Browser’s HTML Inspector to add Reviews Locally

Hello @haggaiy, are you writing a plugin review? Nice! ??

I’ll go through the questions you’ve posed…

1. Would you kindly provide a link to a step-by-step tutorial explaining how to import google reviews to the plugin manually?

   There is a step-by-step guide within the plugin at the appropriate point (once the setup is complete and there are 5 or more reviews).

   The instructions are copied here for you to view in advance:

   1. Go to your Google Reviews (https://search.google.com/local/reviews?placeid=xxxx);
   2. Wait until it loads; expand all reviews by scrolling down;
   3. Inspect the overall popup — on the outer white margin: right click | Inspect (Fig. 1, 2);
   4. In the HTML Inspector panel, right-click on the
   <div> that highlights all the reviews and Copy | Outer HTML (Fig. 3);
   5. Paste this HTML into the textarea in the Advanced tab.

   

2. Assuming reviews are imported manually, Would the API configuration be required (if yes, why)? and would I have to provide billing information to Google in such a case?

   Yes, you need to setup the plugin with the Google Places API and add at least one Place ID. Instructions are both in the Installation guide and within the plugin’s setup process. Billing is a requirement by Google Cloud services to prevent over-usage and assign responsibilities to users. As stated in the FAQ, this plugin uses a fraction of your allowance and will not leave the inclusive allocation.

3. I understand there’s a problem with the 5 reviews due to Google’s API. Let’s say I wanted to plugin to import 50 reviews from google via the standard method (places API). How long would it take for that to happen, on average? is it a matter of days? months? years?

   Google Places API offers a maximum of 5 reviews at a time. If you want to get 50 reviews using just this Places API, it could take a week or it could never happen. It will entirely depend on the number of reviews coming in. If you only ever reach 40 reviews in total, having 50 in total is not possible. Conversely, if you are very popular and receive 100s of reviews a week, your catalogue will fill up very quickly.

4. If the refresh rate is really slow, then why would I use a plugin instead of building a static testimonials wall, which I’d manually update from time to time? I thought that the whole cool thing about the plugin would be the automatic synchronization with a large db of testimonials. Otherwise, I can use just any static design…

   You can choose to build up your own testimonials outside of this plugin (just placing them into a page or having a different plugin). That’s entirely your call to make and no one can say otherwise.

   This plugin will help offer a credible outside source (Google Reviews) for your customers to read impartial reviews that have not been tampered with (or, if you order by relevant reviews) and accurate representation of your current reviews presented by Google.

5. Does the current GCP practice require that I insert billing information, in order to get things to work?

   Yes, this is covered in the FAQ. I wish it wasn’t needed or there was a more generous "unattached" allocation, but Google Cloud have introduced this to avoid unaccredited individuals from overusing their APIs. I do understand their logic behind the decision.

6. A competing plugin stated:
   “Zero load time: SVG, lazy load images and the smallest size of assets (css: 3kb, js: 8kb)”
   Could you advise how does your plugin compare with that?

   You can disable all the plugin’s CSS and JavaScript entirely and take out the avatars (or replace with one of your own). With either the CSS/JS, you can take bits you need and add an absolute minimum of this into your own [child] theme’s CSS, giving you the same design and functionality, yet less file size. There’s also a compressed option for both CSS and JS within the Advanced tab. Lazy image loading is a parameter of the Shortcode – so that’s an option you can choose to deploy. The HTML itself is also very clean. I am a very experienced web designer and this is HTML, CSS, JS that I’d be proud to use on any of my websites.

• This reply was modified 2 years, 3 months ago by Design Extreme.

Dear Noah,

Thank you for your timely and detailed response, I appreciate it. After investigating your plugin, it is rather clear that your methodology and professionalism are impressive to say the least.

* * *

You correctly mention that it is “ok” to provide Google with billing information as there will not be a charge, and I understand where you are coming from.

However, Google do change their policies from time to time. Just last August, we had to start paying for our services from Google, after they’ve been free for over 10 years. Point being: Google can once again decide to charge for services that previously were provided for free, and we cannot rely on the current pricing structure to remain the same.

Since your business is not about GCP / Google API, but rather it is about providing a solution for presenting google reviews in a managed and designed manner… Then why not allowing users use your plugin by manually import google reviews, without connecting to Google API!?

This way you’d expand your user-base to users which do not wish to provide Google with their billing information…

By the way, a front-end feature which I loved, though it’s missing in your plugin, is the ability to submit a google review from within the site (rather than taking the user outside the site, to Google My Business to submit the review there). Perhaps it is made available only with Google My Business API, I have no clue…

Again thank you for your response and good work.

@haggaiy The billing information is just there to assign API requests to a specific user.

You are right about the changes – so with that in mind, there are several measures you can take to mitigate against this and prevent any money now or in the future from being taken.

• Do not share your API Key
• Setup the Places API properly with restrictions in place so no others can use your API Key if it is ever exposed (restrict to an IP and just one API)
• Set a request limit per day (100 is plenty), around 1% of your free allowance
• Set a notification if any money is ever spent on the account (say if $1 is spent)

With these checks in place, you’re very unlikely to lose control over your account and even if something does happen (highly unlikely), you’ll be aware at the time. I have around 50 different API Keys in use over many websites, and I’ve never been billed for their usage. You can only mitigate so much, but with all these checks in place, you’re in a very sure position going forward.

For the billing information, I do recommend having the actual owner of the website use their own Google account. This will avoid focusing many requests on one developer account. This would particularly relevant to the Maps API which will really increase its requests when visitor numbers rise. This plugin has a very predicable request count over time, so it’s not dependent on visitors.

The setup of the Places API with Place ID allows for the automated collection of reviews and without this, the plugin will far less useful. It is better to get it set correctly from the outset when there’s the initiative – having it as a glorified convertor of HTML to structured data isn’t its purpose. I could add some new functionality to introduce this, but it is not something that anyone has requested before and it would involve quite a few changes to the code. There are other priorities at the moment that would have a far more positive impact on more people. So, my limited time has a different focus for the time being.

I have written my own scripts to handle customer review submissions. It uses a conditional display of Google and Trustpilot links upon using the service or buying a product. I haven’t published this because each plugin takes its toll in terms of support and updates. This one is a potential one that would work as an add-on to Contact Form 7.

If you have tried out the plugin and like what it offers, please leave a review. Thanks!