selected.
  3. Customize the background for the element.
  4. Select to preview your changes. Be sure to preview style changes for all features (Rating Summary, Reviews, and Questions & Answers) to make sure you are satisfied with how and where your style changes appear.
    5. Note: If you used Manage Styles to add a new font, you can select the new font within your style configuration, but you cannot preview the font on the Style Editor page. If you proceed to deploy the configuration, the new font should be displayed successfully on your site, providing the correct font files were uploaded to your server before you implemented the BV loader file.

Customize borders

You can customize the following border settings used around sections and headings:

  • Selection (top, bottom, right, left)
  • Color
  • Width (in pixels)
  • Style
  • Radius of corners

Before beginning:

  • Use the Style Detector to discover the fonts and colors used on your website and apply them to your Bazaarvoice hosted display implementation.
    Caution: When you use the Style Detector and apply the detected styles to your configuration, you’ll override and permanently lose the current style configuration. Before you use the Style Detector, view the Style Editor page and make note of your current style configuration.
  • Verify the list of colors available for selection in the Style Editor. Select Manage Styles and then add or remove colors.
Caution: Before you change a style setting, make note of it. Changes made on the Style Editor page are automatically saved and cannot be reverted, though you may be able to use the Ctrl+Z or Command+Z keyboard shortcuts to undo your last change.

To style the border settings:

  1. On the Style Editor page, expand the Borders section of the Style Editor to customize how borders are displayed for rating summaries, section headers, buttons, and other elements.
  2. Select the element you want to customize from the drop-down list.
  3. Select the border you want to edit, such as the top border or left border. You can select multiple borders at a time.
  4. Customize the border details, such as the color, width, and radius to your liking.
  5. Select to preview your changes. Be sure to preview style changes for all features (Rating Summary, Reviews, and Questions & Answers) to make sure you are satisfied with how and where your style changes appear.
    6. Note: If you used Manage Styles to add a new font, you can select the new font within your style configuration, but you cannot preview the font on the Style Editor page. If you proceed to deploy the configuration, the new font should be displayed successfully on your site, providing the correct font files were uploaded to your server before you implemented the BV loader file.

Customize margins and padding

Caution: Before you change a style setting, make note of it. Changes made on the Style Editor page are automatically saved and cannot be reverted, though you may be able to use the Ctrl+Z or Command+Z keyboard shortcuts to undo your last change.

To style the background settings:

  1. On the Style Editor page, expand the Margin & Padding section of the Style Editor to customize how margins and paddings are displayed for rating summaries and content elements.
  2. Select the element you want to customize from the drop-down list.
  3. Enable Uniform margins or Uniform padding to automatically apply the latest value you enter into a margin or padding field to the remaining fields.
  4. Specify the top, bottom, left, and right margin and padding values (in pixels) within the appropriate field.
  5. Select to preview your changes. Be sure to preview style changes for all features (Rating Summary, Reviews, and Questions & Answers) to make sure you are satisfied with how and where your style changes appear.
    6. Note: If you used Manage Styles to add a new font, you can select the new font within your style configuration, but you cannot preview the font on the Style Editor page. If you proceed to deploy the configuration, the new font should be displayed successfully on your site, providing the correct font files were uploaded to your server before you implemented the BV loader file.

Customize labels and text

The Copy Editor page enables you to customize text and labels displayed alongside Bazaarvoice content on your site. For example, you can include labels for sorting UGC (such as "Most helpful answers" or "Most relevant"), and you can change button labels, such as the View Comments button. Watch this short video for an overview of the Copy Editor:

To use the Copy Editor, complete these steps:

  1. Sign in to the Bazaarvoice Portal .
  2. From the upper-right corner, select the settings icon settings icon.
  3. Select Configuration.
  4. Select the instance.
  5. Select Go to Configuration. The Site Manager appears, listing the available deployment zones and implementations.
  6. From the Implementations section, select Edit next to the implementation you want to configure.
  7. Under the User Experience section, select Copy Editor. The Copy Editor page appears.
  8. If applicable, select the locale you want to edit from the drop-down menu.
  9. Select Where is this? at the top of a section to list where the text is displayed on your site's hosted display.
  10. Hover over a label to select the Edit button. Each label has a description to help you determine how the label is used.
  11. Type the next text in the field and then select .

Configure options for Ratings & Reviews

You can set general options for review submission forms as well as options for displaying reviews on your site.

