Critic
Simple form so your customers or visitors can quickly complete their review.
Display a total review summary (optional) with actual reviews below.
Authors can respond to reviews just like a threaded comment.
Fully integrated with WordPress. Moderate, spam, or delete reviews just like comments.
View all and close reviews on the post edit screen.
Easy to configure options to customize your look.
Uses the native comments system for easy administering.
Boost your rankings and click-thru rates in Google.
The consumers of today are more diligent and do their research before making a purchase online. They want to read what other people have to say about a product or service before pulling out their wallet.
79% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations (source BrightLocal) and many won’t purchase something unless they read a 3rd-party review.
Without a review system on your website, you’re losing sales.
Key Benefits
- User reviews are proven to drive sales and increase conversions
- Increases search engine organic click-thru rates
- User-generated content exponentially helps build SEO-rich content for your website
- Creates a channel for constructive criticism and suggestions of your products
- Reduction in complaints and returns as reviews answer questions not always included in product descriptions
Features
- Built with WordPress best practices (uses a custom comment type)
- Moderate, spam, or delete reviews just like comments
- Require users to be logged in before submitting a review
- Post author or admin can respond directly to each review
- Rating stars use a web font (instead of images) to allow custom colors and for retina/hdpi support
- Works in tandem with the native WordPress comment system (requires minor code & css edits)
- Basic styles provided to allow flexibility with other themes
- Includes Google Structured Data (json-ld) for stellar SEO results
- Ability to close reviews anytime on individual pages/posts
- Emails sent to author when new review submitted and/or pending approval
- Lots of WordPress actions and filters for developers to make custom modifications
- Allow Users to change stars rating (NEW in 1.4.0!)
- Allow admin to edit any review star rating in WordPress dashboard (NEW in 1.4.0!)
As you can see, adding a professional review and rating system to your WordPress website can yield significant benefits. What are you waiting for? Get your own review system up-and-running today!
Background
Critic was originally built to fill a need in our Marketplace (no other quality plugin existed). Each item needed customer reviews so sellers could receive feedback and potential customers could feel confident with their purchase.
Our goal was to make it as seamless with WordPress as possible. We did this by creating a custom comment type (no additional database tables, etc) which leverages existing comment-like functionality.
After successfully using it since January 2013, we felt it was time to share it with the world so others could benefit from it too. Hope you enjoy it!
Disclaimer: Screenshots above are from Vantage 4.0. The look on your site will not match exactly as shown above (of course unless you use Vantage 4.0). We’ve done the best we could to integrate with most themes, however, we can’t test against them all. You may need to add some custom css so the reviews are more styled to match your current theme.
Does this work in tandem with WordPress comments?
Yes, however you’ll need to paste a line of code into two of your theme’s template files. You’ll also probably wan to setup jQuery tabs similar to how we use it in our Marketplace. This requires some web development knowledge.
Can I use this plugin instead of the WordPress comment system?
Yes. In fact, we recommend it since it’s the easiest to setup and requires no custom code.
Where can I see a demo?
We use Critic in our Marketplace so check out any item and click on the “Reviews” tab. It uses a slightly older version though so there might be some differences.
Will everything be styled perfectly to match my existing theme?
Probably not. It includes some basic styling but we aren’t able to test it against all the thousands of WordPress themes out there. If you’re comfortable with css, it’s easy to tweak.
I’m a developer. Are there hooks built in?
Yep. You can even completely replace the reviews form with your own (just like the comment_form())
- Upload the .zip file via the WordPress plugins admin page
- Activate the plugin and configure the options
= 1.4.1 = May 17, 2021
* Fixed plugin files and directories permissions
= 1.4.0 = December 2, 2020
* Allow Users to change stars rating
* Allow admin to edit review star rating in wp-admin
* Do not allow empty stars ratings
* Validate title and description on review form submit
* Updated Raty lib
* Added translation for Russian language
= 1.3.4 = January 8 2018
* Fixed Review styling is not looking good in mobile view.
* Fixed Succeeding unregistered user could not make a review.
= 1.3.3 = November 2 2017
* Prevented sending moderation emails to post’s author unless he can edit others posts.
