Review Deck

Sharraxaad

Review Deck is a lightweight, actively maintained review plugin that delivers professional features without complexity or upsells. Migrate existing reviews from 20+ sources, including Google, Yelp, Facebook, and WooCommerce. Track performance with built-in analytics. Display reviews your way with multiple layout options. Everything you need, nothing you don’t.

People rely heavily on reviews to build trust in services and products. Amazon realized this early and perfected it. Any business can benefit from website-based reviews. The addition is designed for service businesses, local companies, agencies, consultants, contractors, and any WordPress site needing professional review management. Optional WooCommerce integration extends the plugin for use in online stores.

Go ahead, give it a try. Make my day. Use the one-click importer to bring reviews over from any supported plugin. It works alongside your current review plugin without conflict. Drop the summary above a lists shortcode in a 2/3-column layout, add the form in a 1/3-column layout, and you’ve got a complete reviews page in minutes. Worst case, enable “Delete data on uninstall” in Advanced Settings and remove all traces—your existing plugin stays untouched, though you probably will not want to.

Instead of forcing you into a single rigid layout, Review Deck offers a generous set of display types that meet typical use cases. You can publish a full reviews page, add a compact summary near a call to action, place a slider on the homepage, or keep a floating widget available on every page for quick social proof. The goal is to keep the setup straightforward while still giving you the controls that matter.

What Makes Review Deck Different

Review Deck offers enterprise-level features typically found only in premium solutions. Respond to reviews publicly with admin replies to show customers you care about their feedback. Pin your best testimonials to the top of your review list. Professional spam protection includes Akismet integration, honeypot fields, and Google reCAPTCHA v3.

Visitors can sort reviews by newest, oldest, highest rating, lowest rating, or most helpful. Let visitors like reviews to highlight the most appreciated feedback. Gravatar support displays reviewer profile pictures without storing images on your server. Optional WooCommerce integration adds product review assignment, verified purchase badges, automated review request emails, My Account integration, and product schema markup.

Collect Reviews on Your Website

Review Deck includes its own submission form seamlessly integrated into the review management system, requiring no third-party form plugins or external connectivity. Add the review form to any page with a shortcode, and customers can submit reviews that appear on the user side instantly. Or choose to moderate reviews with any settings change. Control which fields appear and which are required to capture the precise details you need. Enable admin email notifications when reviews are submitted, and optionally send a receipt email to reviewers. Choose to have the system send your business response to them directly via email.

External Review Sources

Why manually enter reviews instead of using aggregators? Save $49+ per month compared to review aggregation services with no broken API connections or third-party dependencies. Your reviews are always yours to download, edit, or delete at any time. Build customer confidence with verifiable, recognizable source icons while maintaining complete control over which reviews to display. Display reviews from 22 popular platforms with recognizable source icons: Amazon, Angi, Avvo, BBB, Facebook, Google, HealthGrades, HomeAdvisor, Houzz, Lawyers.com, LinkedIn, MerchantCircle, NextDoor, OpenTable, RateMDs, Thumbtack, TripAdvisor, TrustPilot, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Zocdoc, and your own WordPress website reviews.

Display Reviews Anywhere with Shortcodes

Review Deck uses shortcodes for maximum flexibility with any page builder, including Gutenberg, Elementor, Divi, Beaver Builder, and WPBakery. Install different review display types on any page, post, or custom post type. Mix and match shortcodes to create your ideal result.

Available shortcodes:
– [wp_ctrw_form] for the review submission form
– [wp_ctrw_summary] for aggregate rating summary
– [wp_ctrw_lists] for a complete review list with pagination, sorting (newest, oldest, highest rating, lowest rating, most helpful), and likes
– [wp_ctrw_slider] for a responsive review carousel
– [wp_ctrw_widget] for a floating review widget.

Gutenberg Blocks

Native Gutenberg blocks make adding reviews to your pages simple. Search for “Reviews” in the block inserter to find five blocks: Reviews List displays reviews with pagination and sorting options; Review Form adds a submission form; Reviews Slider creates a carousel display; Trust Badge shows your average rating; and Product Reviews displays WooCommerce product reviews. Each block includes a settings panel with visual controls – no shortcode memorization required. All blocks render a live preview in the editor.

Powerful Admin Review Management

Manage reviews from a clean admin interface. Pin your best reviews to the top, reply to reviews publicly, and use bulk actions to approve, reject, or trash multiple reviews at once. Filter reviews by type (page, post, or product) and status (Approved, Pending, Rejected, or Trash). Edit any review field, including author, rating, or content. Set custom time/date stamps for reviews and control visibility (Public, Password-Protected, or Private) to manage when and how reviews appear. Monitor review likes from the admin table. Import from Site Reviews, WP Customer Reviews, CSV, or JSON files.

WooCommerce Integration

Replace WooCommerce’s default review system with Review Deck for advanced management features. Reviews automatically link to products with verified purchase badges showing which reviews come from actual buyers. Send automated review request emails after purchase. Reviews integrate with My Account, allowing customers to view their review history. The plugin generates proper product schema markup and includes admin meta boxes in the product editor. Additional display options include rating style selection (gold, black, or purple stars with WCAG AA-compliant colors), product sorting by average rating or Bayesian ranking, and the option to display star ratings on products with no reviews.

Enhanced product review features include photo uploads (customers can add images to reviews, automatically resized and compressed for optimal performance), review search (search box to filter reviews by keyword), review sorting (sort by recent, oldest, highest rating, lowest rating, or most helpful), review tags (let customers tag reviews with labels like Quality, Value, Shipping), and AJAX pagination (load more reviews without page refresh).