  1. Sign in to the Bazaarvoice Portal .
  2. From the upper-right corner, select the settings icon settings icon.
  3. Select Configuration.
  4. Select the instance.
  5. Select Go to Configuration. The Site Manager appears, listing the available deployment zones and implementations.
  6. From the Implementations section, select Edit next to the implementation you want to configure.
  7. Under the User Experience section, select Display Options

  8. To configure settings common to Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers, select the Global Configuration tab.

    Note: You can enable and configure the latest V2Bazaarvoice hosted display if you have implemented the bv.js loader file. Contact Bazaarvoice Support to get started.

    The following list of configuration options applies to Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers:

    • Show content from these locales—Determine the user-generated content (reviews, questions, and answers) displayed for each of your locales. The primary locale is used for submission. Refer to Select and style localized display content for details.
    • Only Show Displayed Locale Statistics—Enables the review statistics to match the native locale and any locales explicitly checked for display.
    • Sort drop-down styling—Determines the style of the drop-down list to use when sorting content in Ratings & Reviews.
    • Profile nickname minimum length—Defines the minimum number of characters allowed for a user's profile nickname.
    • Allow duplicate nicknames—Enables users with duplicate nicknames to submit content.
    • Enabled—Prevents decryption of user email addresses after a specified amount of time. When enabled, plain text emails do not appear in your client reports or Workbench after the specified expiration date.

    • User profanity dictionary—When enabled, review and question text is compared to a list of words deemed profane. You can modify the profanity list for each locale by uploading a UTF-8 encoded, comma-separated value (CSV) file. Refer to Enable profanity moderation for details.

      Note: We recommend you use Google Sheets to edit the default file, before downloading it as a CSV file. This ensures the file will be UTF-8 encoded and can be easily uploaded.
    • Enabled—Enables special characters to be used in user nicknames and profile display names.

  9. To configure settings specific to ratings and reviews, select the Ratings & Reviews tab.

    Note: You can enable and configure the latest V2Bazaarvoice hosted display if you have implemented the bv.js loader file. Contact Bazaarvoice Support to get started.

    The following is a list of available Ratings & Reviews configuration options:

    • Review helpfulness—Enable to allow consumers to indicate whether they found the review helpful.
      Note: If you're using the V2 display, your review helpfulness voting feature will have thumbs-up and thumbs-down voting icons. Consumers can indicate whether they found an answer helpful by selecting the relevant icon. A tally of registered votes is displayed beside each voting icon. To customize the color of your voting icons, select Buttons—Secondary in the Fonts section of the Style Editor.
    • Hide inline ratings—Enable to hide inline ratings on the PDP when no consumer reviews are available for the product.
    • Display text—Select Show to display the text reading No reviews yet. Select Hide to exclude this text from inline ratings in PDPs when no consumer reviews are available for the product.
    • Hide rating summary—Enable to hide rating summary on the PDP when no consumer reviews are available for the product.
    • Display text—Select Show to display the text reading No reviews yet. Select Hide to exclude this text from rating summary in PDPs when no consumer reviews are available for the product.
    • V1 onlyRequire Review Text (Single-Product Submission Form)—Enable to let contributors write review text as part of their review submission when using the default single-product submission form.
    • V1 onlyRequire Review Title (Single-Product Submission Form)—Enable the settings to let contributors enter titles for their reviews when using the default single-product submission form.
    • V2 onlyRequire Review Text & Title (Multi-Product & Single-Product Submission Forms)—Enable the settings to make it mandatory for contributors to enter text in both the Review Title and Review Text fields when submitting review forms. This setting prevents ratings-only submissions.
    • Review text minimum length—Enter the minimum number of characters required for reviews. For no minimum, leave the field blank. Reviews with fewer than 50 characters appear as ratings-only reviews (with no text). To ensure that review text appears, enable Require review text, and set this value to at least 50 characters.
    • Review Title Maximum Length—Enter the maximum number of characters allowed for the review title. For no maximum, leave the field blank.
    • Photo Upload—Enable the settings to let contributors upload images. Contributors can upload as many as six photos with each review.
    • Mandatory photo upload (Multi-Product & Single-Product Submission Forms V2)—Enable the settings to require contributors to upload images when submitting review forms. This setting prevents ratings-only submissions.
    • Photo count (Multi-Product & Single-Product Submission Forms V2)—Specify the minimum number of photos that consumers must upload with reviews.
    • Photo Guidelines Text—Optionally, edit the guidelines for contributor photo submissions. This text appears as a tooltip beside the Add Photo window if Show review guidelines on submission page is enabled.
    • Video Links—Enable the settings to let contributors enter links to videos for their reviews.
    • Video Guidelines Text—Optionally, edit the guidelines for user video submissions. This text appears as a tooltip beside the Add Video window if Show review guidelines on submission page is enabled.
    • Location—Enable the settings to display the field in which contributors can specify their location.
    • Net Promoter Score—Enable the settings to let contributors rate your business by using the standard net promoter score system of 0 to 10.
    • Would you recommend? (submission)—Enable to include a question asking contributors if they would recommend the product they are reviewing.
    • Show Review Guidelines on Submission Page—Enable the settings to display review, photo, and video guidelines while the contributor adds text, photos, and reviews, respectively.
    • Review Guidelines Text—Write your guidelines for contributor reviews. These guidelines are displayed with the submission form.
    • V1 onlyRatings choice gradient—When enabled (default), a color gradient appears when a contributor hovers over or selects a ratings star. The colors correspond to the number of stars selected, representing the consumer's opinion (red=1; orange=2; yellow=3; light green=4; dark green=5). When disabled, the primary button color is used instead of the gradient colors.
      Note: The primary button color is set using the Style Editor page.
    • Allow Multiple Reviews Per User—Enable the settings to let contributors write more than one review about the same product or service. Disabling this setting is the best practice for product reviews. Enabling this setting is the best practice for services.
    • Default Review Sort—Select the default sort order for reviews displayed on your site. For new implementations, we recommend the Most Relevant sort selection.
    • Review Sort Options—Select ways consumers can sort reviews. Bazaarvoice provides the following review sorting options for your product display pages (PDPs) to enable consumers to personalize their review display experience. You can choose multiple options.

