Website and video

There is no universal answer that an agency client automatically owns every website file, video, design or source asset. Copyright ownership, assignments, licences, employment rules and contract terms vary by jurisdiction and by asset. WIPO distinguishes assignment of IP ownership from licensing permission to use IP and advises checking national law and agreements. Before an engagement ends, inventory both rights and practical control: final published files, editable source files, raw media where agreed, domains, hosting, CMS, Search Console, analytics, Business Profile, YouTube/channel access, paid licences and third-party accounts. An audit can identify missing documents and access, but it is not a substitute for legal advice on ownership disputes.

If you maintain real versions of a service page in different languages, Google recommends different URLs for each language version and recommends using hreflang to help Search connect the alternatives. Google also recommends letting users switch languages instead of forcing automatic redirects. But separate URLs only make business sense when the translated page serves a real audience and can be kept current. Translating boilerplate while leaving the important service information stale or untranslated creates a maintenance problem, not a multilingual strategy.

Usually, a booking-provider page should be treated as a transaction step, not automatically as a replacement for your own service page. Google Business Profile allows businesses to add booking links and can also surface third-party provider links, but those links are designed to help customers take an action such as booking. Your own service page can answer the questions that come before the transaction: what the service is, who it is for, what it includes, price where confirmed, location, limitations, preparation, cancellation terms where applicable, and how to contact the business. A provider page can be sufficient only if it genuinely contains the information the customer needs and the business accepts the dependency on that external platform.

Not every branch automatically needs a separate page. Create one when that location has enough useful customer-specific information to justify it: address, hours, contact route, services available there, booking details, access information, local staff or other real differences. Google’s people-first content guidance favours pages created to help users, and LocalBusiness structured data can describe a specific business location when the visible page supports it. A thin page that only swaps the city name adds little value and creates another page to maintain.

The stars beside a search result come from review snippet structured data on that page, and Google’s documentation says a business that controls the reviews about itself is ineligible for the star feature on pages using LocalBusiness or Organization markup. For most local businesses that means the stars are not available from their own Google reviews.

The routes are the same on a GoDaddy site, a Google Sites page or a hand written HTML file: a link to your reviews on Google, the map Google gives you as ready HTML, or code that fetches them. Google publishes no reviews embed code, and reviews on your own site do not earn stars in search.

To put Google reviews on a Squarespace page there are three routes: a link that opens your reviews on Google, the map Google gives you as ready HTML, or a block you install from the site editor. It helps the visitor already on your page, and it does not put stars beside your site in Google’s results.

There are two different Business Profile tasks in Shopify: linking customers to Google to write a new review, and showing reviews that already exist. A review-request link can be added as a normal Shopify link. For an Online Store 2.0 theme, Reputon documents a concrete display route: install Google Reviews by Reputon, search for the business by name, let the app import the existing Google Business Profile reviews, choose a widget, then add the Google Reviews app block in the theme editor and verify the storefront against the source profile. Google Customer Reviews remains a separate Merchant Center program.

There is no Google button that puts your reviews on a Wix page. What exists is a link to your reviews on Google, an embedded Google map of your listing, and third party widgets from your builder’s own app store, and none of the three puts stars next to your site in Google’s results.

On WordPress you have the same three choices as anywhere else: a link that opens your reviews on Google, the map Google gives you as HTML to paste, or a plugin that draws a block of reviews onto the page. Only the plugin puts review text on your own pages, and it is the one to ask questions about.