Review Likes

Let visitors show appreciation for helpful reviews with the likes feature. Each review displays a thumbs-up icon with a like count. Visitors can click to like a review, and the icon changes from gray to the configured star color (via the star color picker in General Settings). Duplicate likes from the same visitor are automatically prevented using IP-based detection. Sort reviews by “Most Helpful” to surface the most appreciated reviews. The likes feature is enabled by default and can be toggled in General Settings. “Like” counts appear in the admin reviews table for easy monitoring.

Advanced Spam Protection

Multiple layers of spam defense stop fake reviews or spammers before they reach your moderation queue. Google reCAPTCHA v3 provides invisible bot detection with adjustable thresholds. Akismet integration identifies suspicious submissions. Honeypot fields trap bots. Use protection methods individually or combined. Optionally require users to be logged in to your WordPress website before submitting a review.

Automatic Duplicate Prevention

Built-in duplicate detection is always active with no configuration required. The system blocks identical content submitted within 24 hours, prevents multiple reviews from the same email address on the same page or product, and stops repeated submissions from the same IP address with matching content. This protects your review integrity without any additional setup.

Customize Display Appearance

Control how reviews look without writing CSS. Choose star colors and review box background colors or gradients. Typography controls for font size, style, weight, and line height. Multiple date formats with optional time display. Toggle city and state visibility. Set the reviews per page and the slider cards per row (1-3).

Trust Badges

Trust badges display your star rating and review count to visitors, providing instant social proof that builds credibility and drives conversions. Studies show that prominently displaying customer reviews can increase conversion rates by up to 270%. Choose a badge style below, copy the shortcode, and paste it anywhere—sidebars, footers, product pages, or the checkout page. Perfect for building trust at every customer touchpoint.

Quick Analytics Access

Site administrators can access review analytics directly from the frontend without logging in. A discreet gear icon appears in the top corner of the review summary widget. Click it to reveal a slide-down analytics panel displaying review submission trends, rating distribution, review sources, and key statistics. This feature is enabled by default and can be toggled in General Settings under “Enable Gear Button in Summary Display.” The analytics panel matches the admin dashboard exactly, giving you instant insights as you check your site.

Schema Markup for Local SEO

Built-in schema support helps your reviews appear in Google search results with rich snippets that improve click-through rates. Configure your business information once and automatically apply it across all reviews. The plugin supports 12 different schema types. The settings include your business name and description, business URL and logo, complete address, phone number, and a price range indicator. You can also add social media profiles for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube. For WooCommerce stores, the plugin includes product-specific schema fields that integrate with your product data to generate proper structured data for search engines. Note: The module will not allow activation with a notice if another schema exists, to protect your website from Google penalties.

Import Your Existing Reviews

Import reviews from multiple sources while preserving original data. Direct database imports are available for Site Reviews, WP Customer Reviews, YITH WooCommerce Reviews, WooCommerce Product Reviews Pro, Easy Digital Downloads Reviews, Storefront Reviews, Jet Reviews, GravityView Reviews, Reviews Plus, and Ultimate Member Reviews, with a one-click import that includes custom fields, likes, pinning, and product associations. CSV and JSON imports are supported with automatic duplicate detection. You can also export CSV and JSON files to save or review the history.

Field Mapping Headings

When importing from CSV or JSON files, use these exact field names (case-sensitive):

Required Fields:
– name – Reviewer’s full name (if empty, defaults to “Anonymous”)
– title – Review title/headline
– comment – Review text content
– rating – Star rating (1-5, required)

Optional Fields:
– email – Reviewer email address
– phone – Phone number
– company – Reviewer’s company or business name
– city – Reviewer’s city
– state – State or province
– admin_reply – Your public response to the review
– likes – Number of helpful votes/likes
– pinned – Pin review to top (1 = pinned, 0 = not pinned)
– source – Review source platform (amazon, google, facebook, yelp, etc.)
– ip_address – IP address of reviewer
– status – Review status (Approved, Pending, Rejected; defaults to “Approved”)
– positionid – Page/Post ID where review should display (0 for global)
– created_at – Original review date (MySQL datetime format: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS)
– updated_at – Last modified date (MySQL datetime format)

Translations

All 541 text strings use WordPress translation functions. Includes complete translations for English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, and Finnish. Any edits to the PO files or additional languages are welcome. An option lets you activate any of these translations on the user side, while retaining English on the back end, as some users require.

Donations

If this effort assists you, please consider making a small donation from the main plugin page, found on the lower right. All funds assist orphans worldwide, those who suffer from destitution. This is the sole reason this plugin exists: to help others in desperate need.

Clean Uninstall Option

The optional uninstall setting permanently deletes stored reviews when the plugin is uninstalled.

Technical Details for Release 1.0.6

Load time: 0.256 s; Memory usage: 3.49 MiB
PHP up to tested version: 8.3.28
MySQL up to tested version: 8.4.7
MariaDB up to tested version: 12.0.2
cURL up to tested version: 8.17.0, OpenSSL/3.6.0
PHP 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3 compliant. Not tested on 8.4 yet.

Using in Multisite Installation

Method 1: Must-Use Plugin (Recommended)

1. Extract ZIP contents to ‘/wp-content/mu-plugins/review-deck/’
2. The plugin will automatically activate network-wide
3. Access settings at Settings → Review Deck
4. Configure as needed for your network

Method 2: Regular Installation

1. Install via Plugins → Add New as normal
2. Network activate or activate per-site as needed
3. Configure settings per-site

Note: In multisite, each site maintains its own review database and settings.

Privacy & Data

Operates entirely on your server with no external services required. Optional integrations like Akismet and reCAPTCHA are opt-in. Reviews are stored in your WordPress database with full export and deletion capabilities. GDPR compliance tools included. Email addresses are only used for review display (optional) and admin notifications (if enabled). Gravatar integration is optional.