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Syndication Rules and Guidelines

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 


Overview 

Syndication enables merchants within the Feefo Network who sell the same products to share product reviews with one another, including ratings, review volumes, media, and written comments. These syndicated reviews are then surfaced through the Feefo Reviews API and Feefo Widgets, giving consumers access to a wider range of feedback for products offered by different merchants.



Guidelines

Feefo syndication guidelines establish the criteria, privileges, and responsibilities for all parties in the Feefo Network. Feefo aims to provide consumers with a seamless and authentic experience, enabling easy access to genuine feedback from other consumers, retailers, and brands. These guidelines apply across various sectors, including but not limited to retail, travel, and service industries.
 
Feefo are committed to making every effort to group products together where the merchant is opted into our syndication network and the products meet the grouping criteria outlined in this document. While timing and matching outcomes may vary, our goal is always to ensure the best possible alignment. 

 

Benefits for Brands

Syndicating reviews across a network of retailers is like turning on a megaphone for your best customer feedback. Instead of that data sitting dormant on your own website, it works for you everywhere your product is sold in the Feefo syndication network.

  • Scale: A single review on your site can appear across multiple retail partners simultaneously, eliminating fragmented social proof.

  • Coverage: Niche products in your catalogue get review volume across the web, preventing shoppers from abandoning their carts due to a lack of feedback.

  • Immediate Velocity: Use sampling to seed reviews pre-launch, ensuring products hit the shelf with high conversion potential.

  • Lower CPA: Reviews act as the conversion engine for "Sponsored Products," ensuring paid traffic lands on a high-trust page.

  • Unified Voice: Protect your reputation by ensuring verified, high-quality feedback represents your brand everywhere.

 

Benefits for Retailers

Increasing product reviews via syndication provides a massive force multiplier for retailers. Instead of waiting for customers to organically leave reviews on your specific site, syndication allows you to borrow the volume and authority from the brands themselves to populate your product pages.

  • Zero-Review Protection: Pre-populate new SKUs with social proof to prevent customer bounce.

  • Lower Returns: Detailed feedback helps customers make better-informed choices, reducing return rates.

  • Retail Media ROAS: High-quality UGC can boost your ad return on spend.

  • Future-Proof SEO: Syndicated reviews provide the natural language context required for Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) and AI-driven shopping bots.

  • Level the Playing Field: Compete with global giants by displaying similar review density overnight.

  • Scalable Content: Increase SKU coverage across thousands of items without increasing marketing or CS headcount.



Product Catalogue requirements

To participate in Feefo Syndication, merchants are requested to submit globally unique identifiers in either their sales feed, product catalogue or by connecting a Google Merchant Centre account. Accepted globally unique identifiers include:

 

How product matching works

Product matching is based on EAN/GTIN and title matching. There are additional facets upon which Feefo will make best efforts to group products which include:

  • Colour

  • Size/capacity, where any variances are unlikely to have a bearing on the product quality/performance/functionality

Feefo employ AI based matching to group products by these additional facets, whilst we have a high degree of confidence in this approach, we are continually evolving our quality assurance practices to avoid cases of misgrouping.  If you identify a misgrouped product please contact us, we can manually override groups and will take any learnings into the ongoing refinement of our AI model.   

Although new and refurbished products will share identical EAN and MPN identifiers, reviews for these products will not be syndicated due to the significant impact that product condition can have on the user experience.

If merchants wish to broaden the scope of syndicated reviews across multiple groups for display on their website they can do so by including a "Parent Search Code" in the product catalogue.

 

Syndication Examples

 

What can’t be syndicated

Only Star rating and content is syndicated – not attributes / facets

Remember: that if your product reviews can't be syndicated, you can still group your reviews locally by utilising the 'Parent Search Code' function with a Product Catalogue. Get in touch to find out more.

 

Reason behind limitations

Feefo’s syndication grouping standards seek to prevent misleading consumers whilst at the same time delivering the broadest range of reflective review content. Below are some examples of when syndication may be limited:

 

Technical limitations

Variations in technical specification may lead to differing performance within a series e.g. laptops may have different processors and TVs may use different display technologies e.g. OLED / LED.

Example
"I’m new to windows having used a Macbook previously, but clearly you get a lot better spec for your money. Time will tell for longevity. So far so good. I was wary of previous reviews as they were not model specific and I found reviews for laptops with processors that had not yet been released.”


Bundled products

Sometimes consumers buy products that are sold both in bundles and separately. Where the products are sold as a bundle and the reviews are about the product bundle, the reviews will only be allowed to be used where the products are sold in a bundle to avoid confusing the consumer.

Example
“I absolutely love my new kettle/toaster the best I ever bought. Toasts evenly. Kettle is quiet like the red switch. Vintage is soooo stylish love the features.”


Refurbished Products
Reviews for refurbished items such as iPhones could mislead consumers if displayed under listings for new products, and so refurbished product reviews will not be syndicated.

Example
“Item was not in perfect condition, despite being told it would be good as new. Seemed to be OK but battery life drained rapidly. Have returned for a full refund.”

 

Grouping guidelines

 

How manual syndication works