Question 1

What is a review widget?

Accepted Answer

A review widget is a small piece of embed code that pulls your existing reviews from a platform like Google, Facebook, TripAdvisor, Etsy, WooCommerce or eBay and displays them on your own website. Once installed it syncs automatically, so new reviews appear on your site without any manual updates.

Question 2

Which review platforms does BrandTrust.reviews support?

Accepted Answer

You can connect and display reviews from your Google Business Profile, Facebook/Meta, TripAdvisor, Etsy, WooCommerce, eBay and Judge.me. You can also add reviews manually (for example ones you received by email or in person), and on paid plans combine several sources into a single "all-in-one" widget that shows reviews from every connected platform together.

Question 3

Is there a free plan?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can start for free with no credit card required, create a widget and embed it on your site. Paid plans add more widgets, higher monthly view limits, the WordPress plugin, combined multi-platform widgets and the option to remove branding.

Question 4

How do I add the widget to my website?

Accepted Answer

Three steps: connect your review platform and pick your business, style the widget in the visual builder with a live preview, then copy the one-line embed snippet and paste it into your site’s HTML where you want the reviews to appear. The widget renders as soon as the page loads.

Question 5

Do the reviews update automatically?

Accepted Answer

Yes. We fetch your reviews through each platform’s official API and refresh them on a recurring schedule, so new reviews and rating changes flow through to your widget automatically. If a review is removed at the source, it is removed from your widget on the next sync.

Question 6

Will the widget slow down my website?

Accepted Answer

No. The script is tiny (around 16 KB gzipped), loads asynchronously so it never blocks your page from rendering, and review data is cached at the edge. Your page loads at full speed and the reviews fill in without holding anything up.

Question 7

Will the widget put star ratings next to my site in Google search?

Accepted Answer

No. Google doesn't show review stars for a business's own reviews on its own website, including reviews shown through a widget. The schema still describes your rating and review count for search engines and other tools that read it.

Question 8

Can I filter which reviews are shown by rating or keyword?

Accepted Answer

Yes. You can set a minimum star rating and include or exclude reviews by keyword to curate which reviews are displayed. Importantly, the overall rating and total review count shown in the widget are always calculated from all of your fetched reviews. Filters only affect which individual reviews are displayed, never the headline score, so your average stays honest.

Question 9

Can I hide a specific review?

Accepted Answer

You can exclude an individual review from being displayed. Hidden reviews still count toward the overall rating and total shown in the widget, so hiding one never inflates your average. Reviews are only permanently removed when they are deleted at the source platform and we detect that on the next sync.

Question 10

Does it work with WordPress?

Accepted Answer

Yes. On eligible plans you can install the official BrandTrust.reviews WordPress plugin and add each widget by its sync key. It renders reviews natively in WordPress, caches them locally for speed, and stays in sync automatically. You can also use the standard JavaScript snippet on WordPress if you prefer.

Question 11

Do I need to know how to code?

Accepted Answer

No. You design everything in a visual builder and install with a single line of code (or the WordPress plugin). If you can paste a snippet into your site, or you use a page builder or WordPress, you can add the widget.

Question 12

Is the widget privacy-friendly? Does it track my visitors?

Accepted Answer

The widget sets no cookies and uses no local or session storage on your visitors’ devices, and we do not run behavioral tracking through it. Reviewer photos are served through our own image proxy rather than hot-linked, so your visitors’ IP addresses are not exposed to the source platforms just to load an avatar.

Question 13

Can I show reviews from multiple platforms in one widget?

Accepted Answer

Yes. On plans that include combined widgets you can merge reviews from several connected sources (for example Google and Facebook together) into a single all-in-one widget, sorted by most recent.

Question 14

Can I add reviews manually?

Accepted Answer

Yes. Alongside your connected platforms you can enter reviews manually (for example genuine reviews a customer left by email, on a form, or in person) and display them like any other. You are responsible for making sure manually-entered reviews are real and accurate; the manual feature is for surfacing reviews you actually received, not for writing fake ones.

Question 15

Can my team or agency manage widgets together?

Accepted Answer

Yes. On eligible plans you can invite team members to your account and organize widgets into projects with role-based access, so an agency or a multi-person business can manage everything from one account while controlling who can see and edit what.

Question 16

Can I customize the design to match my brand?

Accepted Answer

Extensively. Choose from grid, list, carousel, masonry and badge layouts, then control colors, borders, corner radius, shadows, fonts, alignment, which card elements show, light or dark mode, and even add custom CSS, all with a live preview that matches what ships.

Question 17

What happens if my subscription lapses?

Accepted Answer

If your subscription becomes inactive, widgets stop serving reviews until it is renewed, and the WordPress plugin will stop displaying reviews and may remove its locally cached copy. Your configuration is preserved, so reactivating restores your widgets.

Review widget questions, answered

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