Reviews
v1.0.51Google-review widgets you build once and embed anywhere with a shortcode. Connect a business by name, pick from a big library of ready-made widgets — walls, sliders, sidebars, badges, buttons, floating pills and click-to-open popups — apply one of nine style presets, and skip Google Cloud entirely. Every call is proxied through the WPStack hub, so there’s no API key, no billing and no setup on your site.
Overview
The Reviews module turns a business’s existing Google reviews into a styled, embeddable widget — with no Google API key on your site.
Build a reviews widget in a four-step live-preview builder, then embed it anywhere with [stack_reviews id="N"]. Reviews is display-only — it shows a business’s existing Google reviews; it does not collect new ones. Every Google request is proxied through the WPStack hub’s Google Places relay, where the vendor key is stored AES-encrypted, so your site needs no Google Cloud project, no API key and no billing.
What you can do
- Connect a business by name — autocomplete, no URLs or place IDs
- Build widgets in a four-step wizard with a live preview
- Choose from eight layout families — 45+ pre-designed widgets
- Review badges (15), review buttons (13), floating pills & click-to-open popups
- Apply one of nine style presets, then fine-tune every detail
- Embed anywhere with the
[stack_reviews id="N"]shortcode - Output optional Schema.org JSON-LD aggregate-rating markup
Requirements & compatibility
Reviews runs on any modern WordPress host — the only external dependency is the WPStack hub, which you already use.
| Requirement | Minimum | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 6.0 | 6.5 or newer |
| PHP | 7.4 | 8.1 or newer |
| WPStack core + license | Required | For the hub Google Places relay |
| Google API key | Not needed | The key lives on the hub, not your site |
| Theme | Any | Widgets are themed with inline CSS variables |
Installation & activation
Reviews ships inside WPStack — switch it on per site, then connect a Google business.
Open the WPStack modules panel
In your WordPress admin, go to WPStack → Modules and find Reviews.
Activate Reviews
Flip the Reviews toggle to on. A new Reviews item appears in the WPStack menu.
Add a widget
Open WPStack → Reviews → Add widget to launch the four-step builder.
Connect a business by name
On the Source step, type the business name, pick it from the suggestions, and its real reviews load into the preview.
Design, save and embed
Choose a layout and style, save the widget, and drop [stack_reviews id="N"] onto a page.
Connecting a Google business
On the Source step you link the widget to a business by name — there is nothing to paste.
Start typing a business name in the search box (three characters or more). The hub returns matching autocomplete suggestions; click one to link the widget to that place. The preview immediately live-loads that business’s real Google reviews, so you can style against genuine content before you save.
- Search by name — no Google URL, no place ID
- Pick a suggestion to set the widget’s place
- The preview live-loads the real reviews at once
- The connected business name is shown for confirmation
The widget builder
A widget is built in one page — a four-step wizard with a live preview and a Save button that’s reachable on every step.
| Step | What you set |
|---|---|
| 1 · Source | Connect a Google business by name. |
| 2 · Layout | Pick a layout and, for the slider, a variant. |
| 3 · Style | Apply a preset, then fine-tune colours and type. |
| 4 · Settings | Elements, filters, read-more and SEO schema. |
[stack_reviews id="N"] shortcode appears in a copy-ready box on the Settings step once the widget has been saved.Layouts & slider variants
Eight layout families cover every placement — from full review walls to one-line pills — with 9 slider variants, 4 sidebars, 15 badges and 13 buttons.
| Layout | Best for |
|---|---|
| Grid | A tidy wall of cards, 1–4 columns. |
| Slider | A carousel with autoplay, arrows and dots — 9 variants. |
| Sidebar | A narrow single column for a sidebar — 4 variants. |
| List | A simple stacked feed of reviews. |
| Masonry | A packed wall with varied card heights. |
| Badge | A compact rating badge — 15 pre-designed looks. |
| Button | A one-line pill that links to Google — 13 looks. |
| Floating | A click-to-open trigger with a slide-in review drawer. |
The nine slider variants
When the layout is Slider, pick a variant that changes the card and header treatment: I classic, II centered, III speech-bubble, IV quote, V minimal, VI Google header bar, VII left summary, VIII avatar-on-top and IX centered header.
