CritiquePlus Comparator

CritiquePlus Comparator is a complete WordPress comparison builder for
publishers, affiliate websites, review portals and editorial teams. Create a
reusable product catalogue, define your own criteria, write in the familiar
WordPress editor and publish responsive comparison tables, cards and rankings.

Professional comparison creation

• Comparison editor: Build each comparison from clear Information,
  Products, Criteria, Content, Design, SEO and Publication sections.
• Classic WordPress editing: Write the comparison description and complete
  product content in Visual or Text mode with the native WordPress editor.
• Rich editorial formatting: Use paragraphs, H2-H6 headings, lists,
  blockquotes, links, separators, code, media, captions and editable
  information, success and warning callouts.
• Reusable product catalogue: Maintain product names, brands, prices,
  platforms, features, descriptions, images, galleries and commercial data in
  one place.
• Custom comparison criteria: Create public or internal criteria, control
  their order and enter product-specific values and scores.
• Editorial verdicts: Publish advantages, disadvantages, recommendations,
  FAQs and supporting content without changing theme files.

Flexible public presentation

• Responsive comparison views: Present the same data as a comparison table,
  cards or a ranked selection on desktop, tablet and mobile.
• Reusable WordPress blocks: Insert comparisons and focused presentations
  from the block editor without duplicating catalogue data.
• Shortcode support: Place comparisons in classic content areas and page
  builders that accept WordPress shortcodes.
• Public catalogues: Provide browsable product and comparison directories
  with search, filters and sorting.
• Accessible interactions: Use labelled controls, keyboard-compatible
  actions, semantic headings and meaningful image alternative text.
• Theme-aware design: Apply configurable presets, colours, widths and
  display options while keeping the public output responsive.

Notifications and editorial workflow

• Notification centre: Follow important catalogue, publication, link and
  extension events from a dedicated notification screen and administration
  toolbar indicator.
• Read and unread status: Identify new events immediately, mark individual
  notifications as read and clear items that no longer require attention.
• Notification search: Search the notification history instead of manually
  browsing every message.
• Notification preferences: Choose which types of information should appear
  and configure the plugin’s error-notification behaviour.
• Actionable alerts: Open the relevant product, comparison, affiliate link
  or settings area directly when a notification requires intervention.

Appearance and ready-to-use templates

• Global appearance workspace: Configure the visual foundation used by
  public comparisons from one administration screen.
• Colours and typography: Select the primary colour, font family and other
  visual values without editing theme files.
• Corners and shadows: Control border radius and shadow intensity to match
  the WordPress site’s existing identity.
• Custom CSS: Add carefully scoped presentation adjustments when the built-in
  controls are not sufficient.
• Responsive preview: Inspect appearance changes in a live preview before
  applying them to public content.
• 10 included comparison templates: Start from one of the ten ready-made
  Free comparison models, preview its presentation, duplicate it as a draft and
  adapt its products, criteria, content and design instead of starting from an
  empty comparison.
• Per-comparison design: Choose a presentation template and adjust colour,
  width, mobile behaviour, scores and calls to action for each comparison.

Gutenberg blocks and WordPress integration

• Complete comparison block: Insert a published comparison with its
  introduction, views, scores and detailed sections.
• Comparison table block: Display a responsive criteria-by-product table
  with optional scores, calls to action and sticky presentation.
• Product card block: Highlight one catalogue product with its price, score,
  advantages and offer button.
• Ranking block: Publish a configurable selection of the best products from
  a comparison.
• Pros and cons block: Reuse detailed advantages and disadvantages for a
  comparison or a selected product.
• Best choice block: Promote the recommended product with its score, price,
  label and call to action.
• Affiliate button block: Add a traceable product offer button with size,
  alignment, colour and new-tab controls.
• Product grid block: Build responsive catalogue grids with a configurable
  product limit and number of columns.
• Editorial note block: Add a signed and dated editorial note using a
  configurable visual style.
• Server-rendered previews: Select products and comparisons from the editor
  and preview dynamic output without duplicating saved catalogue information.
• Shortcode compatibility: Use equivalent presentations in classic editors,
  widgets and page builders that support WordPress shortcodes.

