The External Reviews section of IMDb (Internet Movie Database) is a great place to get your movie reviews seen and showcased on a reputable movie website. External Reviews is not a component of IMDb’s News Desk, written about here: Movie Website Traffic: Trailer Addict NewsDesk and here: Applying To IMDb’s NewsDesk: Tips, Qualifications, Lessons, and Insights. This is a separate appendage of the site and must be applied to separately. Already being a member of IMDb’s News Desk probably does not hurt your chances though. The problem for the neophyte film critic is that IMDb wants to make sure you are a prolific movie reviewer, an ardent writer of film criticism. There is a specific numeric number of film reviews (and other criteria) you must have published before your movie reviews will be accepted into IMDb’s External Reviews.
Where are External Reviews located on IMDb?
I highlighted the clickable External Reviews link in red for The Matrix.
IMDb External Reviews, 01
This is what the External Reviews page looks like:
IMDb External Reviews, 02
IMDb Email query
My email question about External Reviews to IMDb:
I see on IMDb that you have an External Reviews sections. I am a News Desk contributor and would like to know how I can get my movie reviews to show up there? Thank you.
IMDb’s response:
Here’s the info on how to submit External Reviews. It’s done separately from Newsdesk.
Submission Guide for Bulk URLs
If you have a review site that’s updated regularly, with at least several hundred reviews, you may want to take advantage of IMDb’s automatic review linking service.
In order to do this, you’ll have to create a page with all the reviews in one of the formats below. Then, send the following information to the help desk:
* Name of publication/site as you wish it to appear
* Which of the formats below you are using
* The URL of the review page
* The best day to harvest it (currently, reviews are harvested on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays, around 3 AM Pacific time – choose one)
* Whether all reviews are written by a single reviewer, unsigned/visitor posted, or one of several named reviewers; in the last case, the reviewer name should be included with each review on the harvest page.
Formats: in all cases, extra spacing is allowed. Ideally, movie titles should use the IMDb form of the title, but we can usually match the English-language title to our titles. There must be a newline character at the end of each line shown here.
XML:Movie Title
Robbie Reviewer
http://your.url.here
HTML, format 1:
Movie TitleReview: Robbie Reviewer
HTML, format 2:
Movie Title Robbie Reviewer
Text:
Movie Title|http://your.url.here|Robbie Reviewer
Note: These are the requirements to bulk upload reviews into IMDb’s External Reviews database.
How to Apply
Go here: IMDb/Help Desk, register (or login), and send them an email with the materials they have asked for.
In Conclusion
If you do not have seven hundred published movie reviews, you may still be able to bulk upload your reviews if you have a large amount. There are not many major film review websites that I have been on that have that many published film reviews besides James Berardinelli‘s Reelviews and Roger Ebert‘s Rogerebert.suntimes, whom happen to be at the top of the second IMDb External Reviews photo published in this post.
There is also another way to submit External Reviews to IMDb once you have been approved: one at a time. That is discussed here: How to Upload Single Reviews into IMDb’s External Reviews.
Needless to say, a properly worded text link on IMDb back to your website is a good for three reason: traffic, a back -link from a higher ranked site (Google likes that. Its a nod in your favor, unless IMDb employs No Follow), and prestige (I am prolific enough to be here).
Are you thinking of applying to IMDb’s External Reviews?