Sidebar — 4 variants
The Sidebar layout is a narrow single column: Sidebar slider I & II (a one-card carousel with a summary head or a speech-bubble) and Full sidebar I & II (a static stack, optionally with a business header and a “Write a review” link).
Badges — 15 designs
The Badge family has fifteen compact looks in three groups: Top Rated (eight award badges), HTML (five rating cards) and Company (two business cards, one with a click popup).
Buttons — 13 designs
The Button family has thirteen one-line pills — stars, rating, review count and the Google mark in different arrangements. Most link straight to the business’s Google reviews; Button IV opens an inline dropdown and Button VII opens a review popup.
Popup & Floating — open on click
A Popup filter gathers every click-to-open widget in one place: the Company badge and the Floating pills open a slide-in side drawer, Button VII a centered modal, and Button IV an inline dropdown — each showing the full review list under a business header.
Style presets & fine-tuning
Nine presets restyle the whole widget in a click — then a fine-tune panel exposes every look setting.
A style preset is “same reviews, a different look, click to apply”. Choose from Light, Light border, Drop shadow, Minimal, Soft, Cream, Contrast, Dark and Minimal dark. Presets only set look keys, so every preset applies to every layout and variant.
Fine-tune colours & type
- Colours — card background, text, muted text and border
- Border, radius, shadow, padding and card gap
- Stars — colour and size
- Type — font, sizes, weight and alignment
The shortcode
Every widget is placed with a single shortcode and its ID.
Render a saved reviews widget by its ID.
// Output a widget from a theme template
echo do_shortcode( '[stack_reviews id="12"]' );Settings, filters & SEO
The Settings step controls which parts show, how reviews are filtered, and whether structured data is emitted.
| Setting | Type | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elements | toggles | On | Show or hide the avatar, name, date, stars and text, plus the Google “G”. |
| Read more | number | 0 | Truncate long review text to N characters with an inline “…” expander. |
| Minimum rating | select | All | Hide reviews below a chosen star rating. |
| Sort | select | Newest | Order reviews; “highest” re-sorts by rating. |
| Hide empty | toggle | Off | Skip reviews that have a rating but no written text. |
| Schema JSON-LD | toggle | Off | Emit Schema.org aggregate-rating structured data. |
name is your site name, so only enable it for a business the site represents.The hub relay, caching & refresh
This is what makes a keyless setup fast — the hub fetches, caches and refreshes; your front end just reads.
- All Google calls go through the hub’s Google Places relay over HTTPS
- The vendor key is stored AES-encrypted on the hub, never on your site
- Place details are cached for 24 hours on the hub
- A daily cron refreshes every widget so reviews stay current
- The front end never live-fetches — it renders from the cache
Providers
Google is the live provider today; more are on the way.
| Provider | Status |
|---|---|
| Live — the working provider, via the hub relay. | |
| Coming soon — a tab is already present in the admin. | |
| More | Additional review sources will slot in the same way. |
Troubleshooting
Two things account for almost every question: the hub connection and page caching.
Reviews don’t appear
Because there’s no key on your site, an empty widget almost always means the hub relay couldn’t serve data — usually a license/hub issue (the core plugin missing, an inactive license, or the reviews routes not yet deployed on the hub), or a business that was never connected on the Source step. The suggestion dropdown surfaces the hub’s error message; reconnect the business, confirm the license is active, and try again.
FAQ
No. Every Google request is proxied through the WPStack hub, which holds the vendor key AES-encrypted and uses the Places API (New). Your site needs no Google Cloud project, no key and no billing.
On the builder’s Source step, type the business name and pick it from the autocomplete list. Its real reviews load into the live preview — no URLs or place IDs.
No — Reviews is display-only. It shows a business’s existing Google reviews as a styled widget; it does not gather new ones from visitors.
Build it once, then embed it with the shortcode shown in the builder: [stack_reviews id="N"]. It works in any page, builder or template.
A widget’s look is inline CSS on the page, so it’s usually a stale page cache. Purge your caching plugin/CDN and hard-refresh the page.
Google is live now. Facebook is next — a “coming soon” tab is already in the admin — with more providers to follow.
Changelog
[stack_reviews id="N"] shortcode for embedding a widget anywhere.