Detailed, privacy-friendly statistics

• Performance dashboard: Review comparison views, affiliate clicks and
  click-through rate from a dedicated statistics screen.
• Flexible periods: Analyse the last 7, 30, 90 or 365 days and follow daily
  activity over the selected period.
• Top comparisons: Identify the comparisons that generate the most activity
  and prioritise editorial improvements.
• Traffic sources: Understand where recorded comparison visits originate
  without installing a separate analytics interface.
• Statistics export: Export available reporting data for further analysis or
  internal reporting.
• Responsible measurement: Tracking is optional and disabled by default;
  local events exclude visitor IP addresses, raw user agents and tracking
  cookies from the plugin’s statistics tables.
• Retention controls: Choose how long statistics and activity logs remain in
  the WordPress database.

User access and permissions

• Role-based access: Decide what administrators, editors, authors,
  contributors and the dedicated custom Comparator role can do.
• Granular permissions: Control viewing, creation, editing, publication and
  deletion of comparisons separately from product, affiliate, statistics,
  settings, user and import/export permissions.
• User overview: Review WordPress users, their assigned role and their last
  recorded Comparator activity from the plugin interface.
• User invitations: Invite a user by email and assign an appropriate role
  for the comparison workflow.
• Protected administration: Keep administrator permissions protected while
  allowing safer delegation of editorial responsibilities.

Complete extension settings

• General settings: Configure language, currency, price presentation, score
  scale, default product count, drafts, automatic display and autosave.
• Affiliate settings: Manage nofollow and sponsored attributes, click
  tracking, sponsored badges, transparency notices, UTM values and automatic
  link verification.
• SEO settings: Control structured-data types, indexation, canonical URLs,
  sitemap and robots options, title affixes, authors, reviewers and metadata for
  answer engines.
• Performance settings: Configure comparison caching, image optimisation,
  lazy loading, WebP conversion, CSS/JavaScript delivery, font preloading and
  database cleanup.
• Privacy settings: Control anonymous statistics, affiliate-click records,
  user-action logs, consent, Cookiebot, Axeptio, ePrivacy, data requests,
  uninstall behaviour and retention periods.
• Advanced settings: Access integration and technical controls intended for
  experienced administrators.
• Diagnostic tools: Inspect the plugin environment, cache and database,
  trigger maintenance actions and identify configuration problems.
• Safe reset controls: Restore an individual settings group without having
  to reset the entire extension.

SEO and discoverability

• SEO title and description: Define comparison-specific search metadata or
  use a clean, automatically shortened description fallback.
• Canonical URLs: Output consistent canonical destinations for dedicated
  product, comparison and catalogue pages.
• Indexing control: Choose whether public comparison pages may be indexed;
  the setting is respected in WordPress robots directives.
• Structured data: Enable Product, Review, ItemList, FAQPage and
  BreadcrumbList schema independently at global and comparison level.
• Valid rating markup: Rating schema is emitted only when a real positive
  score is available.
• Social sharing metadata: Reuse the principal image, alternative text,
  title, description and public URL for Open Graph and Twitter previews.
• SEO plugin integration: Supply titles, descriptions, canonicals, robots
  rules, social images and schema adapters for Rank Math, Yoast SEO and All in
  One SEO.
• Semantic page structure: Dedicated comparison pages use one primary H1;
  embedded comparisons preserve the host page heading hierarchy.

Affiliate publishing and measurement

• Affiliate destinations: Save product or offer URLs and configure button
  labels without hard-coding links in page content.
• Link attributes: Apply sponsored, nofollow, new-tab and noopener behaviour
  to affiliate calls to action.
• Transparency notices: Display a configurable affiliate disclosure above
  or below the comparison.
• Optional link verification: Let an administrator check saved destinations
  and identify unavailable links.
• Local anonymous statistics: Optionally count views and affiliate clicks
  inside WordPress without storing visitor IP addresses or raw user agents.

Data management and ownership

• Import tools: Import structured catalogue data from CSV, JSON, XML or an
  administrator-provided remote URL.
• Export tools: Export reusable CSV or JSON data and create complete plugin
  backups.
• WordPress-owned storage: Keep products, comparisons, criteria and optional
  events in the website’s own database.
• Controlled uninstall: Preserve content by default and remove plugin data
  only after an administrator explicitly enables that option.
• No forced account: Use the complete free edition without a CritiquePlus
  account, licence key, subscription or automatic connection to CritiquePlus.

Optional CritiquePlus Comparator Pro add-on

The separately distributed CritiquePlus Comparator Pro add-on extends the Free
plugin for teams that need guided configuration, interactive recommendation
experiences, artificial intelligence and centralised licence management. All
Free features described above remain available without Pro.