      • Most Relevant—Reviews that are most relevant to the consumer's search criteria or product preferences. When sorting reviews by relevance, the algorithm prioritizes the most useful ones for a specific consumer by considering factors such as submission date, length, presence of media content, and the number of Helpful or Not Helpful votes. These factors establish a relevancy ranking, ensuring prioritization of the most valuable reviews.

        In addition, the enhanced relevancy sorting method considers additional factors such as whether the review is featured, is from a verified purchaser, and includes approved comments. This broader sorting process improves the relevance of your reviews. Consumers can also identify the most valuable reviews in the correct order when numerous reviews are available, thus simplifying their decision-making process when purchasing a product or using a service.

      • Most Helpful—Reviews that other consumers have found most helpful.
      • Highest to Lowest Rating—Reviews sorted in descending order from the highest to the lowest ratings. This option displays the top-rated products in your catalog.
      • Lowest to Highest Rating—Reviews sorted in ascending order from the lowest to the highest ratings. This option displays the lowest-rated products in your catalog.
      • Featured—Reviews that you tagged to provide helpful insights to consumers.
      • Oldest—Reviews in chronological order, starting with the ones submitted the longest time ago.
      • Most Recent—Reviews in chronological order, starting with the most recently submitted.
      • Regional—Reviews that you determine to be regional to the consumer based on the language in which the review was written or its country of origin. For more details, refer to Sort by Regional.
    • Reviews On First Page—Enter the number of reviews to display on the first page. The search engine optimization (SEO) best practice value is 8. Each subsequent page displays 30 reviews.
    • Enable Content Search—Enable the setting to let consumers search all user-generated content (reviews, questions, and answers) from the Reviews display using keywords or phrases.
      • V1 onlyIf you enable content searching for Ratings & Reviews only (content search on the User Experience > Questions & Answers tab is disabled), the search bar scrolls down as the consumer reads various reviews. If questions and answers are on the same page as reviews, the search bar is hidden when the consumer scrolls down to the location where questions and answers begin. The search bar becomes visible again when the consumer scrolls back up to the reviews.
    • Percent Recommendations Statistics (display)—Enable the setting to display statistics about the number of reviewers that recommend a product. This information displays below the overall rating stars.
    • Review Histogram—Enable the setting to display a bar chart of review data when hovering over the primary rating summary.
    • Would You Recommend? (display)—Enable the setting to display contributors' answers about product recommendations. Would you recommend? (submission) must also be enabled to display this field.
    • Pagination Style—Select a Pagination Style to define how you want consumers to navigate through content. Select Previous and next buttons to enable navigation between different review pages, or select Load more button to enable consumers to load additional reviews on the same page.
    • Read-Only Display—Enable the setting to not display a link that consumers can select to submit a review.
    • Smart Load Reviews—Enable the setting to load reviews only when consumers scroll down to view the content. This feature reduces initial load time.
      Note: The Smart Load feature is available only if you have implemented the bv.js loader file. Contact Bazaarvoice Support to get started.
      Caution: Enabling the Smart Load feature can negatively impact SEO performance for sites that use Microdata markup. If you’ve selected SEO Microdata Markup as your markup type within SEO Configuration, we recommend that you don’t enable Smart Load Reviews.
    • Content Filter Control—Enable the setting to let consumers filter reviews by one or more criteria, including rating and reviewer age.
    • Display Profile—Select how you want the contributor's profile information to display on the page. Select Inline to display the contributor's information directly on the reviews section of the page or Hover (V1 only) to display contributor's information when the cursor hovers over the contributor name.
    • Full Profile Link—Enable to display a link in a profile snapshot that directs to the complete profile containing approved content from a contributor. If Display Profile is set to Inline, the link text is the contributor's name. The contributor's profile modal displays the reviews, uploaded images of the product in use, any questions posted about the product, and the answers provided.
    • User-Submitted Comments—Enable the setting to let consumers comment on reviews. Site visitors can read the comments along with the reviews.
    Note: This is a Bazaarvoice-internal configuration option. Contact Bazaarvoice Support to enable and configure these settings.
    • Enabled—Enable to display syndication attribution statements for reviews that originated on another site. You can specify individual clients whose attribution statements you want to hide using the Hide syndication attribution option. Disable to hide the syndication attribution statement for all clients.
    • Hide Syndication Attribution—Enter a client name to hide the syndication attribution statement for that client. Enter only one client name in each text box. Select Add to add another text box.
    • Product Families Attribution—Enable to display the Product Families attribution statement in the review display. This statement indicates the product for which the original review was written.
    • Syndicated Product Name Attribution—Enable to display the product name in the review statement with the website when posting a syndicated review. This statement indicates the specific product for which the original review was written.
    • Enabled—Enable to use multi-product submission forms for review requests (formerly post-interaction email or PIE) to allow customers to rate and review all of their unreviewed purchases from that transaction in one place.
    • When should a review request link to multi-product submission form?—Select when you want your review request to link to a multi-product submission form instead of a single-product submission form. Choose from the following options:

      • For all transactions—All review requests will direct your customers to the multi-product submission form, whether they purchased one or multiple products.

      • Only for transactions with multiple products—If the customer purchases more than one product, they will receive a review request link to a multi-product submission form. Purchases of a single product will trigger your default single-product submission form.

      • Never, only use single-product submission form—Review requests for all transactions will link to your default single-product submission form configured with the submission form editor.

  10. Deploy the changes to the implementation.

Configure options for Questions & Answers

Use Questions & Answers configuration options to determine how questions are displayed and submitted to your product pages:

  1. Sign in to the Bazaarvoice Portal .
  2. From the upper-right corner, select the settings icon settings icon.
  3. Select Configuration.
  4. Select the instance.
  5. Select Go to Configuration. The Site Manager appears, listing the available deployment zones and implementations.
  6. From the Implementations section, select Edit next to the implementation you want to configure.
  7. Select Display Options under the User Experience section.
    8. To configure settings common to Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers, select the Global Configuration tab.
    Note: You can enable and configure the latest V2Bazaarvoice hosted display if you have implemented the bv.js loader file. Contact Bazaarvoice Support to get started.

    The following list of configuration options applies to Ratings & Reviews and Questions & Answers:

    • Show content from these locales—Determine the user-generated content (reviews, questions, and answers) displayed for each of your locales. The primary locale is used for submission. Refer to Select and style localized display content for details.
    • Only Show Displayed Locale Statistics—Enables the review statistics to match the native locale and any locales explicitly checked for display.
    • Sort drop-down styling—Determines the style of drop-down to use when sorting content in Ratings & Reviews.
    • Profile nickname minimum length—Defines the minimum number of characters allowed for a user's profile nickname.
    • Allow duplicate nicknames—Enables users with duplicate nicknames to submit content.
    • Enabled—Prevents decryption of user email addresses after a specified amount of time. When enabled, plain text emails do not appear in your client reports or in the Workbench after the specified expiration date.

    • User profanity dictionary—When enabled, review and question texts are compared to a list of words deemed profane. You can modify the profanity list for each locale by uploading a UTF-8 encoded, comma-separated value (CSV) file. Refer to Enable profanity moderation for details.

      Note: We recommend you use Google Sheets to edit the default file before downloading it as a CSV file. This ensures the file will be UTF-8 encoded and can be easily uploaded.
    • Enabled—Enables special characters to be used in user nicknames and profile display names.

