What If Your Book Has Reviews You Don't Know About?

The last time my novel had a review was...(checks online)...three and a half months ago. I don't even check anymore, but I often need to pull up my book page to grab the link, so I would notice if my review # changed. 

While I'm aware that Pen Pinery posted a couple of reviews and that I received some judge's feedback from the North Street Book Prize, I'm more interested in finding out if there are any organic reviews floating around out there. (Note: I still haven't read the aforementioned feedback. Probably never will.)

As an author, if you haven't set up Google Alerts yet, you really should. My alerts haven't been helpful (yet), because the couple of relevant ones I received were already known to me. Plus, I get a few alerts per week, but they're never about my book. Apparently, there's some web series out there that either has the same title or uses the term "running from herself" a lot. There are also songs and now even another book. (Please don't steal my book title!) I created my alerts to be specific, including my author name with the book title, but I still receive mostly unrelated junk. Nevertheless, if something pops up on Google that's meaningful, I should surely find out about it.

An additional option is Talkwalker. You can set up Talkwalker alerts for free, and it captures data that Google doesn't, such as social media posts and videos, "sentiment" (which I don't really understand), and other non-indexed content. 

Some important points to note: In order for a review to be indexed by Google, it generally needs to be posted on a "popular" (high traffic) site, such as Amazon or Goodreads. Also, some sites instruct Google not to index user-generated content.  

Importantly, on sites from which reviews are posted via a mobile app, those reviews cannot be indexed by Google. It seems, also, that hit-or-miss reviews--ones that don't get a high number of likes--are essentially buried. My two Pen Pinery reviews don't show up in Google search results because the site is not high traffic, nor has it been around long enough to warrant Googlebots visiting it. (Also meaning they're kind of worthless.)

The fact is, if you utilize an ARC site, even for an already published book (which is allowed on many sites), chances are slim that those reviews will be indexed by Google. If you're offering a true advance copy to reviewers, that may make sense, but that means that reviews posted on sites such as BookSprout won't appear in Google results.

"Most dedicated ARC platforms (like NetGalley, BookSprout, or Pen Pinery) require users to log in with a password to see book files, campaign statistics, and reader dashboards. Googlebot cannot bypass a login screen. If a reader types their ARC review directly into a secure portal on an ARC site, that text remains hidden from Google's search crawlers forever." 

I'm new to Talkwalker, so I have no feedback to share, but it's an interesting additional source. I suspect that some of its behavior will mimic Google's, particularly for sites that require a user login, but if, on the other hand, a book blog or a social media user posts something about my book, I'm hoping to be alerted.

Then again, there just might not be anything for it to capture. 🙅