Testimonial vs review
A review is unsolicited feedback left on a platform you do not control, alongside everyone else’s including the critical ones.
First-party vs third-party reviews
First-party reviews live on infrastructure you control — your own website, your own store.
Definition
First-party reviews live on infrastructure you control — your own website, your own store. Third-party reviews live on a platform you do not — Google, Trustpilot, G2, Amazon.
The distinction matters because a reader weighs them differently, and so does Google.
What it looks like in practice
A review left through a form on your product page is first-party. The same customer’s Google review is third-party. Identical words, different credibility, because one of them you could have deleted.
Why it matters
Third-party reviews are harder to earn and worth more. First-party reviews are easier to collect and you own them permanently. Google’s 2019 change makes the distinction concrete: review markup for a business hosted on its own site no longer produces star ratings, specifically because it is self-serving.
Related terms
Review schema markup · Testimonial vs review · Collect customer reviews.
The full reviews glossary defines every term used across this site.
Questions
Related terms
Google Place ID
The unique identifier Google assigns to a place. Find yours below.
Social proof
Social proof is the tendency to judge something by how other people have judged it.
User-generated content (UGC)
User-generated content is any content about a brand created by its customers rather than by the brand: reviews, photos, videos, comments, forum posts, social media mentions..