= 1.3.2 = May 18, 2017
* Removed debugging code that changed the comment type on edit.
* Removed ‘set_review_rating’ action from the ‘wp_insert_comment’ hook when it’s actually done (to avoid duplicate calls)
* Added migration script for Vantage reviews. Now since Vantage 4.1.0 and Critic 1.3.2 it is possible to migrate legacy Vantage reviews to Critic data model (on the Admin => Vantage => Setup Guide page).
= 1.3.1 = Mar 11, 2017
* Show review count column in wp-admin text is missing
* Losing ratingValue when review has been answered
* Notice: Undefined variable: output in class-critic-admin.php on line 648
* Updated Structured-Data module, fixed incompatibility with Vantage 4+
= 1.3.0 = Feb 23, 2017
* update raty.js lib from 2.4.5 to 2.7.1.
* use web fonts instead of images to easily change color and for retina/hdpi support.
* deprecated microformats in favor of json-ld for Google search.
* added reviews meta box to wp-admin edit post/page.
* fixed wp-admin text so it’s review-related and not comment.
* added option to choose star color.
* added review summary box which includes avg rating and star progress bar.
* added reviews admin counter column to “All Posts”, etc pages.
* fixed issue where comment review counters on the edit screens were incorrect.
* updated the review form so it’s more in line with the standard WordPress comments form.
* better back and front end author response handling.
* show recent reviews in wp-admin on post edit page.
* allow author to respond only once to each review.
* added missing moderate review email template.
* updated approved review email template.
= 1.2.0 = Dec 8, 2014
* fixed PHP notices
* fixed Using class methods as object methods instead of static
* fixed Post meta values missing if moderation enabled
* fixed Rich snippets and G Webmasters.
* changed Critic shows form when Allow comments is disabled. If comments are closed, but reviews open – reviews form will shown. WP die message will shown on attempts to posts review when reviews closed, or to post comment if comments closed for given post.
* added Classipress integration (not styling, but only functionality)
* added reply to review feature. Only authors can reply to reviews and only once.
* added option to enable Article item definition for rich snippets.
= 1.1.1 = Dec 12, 2013
* fixed critical errors for compatibility with php 5.2. used self:: vs static::
* fixed wp_list_comments callback error so reviews display correctly
* added text so reviewer sees status for review under moderation
* added new text string on edit review screen button
* added text replacement support to WordPress 3.8
= 1.1 = Dec 11, 2013
* fixed several php notices
* fixed issue where regular threaded comments weren’t being nested
* added new hooks which allow a custom review form
* added new sidebar module that show breakdown of ratings by star
* added user meta to hold review data across all blogs
* only store parent reviews so we can support review replies later
= 1.0 = Jan 10, 2013
* initial internal release
Comments (100)
Can I rate a seller with this plugin I just purchases Yes or No?
Hi,
Is this plug in still active and support for available?
Thanks
Yes, and actually, the big release is coming in the nearest time.
Oh sounds good. The price is steep compared to a similar plug in.
May I ask what the new release will change? 🙂
Hi Artem,
I am a bit confused.
You are/were handling a similar plug in too. Why two different plug ins for the same function? I can not see many differences.
Well, I can think of one or two (internal) reasons, but wanted to ask why you answered my question here but not on the other theme. (ok, your last post there was in 2016)
I just wonder which one would be better for my Classipress 4.x theme.
Thanks
Chris
Hello!
Critic plugin has been updated to version 1.4.0!
Changelog:
* Allow Users to change stars rating
* Allow admin to edit review star rating in wp-admin
* Do not allow empty stars ratings
* Validate title and description on review form submit
* Updated Raty lib
* Added translation for Russian language
Regards!
Hi Artem,
(1) Can anyone submit review? What if fake buyers submit fake reviews?
(2) Is it possible to allow ONLY the ACTUAL buyers (via woocommerce/wooclassify) who bought an item to write a review?
(3) Just from looking at the screenshot, it is unclear where those reviews would appear. Would the review stars appear on the author widget? Where do those reviews appear?
(4) Or it is the same as the ad-comment/feedback post where visitors can write comment on an ad?
Thank you.
Just posted questions in the Forum after purchasing the Plugin for Vantage. Do I need to post here as well?