Does the BBB certification help in SE Listings?

I'm considering applying for the BBB certification for our website...

[rjdm1]

I'm wondering if a BBB (Better Business Bureau) logo with a link to the BBB website is going to improve my relevancy or standings as far as Google or yahoo!'s spiders are concerned.

BBB has a great name as a company, but I'm wondering if it has any pull as far as web links are concerned?

Anyone have any opinion or results from getting BBB certified?

Thanks for the help!

[diamondgrl]

Almost surely it won't help as far as search engines are concerned. How would Google know if it's genuine or not? And there's no known Google-BBB affiliation.

If anything it will hurt a minor amount because you are deflecting PageRank from your site to the BBB.

With that said, it may help make a sale for customers who get to you.

[rjdm1]

I have a PR of 5 on Google, and it seems that the BBB online website has one of 6, so it shouldn't hurt me to link to them and vice versa.

I would think Google would prefer to direct their users to e-commerce sites that are certified or show more integrity in their business and customer service. The BBB is a third-party moderator for consumers and businesses.

Who knows, but I'm sure it can't hurt in making my visitors feel more comfortable when purchasing from us. Hopefully it does improve my listings, but in reality, most of my traffic comes from adwords anyway.

[wolfgang]

Do the BBB thing if you're a B2C ecommerce site because it will give confidence to consumers. Any SEO consideration is secondary.

People who don't know better give a lot of credence to the BBB logo and conversions are what matter, right?

[rjdm1]

In the end, that's all that I want. My hope was that it was helping in other ways while building creditability for our store.

I guess I'll have to wait and see.

[JuniorOptimizer]

The BBB is an outright scam and I suggest you save your money.

The type of customer you get with a BBB sticker tends to be extra "fussy" and knows well that you want to keep your Yellow Banner and will threaten to contact the BBB for any dispute they have with you.

You can also spend a few moments studying the BBB history on-line. They're not at all what they promote themselves to be.

[wayzel]

I'm thinking of getting the BBB logo too...does anyone out there have conversion improvement info? I read something about a 2% increase in traffic-to-conversion rates (i.e 4% purchase something instead of 2%, for example) but have no idea what line of work they were in.

[wolfgang]

Junior makes some valid points, but my own experience with the BBB is that they aren't worth a whole lot as an organization, but the average consumer doesn't know, doesn't really care. I also have never had a BBB dispute or threatened dispute and I've used their logo for 4 years on our site. It gives confidence to the ignorant consumer, which I'm convinced is most of them. It's an expensive credential, but if you're a b2c ecommerce site, you need to seriously consider it.

[digitalv]

<edited out - accidentally double posted>

[edited by: digitalv at 10:33 pm (utc) on Aug. 23, 2004]

[digitalv]

I hate to break it to you guys, but the BBB is not all it's cracked up to be. In fact, it's more of a shakedown - you pay them for "protection".

For some unknown reason, the BBB has given itself a reputation as being a trusted authority fighting for the comman man against evil corporations, blah blah blah, etc. If you're a BBB member, complaints get swept under the rug. If you're NOT a member, if someone files a complaint against your business the BBB will contact you and ask you to become a member - for a fee, of course. If you refuse, the complaint becomes public information on their board and you're not allowed to post any comments or response. If you accept and offer the BBB an excuse as to why the customer is complaining, the complaint gets swept under the rug.

Don't give those thugs a cent of your money. I don't think the vast majority understands that the BBB is a for-profit business with no real power - the word "Bureau" makes people think they're a government-run authority. If the average Joe understood they were a business, most wouldn't even bother complaining. In any case, knowing what I know about the BBB whenever I see a site with the BBB logo it makes me wonder if they joined because they don't really understand what the BBB really is, or did the BBB contact them and "invite them" to become a member so a consumer complaint could be hidden from public view.

Notice how you don't see any BBB members with complaints on bbb.org? The only complaints you see are against companies that aren't members.

[synergy]

I'm thinking of getting the BBB logo too...does anyone out there have conversion improvement info?

I joined the BBB thinking they were a government-funded agency. Based on what digitalv says, they are not. New news to me... but it makes sense.

I've seen no benfit from joining them. I put the yellow image on my site for about 2 months and actually saw conversions decrease. Hardly anyone clicked on it to find out more information and it just took up valuable real estate on my site.

Sounds like the cat is out of the bag. I suggest using your money for some other sort of advertising that will benefit YOU, not THEM.