• Quick setup assistant: Configure comparison types, appearance, primary
  colour, affiliate behaviour, artificial intelligence and licence activation
  through a guided seven-step workflow.
• Saved setup progress: Resume an incomplete configuration without starting
  the entire assistant again.
• 10 additional premium templates: Add ten Pro designs to the ten models
  included in Free, providing 20 comparison templates in total when both
  extensions are active.
• Premium visual systems: Use Atlas, Prism, Executive, Magazine, Benchmark,
  Conversion, Bento, Horizon, Aurora and Monochrome for different editorial,
  benchmark and conversion-oriented presentations.
• Personalised calculator: Transform comparison criteria into visitor
  questions and recommend products according to individual priorities.
• Weighted recommendations: Combine visitor answers, criterion weights and
  saved product scores to produce an understandable personalised ranking.
• Calculator management: Create, edit, publish and reuse calculators linked
  to existing Free comparisons and catalogue products.
• Public calculator catalogue: Publish calculators on dedicated routes and
  make them available from a browsable public catalogue.
• Calculator Gutenberg block: Insert a selected calculator directly from
  the WordPress block editor.
• Two-product Versus mode: Place two products face to face in a focused,
  responsive presentation designed for direct purchasing decisions.
• Shared Versus data: Reuse saved products, public criteria, features,
  scores and commercial information without maintaining duplicate records.
• Versus Gutenberg block: Select a comparison and the two products to show
  from a dedicated dynamic WordPress block.
• Multi-provider AI assistant: Connect OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google
  Gemini or DeepSeek and select the provider and model used by the assistant.
• Secure AI configuration: Store provider API keys encrypted on the
  WordPress server and test each connection before production use.
• Product and comparison assistance: Use catalogue context to accelerate
  product and comparison creation and ongoing management.
• Criteria generation: Prepare structured criterion proposals adapted to a
  product family or comparison subject.
• SEO assistance: Generate contextual SEO title and meta-description
  proposals for products and comparisons.
• Editorial assistance: Prepare advantages, disadvantages, FAQs, summaries
  and content suggestions from the selected catalogue context.
• Consistency and update suggestions: Identify incomplete information and
  prepare proposals for correction or future editorial updates.
• Explicit AI validation: Review generated proposals before applying them;
  catalogue content is not modified without user validation.
• AI activity history: Record the provider, model, operation, latency,
  status and available usage data for diagnostics.
• Support interface available 24/7: Consult help resources or submit a
  support request at any time. Human response times depend on the active
  support plan.
• Licence and Help hub: Review activation status and open documentation,
  support and account resources from a central WordPress screen.
• Centralised licence management: Authorise licences and domains from the
  CritiquePlus Panel before connecting the WordPress installation securely.
• Licence visibility: Review the active plan, authorised site, activation
  usage and expiration information from WordPress.
• Secure licence storage: Encrypt the local licence key and avoid exposing
  the saved value in the browser after activation.
• Authenticated Pro updates: Receive compatible Pro releases through the
  private update channel while the licence remains valid.

CritiquePlus Comparator Pro is a separate optional add-on. No premium
executable code is included in this WordPress.org package. Activation creates
the required data structure only; it does not publish sample products or
demonstration comparisons.

Privacy

Anonymous statistics and affiliate-click tracking are disabled by default.
When an administrator explicitly enables them, event information is stored
locally in WordPress. The plugin does not store visitor IP addresses, raw user
agents or visitor cookies in its statistics tables.

No analytics information is transmitted to CritiquePlus.

External services

CritiquePlus Comparator does not contact CritiquePlus servers automatically
and does not require a CritiquePlus account. Help and Upgrade links open only
after an administrator chooses them.

The plugin can contact another website in the following administrator-initiated
or administrator-enabled situations:

• Remote import: the plugin requests a CSV, JSON, XML or API URL entered by an
  administrator. An optional API key is sent only to that configured URL.
• Affiliate-link verification: the plugin requests a saved destination to read
  its HTTP availability status. The destination can receive the WordPress
  server IP address and link-checker user agent as part of the normal request.
• Affiliate navigation: a visitor who chooses an affiliate button is sent to
  the destination configured by the site administrator.

No personal visitor information is sent to CritiquePlus by these operations.