Etchenet Reviews for Google Business

Description

Etchenet Reviews for Google Business shows your Google Business reviews in a modern carousel (Swiper), a floating badge, and a side panel. Ideal for building trust and social proof on your site.

Internationalization

• All translatable strings in the plugin use English (United States, en_US) as the message source, as required for community translation on WordPress.org.
• On a site whose locale is en_US, WordPress typically uses those strings as-is from the plugin (no separate English file required).
• Spanish (es_ES) and French (fr_FR) translation files are included under languages/. Other locales can use language packs from wordpress.org when available, or custom .mo / .l10n.php files.

Features

• Carousel – Shortcode [etn_egr_reviews_carousel] with configurable columns, autoplay, arrows, dots
• Floating badge – Shows rating and total reviews; click to open the side panel
• Side panel – List of reviews in a slide-out panel (position and styles configurable)
• Manual reviews – Add and manage your own reviews in the admin (same structure as Google)
• CSV/Excel import – Bulk import from .csv or .xlsx with a header row such as Author, Text, Stars, Date, Photo URL (minimum: Author, Text). Spanish column names (e.g. Autor, Texto) are also recognized for compatibility.
• Google API sync – One-click sync with Google Places API (API Key + Place ID); optional daily cron
• Order – Sort by newest, oldest, best/worst rating, or drag-and-drop manual order in the admin list
• Customizable – Colors, excerpt length, min stars, “Read more” modal, Rich Snippets (JSON-LD)
• Translations – Text domain: etchenet-reviews-for-google-business; see Internationalization above

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0+
• PHP 7.4+
• Google API Key and Place ID (for syncing from Google); optional for manual-only use

How reviews are loaded from the Google API

The plugin uses the Google Places API (Place Details). It requests the reviews field for your place (using your API Key and Place ID). Google returns a limited number of reviews per request (typically 5) and does not support pagination for reviews.

On each sync, the plugin fetches the current batch from Google, compares it with the reviews already stored on your site, adds only new ones (no duplicates), and merges them with the existing list. It never deletes previously saved Google reviews. The API response is cached for 12 hours to avoid excessive requests.

How to get more reviews than Google’s default limit

Because the API returns only a small set per call (usually 5) and has no pagination:

• Sync regularly. Use Sync now in the Connectivity tab from time to time, or enable Enable daily automatic sync (WP-Cron). Each sync can add new reviews; the plugin keeps all it has ever received and only appends new ones. Over time your total count can grow beyond 5.
• Use manual reviews and import. Add reviews manually or import CSV/Excel for an immediate larger set; they are not limited by the API and are shown together with Google reviews.

For full details, check the plugin settings and this readme file.

External services

This plugin connects to Google services to fetch and display Google Business reviews.

1. Google Places API (maps.googleapis.com)

– Purpose: fetch place details and public reviews (rating, review count, business name, review entries).
– Data sent: configured place_id, configured API key, requested review language (two-letter code derived from the site’s WordPress get_locale(), e.g. en for en_US, es for es_ES), optional reviews_sort parameter.
– When sent: on manual sync and on optional daily WP-Cron sync. Two requests are made per sync (one sorted by relevance, one by newest) to maximize review collection within Google’s 5-review-per-request limit.

1. Remote profile-photo download (Google-hosted image URLs)

– Purpose: cache public reviewer profile images locally for faster/stable display.
– Data sent: HTTP GET request to the profile photo URL returned by Google for each review.
– When sent: during synchronization, when new reviews are detected and include a profile photo URL.

No personal data from your site visitors is sent by these requests.

Google Maps Platform Terms of Service:
https://mapsplatform.google.com/terms/

Google Privacy Policy:
https://policies.google.com/privacy