ScubaTribe API Documentation

Publishing Guidelines

Use of the API is subject to the standard ScubaTribe terms and conditions, a fair use policy and the following publishing guidelines:

As a ScubaTribe account holder you are encouraged to display the reviews you collect through ScubaTribe on your own website. If you would like to broadcast your reviews to third party websites we recommend you follow the guidelines listed in Special requirements for ScubaTribe partner websites at the end of this section.

If you are a ScubaTribe partner website or affiliated with a ScubaTribe account holder displaying reviews for single or multiple account holders then please pay special attention to the requirements listed in Special requirements for ScubaTribe partner websites at the end of this section.

Caching content

To save computing resources for everybody, and to improve your pages load times, we recommend you either cache your ScubaTribe API calls or import the data into your database.
It is worth noting that reviews can change, they can get votes, comments, be unpublished etc. If you are importing the data into your database, you might want to refresh the reviews via cronscript every few days.

Avoiding duplicate content

When the same reviews are published across several websites, it is possible that this will be flagged as duplicate content by search engines.
Duplicate content can negatively effect search engine ranking, and nobody wants that.

These are our requirements to prevent the content being flagged as duplicate:

Canonical Urls
If you are displaying a page with the contents of one single review, an easy way to signal to search engines that it is a duplicate is with the canonical tag in your header: 

<link rel="canonical" href="https://scubatribe.com/profile/{profile_slug}/review{review_id}" />

Rich snippets
Rich snippets use a set of formats to provide extra information about the data on your site to search engines.
We recommend the format defined by http://schema.org/.
We encourage you to use rich snippets wherever appropriate to improve your sites visibility in the search engines, but require ScubaTribe reviews to be marked up at least with the following: 

<span itemprop="review" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Review">
    <span itemprop="isBasedOnUrl" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Url">
       <meta  itemprop="url" content="https://scubatribe.com/profile/{profile_slug}/review{review_id}" />
    </span>
    <span itemprop="sourceOrganization" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
            <meta itemprop="brand" content="ScubaTribe" />
            <meta itemprop="legalName" content="ScubaTribe Ltd." />
            <meta itemprop="url" content="https://scubatribe.com" />
    </span>
    <span itemprop="copyrightHolder" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
            <meta itemprop="brand" content="ScubaTribe" />
            <meta itemprop="legalName" content="ScubaTribe Ltd." />
            <meta itemprop="url" content="https://scubatribe.com" />
    </span>
    <!-- the following are also recommended-->
    <span itemprop="itemReviewed" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
            <meta itemprop="name" content="{company_reviewed}" />
            <meta itemprop="url" content="{company_website}" />
    </span>
    <span itemprop="reviewBody" >
     {review_body}
    </span>
    <span itemprop="reviewRating" itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Rating">
            <meta itemprop="bestRating" content="5" />
            <meta itemprop="ratingValue" content="{review_rating}" />
            <meta itemprop="worstRating" content="1" />
    </span>
</span>

You can test your markup here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

Attribution of ownership

The author of a ScubaTribe review is the reviewer who contributed it.
The publisher and legal owner is ScubaTribe.
Using the tags recommended above will communicate this to a search engine or crawler, but we also ask that you communicate the author and publisher to your visitors.

On screens displaying ratings calculated with reviews from ScubaTribe
we ask that you include one of the following images on the page:


  • assets/img/attrib/side-by-side-dark.png

  • assets/img/attrib/side-by-side-light.png

  • assets/img/attrib/stacked-dark.png


  • assets/img/attrib/stacked-dark.png

On screens displaying only reviews from ScubaTribe or a single review from ScubaTribe
we ask that you include one of the following images in the area of display that is visible when the review is visible:


  • assets/img/attrib/side-by-side-dark.png

  • assets/img/attrib/side-by-side-light.png

  • assets/img/attrib/stacked-dark.png


  • assets/img/attrib/stacked-dark.png

On Screens listing a mixture of reviews from ScubaTribe and another source
we ask that you include either one of the following images or the text "via ScubaTribe" within 100pixels of each ScubaTribe review in the visible area of the screen:


  • assets/img/attrib/tiny-dark.png

  • assets/img/attrib/tiny-light.png

When using the images provided above, they must not be resized in anyway

Text attributing ownership of reviews should be linked to the url of the corresponding url or profile. Images don't need to be linked, though it's recommended for usability.
rel=nofollow is acceptable, as is target"_blank

Should the above constraints be incompatible with your design, please contact us

Duration of publishing rights

You are entitled to publish ScubaTribe reviews for the duration of your agreement with ScubaTribe.
Should for any reason your agreement with ScubaTribe end, or your account be made inactive or closed, then you are asked to remove any reviews imported from ScubaTribe, and any calculated ratings based on them.
For this and the other reasons above, if you are planning on mixing ScubaTribe reviews with those from another source, we recommend you flag the source in your database.

 

Special requirements for ScubaTribe partner websites

A ScubaTribe partner is defined as any website displaying ScubaTribe reviews and ScubaTribe review summary information for single or multiple ScubaTribe account holders without being a direct ScubaTribe account holder.

Contact us if you would like to become a ScubaTribe partner.

Requirements:

  • A ScubaTribe logo, tagline and link to the ScubaTribe account holders profile on ScubaTribe.com will be included in a prominent location. This link should not include a rel="nofollow" tag.
  • Use of Rich Snippets Markup and/or canonical URLS in pages displaying ScubaTribe content as defined above.
  • No more than five of the latest reviews from a single ScubaTribe account will be published on a partner or third party site at any given time.
  • Full review titles can be displayed.
  • Review body text will be limited to 100 characters with a link to the review on ScubaTribe.com for the full text. (e.g read more)
  • One thumbnail image of reviewer uploaded content can be displayed with each review. A link to the media content on ScubaTribe.com is advised but not required.
  • Reviewer demographic information such as experience, age and gender can be displayed with the reviews.
  • Account holder replies must be displayed prominently with the review content and can be included in full length.
  • Extra questions/answers can be displayed only with the express permission of the ScubaTribe account holder.
  • If ScubaTribe reviews are calculated in an aggregate score along with reviews from another source they must be clearly distinguished as to the number of ScubaTribe reviews included. (eg. 400 reviews for ACME dive tours - 320 ScubaTribe verified reviews and 80 from {other source})
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