  8. To configure settings specific to Questions & Answers, select the Questions & Answers tab.

    Note: Helpfulness voting is an integral element of the Questions & Answers hosted display. This feature allows consumers to indicate whether they found an answer helpful. If you're using the V2 display, consumers vote by selecting a thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon, and a tally of registered votes is displayed beside each icon. To customize the color of the thumbs-up and thumbs-down icons in your V2 display, select Buttons—Secondary in the Fonts section of the Style Editor.
    Note: You can enable and configure the latest V2Bazaarvoice hosted display if you have implemented the bv.js loader file. Contact Bazaarvoice Support to get started.

    The following is a list of available Questions & Answers configuration options:

    • Enable Content Search—Enables users to search user-generated content (reviews, questions, and answers) from the Questions & Answers display.
    • Pagination Style—Determines how users navigate to content after the first page.
    • Smart Load Questions and Answers—Enable the setting to load questions and answers only when consumers scroll down to view the content. This feature reduces load time. The Smart Load Questions and Answers is disabled by default.
      Note: The Smart Load feature is available if you have implemented the bv.js loader file. Contact Bazaarvoice Support to get started.
    • Location—Determines whether users are asked for their location on the question submission form.
    • Submission Form Display—Determines whether the submission form is displayed below the list of questions or in a pop-up dialog.
    • Location—Determines whether users are asked for their location on the answer submission form.
    • Default Question Sort—Determines the default order of questions listed on the page.
    • Question Sort Options—Select the sort methods you want to make available to consumers. You can include one or more of the following options:
      • Newest Questions
      • Oldest Questions
      • Newest Answers
      • Oldest Answers
      • Most Answered
      • Answers Needed
      • Staff Answers
      • Featured Questions First
      • Most Helpful Answers
      • Fewest Helpful Answers
  9. Deploy the changes to the implementation.

Customize agreements

When a contributor submits a rating or a question, they access your terms and conditions. You can customize the text of your terms and conditions, or you can link to a URL where you host your terms and conditions. You can also add any other terms that contributors must agree to before submission, such as a separate agreement checkbox for sweepstakes terms and conditions, newsletter sign-up, or privacy policy terms of use.

Note: Contributors must agree to your terms and conditions or any other terms you've configured before submitting content.

To customize your terms and conditions and agreements:

  1. From the Site Manager page in Configuration, under the Implementations section, select Edit next to the implementation you want to configure.
  2. In the User Experience section, select Agreements. Use the Ratings & Reviews tab for your review submission form and the Questions & Answers tab for your question and answer submission forms.
  3. Enter the label of the terms you want the contributor to agree to in the Agreement Acceptance Text field. For example, if you want the contributor to agree to your terms and conditions, your Agreement Acceptance Text should look like the following: 
    I agree to the <a href="#" class="bv-text-link bv-focusable">terms and conditions</a>.

    Replace the text within the <a> tag with your desired link text. You can fully customize the Agreement Acceptance Text. For example, if you want an additional checkbox to ask if contributors agree to your site's cookie policy, you could use the following:

    I consent to the <a href="#" class="bv-text-link bv-focusable">placement of cookies</a> on my browser by Endurance Cycles and their third-party service providers.

    In the example above, "placement of cookies" could link to your cookie policy.

    Caution: Do not change the <a href="#" class="bv-text-link bv-focusable"> tag. Only change the text within and around the <a> tags.
  4. Under Agreement Text Source, choose where you want to host the full text of the terms that the link in the Agreement Acceptance Text points to.
    • Select Hosted content and enter the full text of your terms to have Bazaarvoice host and display the full agreement text.
    • Select Remote URL to provide a remote URL to where your terms and conditions are hosted.
  5. (Optional) To add another agreement, select Add New Agreement and follow the steps above to configure it.
  6. (Optional) If you have multiple agreements, select Reorder to change the order in which they are displayed in the submission form. Drag and drop an agreement to reorder it.

You can separately enable or disable any agreement to display or hide it.

  1. From the upper-right corner, select the settings icon settings icon.
  2. Select Configuration.
  3. Select the instance.
  4. Select Go to Configuration The Site Manager appears, listing the available deployment zones and implementations.
  5. From the Implementations** section, select Edit next to the implementation you want to configure.
  6. Select Style Detector under User Experience.
  7. Retrieve fonts, colors, border, and background settings used on your site and apply them to the hosted display.
  8. Select Style Editor under User Experience.
  9. Select Edit for each feature to update the information displayed for each.
  10. On the right side of the page, configure the fonts, icons, backgrounds, borders, margins, and padding used by the display.