The following is a review of the WP Review Site Plugin for WordPress. Recently, I decided to add reviews to one of my websites and WP Review Site Plugin was one of the two plugins I narrowed it down to (see My Review Plugin Review for the other). I was able to narrow it down to these two, but I wasn’t able to see how well they interfaced without purchasing both plugins and trying them out. To be clear, I paid for both of these plugins myself. I wasn’t given a review copy and this isn’t a sponsored review.
This plugin had the core features I wanted:
- Multiple Review Categories
- Different Categories (ie one set for hotels another for restaurants)
- Rich Snippet Compatible
This plugin was definitely the easier of the two to install and get running. To be honest, you should watch the videos to understand it completely, but I will try and give you the steps.
- Set up different review categories.
- Choose which categories apply to which posts.
- Enter the reviews.
This plugin had a lot more display options than the other plugin I reviewed; that said, if you didn’t use one of the built-in themes, it requires some tinkering to get it working properly. I especially liked that you could display the reviews vertically or horizontally. However, for me, this plugin was missing some core functionality. There is zero ability to perform any admin functions to reviews. In the plugin author’s opinion, “site owners should not be able to put words in the reviewer’s mouths.” Additionally, there were no options as far as review weighting; it was more of black box. For me, these two points were deal breakers and made me choose the My Review Plugin instead. That’s not to say this plugin is bad, but it was missing features that I believed were mission critical.
One last point. Both of these review plugins use the WordPress comment system as a mechanism for getting the review information into the system, which brings up the issue of dates in the SERP’s. If you aren’t getting new reviews submitted on a regular basis, this could lead to your SERP’s having a “stale” or “dated” appearance.
To be clear, this post does contain affiliate links. If you purchase the WP Review Site Plugin, I do receive an affiliate commission. This is, however, a plugin I paid for and tested with my own money. This plugin is very strong, is easier to set up and integrate, and has more display options, but it has limited admin functionality. If you are considering adding reviews to your website, WP Review Site Plugin is a choice you should definitely consider.
photo credit: Photospin
