Plugin doesn’t update reviews automatically

Hi Kasia,

The plugin uses the Google Places API to get your reviews. The API only returns the 5 most helpful reviews. It’s a limitation of Google, not specifically the plugin.

We did not add the functional which check a Google API for the new reviews because Google changes 5 current reviews not so often, according to our observations, once in 2-3 months.

Another problem is that since last summer Google has launched billing for all API keys (even already created). Some customers enable a billing, because Google strongly ask about it. Unfortunately, this billing is very weird and there have been situations when Google charged for using APIs beyond what the customer could have imagined and as a result we had dissatisfied customers.

Or vice versa, if the client does not connect the billing, the request to the API does not always pass, and as a result, there is no working feature and requests to us.

For all these reasons, we decided to leave this feature only in the Business version of the plugin and turn off it by default.

However, at the moment we have many such questions and we think and will investigate the possibility to have this in the future.

Thanks!

@richplugins, Hello, thank you for explanation on previous question. So how can we update reviews manually? What wordpress admin have to do to get latest reviews on widget?

I have a Google Business that receive everyday reviews.. Well I am ready to click somewhere to make it be updated on website too. But where exactly? Remove widget and create it again?

And is the limitation for 5 reviews is for what period? Daily? Monthly?

Thanks in advance. Regards!!!!

Hi,

@morissaflo the limitation of 5 reviews constantly and it’s not a limitation of the plugin, the Google Places API (which use in the plugin) return only 5 most helpful reviews always.

Sometimes this API changes these 5 reviews, but we absolutely can’t know when exactly. By our observation, it happens after 2-3 months.

But if you’re using the Google Business plugin you should able to get all reviews, because the Business plugin uses another API. Please send email with the debug information from the plugin to our support and I will send all information about this. We can’t do it here, because this forum for the free plugin.

Thanks!

Dear @richplugins,
I am using free version so that is why I am here. I know the Business Version is really amazing! But unfortunately my end-customer is not ready to pay for. Anyway many thanks to your for your Free Version that is really wonderful. And I see you spend a lot of time for support on this forum.

Well, imagine 2-3 month have passed and Google had changed “more helpful 5 latest reviews” for my business. How can I fetch them via plugin? How can I make display these new reviews on widget? Remove and re-create widget again?

Hi,

@morissaflo, you’re right, you can simply add new widget, re-connect your Google place and delete this widget, it will update the current reviews and checks for new (only if they are present in Google API).

By the way, at the moment, we are thinking about how to add this process automatically to the plugin, so most likely in the next versions there will be just an option for this and you will not need to do it manually.

Thanks!

This feature would be very interesting.

Hi,

We have a great news! This feature was added in the latest version 1.7.4. Please see a new parameter ‘Refresh’ in the widget.

Thanks!

• This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by richplugins.

Greetings

Love the plugin but i thought it was free?

Google requires you to setup billing in order to get an API?

Can you please clarify this? Or pls indicate another method if im missing anything?

Thank you in advance
Ray

Hi,

As far as I know, Google allows to create a free API key which can make 1 request per day. It’s enough to connect Google location and checks for a new reviews once in 2-3 days.

The detailed instruction how to create the free Google API key and video tutorial are placed on the setting page of this plugin.

Thanks!

Well I would like to believe that but..?

When trying to activate your free Google plugin they demand you setup a billing before issuing your Place_ID API ?

Unless you know of a work around that?

thank you!
Ray

Could you send a screenshot of this? To I better understand where it happening.

Thanks!

Ray,

It’s true. Google will force you to set up billing before issuing an API, mostly as a backstop in the event that your daily per project request count exceeds the limits provided by their free service.

This is not something a plugin developer can avoid when use of the API is required. I have been going through the process of issuing API keys for a number of different website projects in my portfolio that use Google API. Not once have I ever been billed for my usage because the traffic levels on my site aren’t high enough. So if you have more than 50K visitors to your site every day, you might have to worry about getting charged for API usage. Otherwise, it’s a non-issue. Hope that helps clear things up.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by Kasia.

There is no provision to upload a jpg attachment?

But when I go into my Google API account its blank and states that no billing is associated with this account or project?

Ray

Thx Kasia that was very helpful

How many APIs projects can i create under one account?

Thank you in advance!!

Ray

I think the free limit is 25 but don’t quote me.