UPDATE 2025 – 5 stars for plugin and 5 stars for support

  • UPDATE 01/2025
    Well, I came to write a 5 star review for this plugin and found I’d already left a previous review (below,) where I extolled the virtues of this plugin support. Well, after having used another plugin on a different project, which cost money for the client, my new project needed Google reviews for the design and since this one offered 40 reviews for free I used it. Although the settings field was buggy again, and didn’t locate this business, or rather, it connected, identified the correct address, but the Places ID it was inserting didn’t match my client’s business profile, I was able to locate the correct ID and manually insert the business name and ID, after which it worked flawlessly, both the API connection and the crawler.

    So now it’s 5 stars for the plugin (despite the buggy settings field unable to locate the correct business ID,) as well as the previous EXCELLENT support, which I didn’t need this time but if I said it was EXCELLENT before, well I certainly wouldn’t have shouted it like that if it hadn’t been. I’m not exactly a noob with web dev. Thanks a lot for this useful plugin, it’s very generous of you.

    —————–Below is orig review—————————

    Good luck if you try this. Sometimes it works, sometimes it won’t connect to Google no matter what you do, it seems. I’d used it before successfully but you have to jump through a lot of hoops. Hint: if you start typing your business into this plugin’s settings field and it doesn’t give you auto-complete suggestions you’re in for a lot of troubleshooting hours. I’m abandoning this and giving my first ever 1 star rating because of how much time I’ve wasted on this and I’m ticked. Thanks. EDIT: changed from one star review to 4 because of the EXCELLENT customer support.

    • This topic was modified 5 years, 6 months ago by joecreative007.
    • This topic was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by joecreative007.
    • This topic was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by joecreative007. Reason: Didn't know I'd left a previous review; came here to leave a five star for your generous efforts
    • This topic was modified 1 month, 1 week ago by joecreative007.
Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Plugin Author jgwhite33

    (@jgwhite33)

    Sorry about the trouble. Google has made a lot of changes to their API over the years. It has become pretty complicated to get a key setup correctly.

    The first thing to do is to watch the video on this page…

    https://ljapps.com/google-places-api-key/

    The next thing to check is to make sure that your Key has an active billing account…

    https://mapsplatformtransition.withgoogle.com/auth_required

    Next, when you click the Retrieve Reviews button, there should be a link in the pop-up that you can click that will give you more information. It will show you exactly what Google is returning in their API.

    You can also use this URL, replacing your API key and Places ID to see what is going on…

    https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/details/json?placeid=YOUR_PLACE_ID&key=YOUR_API_KEY

    Thread Starter joecreative007

    (@joecreative007)

    Thanks for the reply but I setup the billing account long ago on my account. So that’s not it. Question: does this plugin work if it’s used on a subdomain? The dev site is on a subdomain, and despite trying to verify the subdomain with Google it would not verify. Even though the google html file that was linked right on the verify screen was actually there, and despite me adding a txt record for Google verification Google would not verify the subdomain, even when added specifically. It did verify the main domain but that didn’t get your plugin working. I never leave bad reviews and am already starting to feel uncomfortable leaving this yet maybe this thread will help another person troubleshoot. So please let me know about the plugin with respect to working on subdomains as I’m fairly sure it’s related to Google not verifying the subdomain. Also, the autocomplete never worked either when searching for the property so I added it manually as instructed by the plugin internal link. Thank you.

    Plugin Author jgwhite33

    (@jgwhite33)

    The autocomplete uses the Google Places API, so it may be related to Google not verifying your domain. Use the following URL to test what Google is returning for your API Key. This is the URL that the plugin uses to get reviews. So if reviews don’t appear at this link then the plugin won’t work. Just replace the YOUR_PLACE_ID and YOUR_API_KEY with your actual values you’re trying to use.

    https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/details/json?placeid=YOUR_PLACE_ID&key=YOUR_API_KEY

    Thread Starter joecreative007

    (@joecreative007)

    Again, I’ve moved on already to a different solution, but thank you just the same. It is very kind of you to assist. Because of your excellent customer support please let me know if you would rather I remove this rating or change it to a 3 star and mention how good your customer support is?

    Thank you

    Andrew Nevins

    (@anevins)

    WCLDN 2018 Contributor | Volunteer support

    You can’t remove the rating I’m afraid, but you can edit the review at any time by going to the same place that you created it

    Thread Starter joecreative007

    (@joecreative007)

    Hey I was able to update the review as well as increase it to a 4 star for your excellent customer support towards a guy who hadn’t yet even purchased the full version. Thanks just the same.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • The topic ‘UPDATE 2025 – 5 stars for plugin and 5 stars for support’ is closed to new replies.