Etchenet Reviews for Google Business

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, Stars). Text is optional, including in headerless files. 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+
• PHP ZIP, XMLReader and SimpleXML extensions for XLSX imports (CSV imports do not require them)
• 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, updates matching reviews while preserving their visibility, and adds new reviews to the stored list for the same Place ID. API failures are reported even when older reviews are available. If you change the Place ID, the previous place’s reviews are not displayed under the new place; reset the stored Google reviews explicitly before syncing a different place. The API response is cached for 12 hours to avoid excessive requests.

Stored review data and Google’s limits

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

• Stored reviews. This version preserves the existing local Google review inventory and its optional daily synchronization. Google Places restricts the storage of reviews and profile photos; a 12-hour response cache does not establish permission to retain the stored inventory. Confirm the rights applicable to your use of Google data. This release does not introduce a new retention policy or a Google Business Profile integration.
• Manual reviews and import. Add testimonials you have the right to use or import them from CSV/Excel. These reviews are identified separately from Google API reviews; mixed collections use a neutral review heading.

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, for new reviews or changed profile-photo URLs when no reusable local cached image is available.

The server-side API and profile-photo download requests do not send personal data from your site visitors. If a profile photo cannot be cached locally, its remote URL may be displayed directly: the visitor’s browser then contacts that image host and may send its IP address, browser user agent and referrer according to the browser’s policy.

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

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