The importance for e-commerce merchants to utilize user-generated product reviews just increased even more as Google has added PowerReviews to its industry-leading partners in the category. PowerReviews’ ratings and review content will now be available to online shoppers in Google search results, Google Product Search and Google advertising programs, joining Bazaarvoice, which Google teamed up with three months ago when it announced the Google Product Reviews program.

Google Product Reviews allows retailers to engage online shoppers by featuring participating merchants' logos and linking back to the merchants' product pages. Subject to prior approval by Google, Google Product Reviews is immediately available to the more than 1,000 retailers and brands supported by PowerReviews on more than 3,500 websites. Bazaarvoice, meanwhile, has served more than 125 billion pieces of customer-generated ratings and review content on more than 850 brand websites.