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Frequently Asked Questions

Got questions? Here are answers to the most common ones. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, don’t hesitate to reach out.

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The Basics

What’s the difference between Reviews and Testimonials?

They’re similar but serve different purposes:

Reviews are about specific products. A customer buys your Blue Widget, uses it for a week, then leaves a 5-star review saying “This Blue Widget changed my life!” Reviews live on product pages and help other shoppers decide whether to buy.

Testimonials are about your business as a whole. Think of them as quotes for your homepage: “Working with Acme Co. was an absolute dream!” They’re not tied to any specific product.

Do I need WooCommerce to use Trustie?

It depends on what you want to do:

For product reviews — Yes, you need WooCommerce. Reviews are inherently about products, which WooCommerce provides.

For testimonials, Google reviews, and the floating widget — No WooCommerce needed. These features work on any WordPress site. You can collect testimonials, display your Google reviews, and show the floating widget without any e-commerce at all.

How do I turn features on and off?

Go to Tracksies > Settings > Features (or Trustie > Settings > Features if you only have Trustie installed).

You’ll see toggles for each feature — Testimonials, Reviews, Google Reviews, Floating Widget, Review Requests, and Moderation. Turn off anything you’re not using. Think of it like unplugging appliances in a tiny house — your site runs a little leaner and there’s less clutter in your admin.

What’s the floating widget?

It’s a small tab that sits on the side of your website. When a visitor clicks it, a panel slides out showing your latest reviews — product reviews, testimonials, and Google reviews all in one place.

The widget is enabled by default and appears on every page. You can configure its position, text, and colours, or turn it off entirely. Full guide: The Floating Widget

Does Trustie have a reviews page?

Yes! You can create a dedicated page that shows all your reviews in one place — product reviews, testimonials, and Google reviews with tabs and pagination.

Add the [trustie_reviews_page] shortcode to any page, then designate it as your official reviews page in Trustie > Settings > Layout. The floating widget and other internal links will point there.

If you’re using Trustie without WooCommerce, Trustie also creates an automatic /reviews/ URL on your site — no manual setup needed.

Full guide: Setting Up Your Reviews Page

My reviews page URL redirects to my home page — what’s wrong?

In almost every case, this is a stale rewrite rules issue — something in WordPress’s routing table is out of date. The fix takes about 10 seconds.

Go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes. You don’t need to change anything — just clicking Save tells WordPress to rebuild its URL routing table from scratch, which clears out any stale entries left behind by old plugins or version changes.

Then try the reviews page URL again. In 9 cases out of 10, it’ll work.

If it’s still redirecting, check:

  • Is the page Published? (not Draft or Private) — Pages > All Pages
  • Is the page’s slug conflicting with a WooCommerce endpoint? e.g. /shop/, /cart/, /checkout/, /my-account/. If your reviews page was saved with one of those slugs, WooCommerce will hijack the URL.
  • Any redirect plugins active? (Redirection, Yoast Premium redirects, Rank Math redirects). Check for a rule that might be catching the reviews URL.

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Product Reviews

Why aren’t my reviews showing up?

A few things to check:

  1. Check moderation — If auto-approve is off, reviews wait in the queue. Look in WooCommerce > Reviews for pending reviews.
  1. Verify the product ID — Double-check the product_id in your shortcode matches the actual product. You can find the ID in the URL when editing a product (look for post=123).
  1. No reviews yet — Shortcodes don’t show anything if there are no reviews to display. Try adding a test review first.
  1. Caching — Caching plugins save copies of your pages to make them load faster. But that means they might show an old version after you make changes. If you use one, clear your cache after adding or changing reviews.

Can customers edit their reviews?

Customers can’t edit reviews after submitting them — this prevents issues like changing a review after receiving a refund.

You can edit any review from WooCommerce > Reviews. This is handy for fixing obvious typos or removing inappropriate language while keeping the rest of the review intact.

Do customers need to be logged in to leave reviews?

WooCommerce controls this. By default, anyone can leave a review, but you can require purchase verification in WooCommerce > Settings > Products. This ensures only actual customers review products — which looks more trustworthy to other visitors.

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Testimonials

Where do I find submitted testimonials?

Go to Trustie > Testimonials in your WordPress admin. New submissions appear there waiting for your approval.

How do I approve testimonials?

  1. Go to Trustie > Testimonials
  2. You’ll see testimonials marked as “Pending”
  3. Hover over one and click Approve to publish it, or Trash to delete it

Only approved testimonials appear on your site via shortcodes.

Can I add testimonials manually?

Yes — maybe you received great feedback via email, or someone said something nice on social media. Here’s how:

  1. Go to Trustie > Testimonials > Add New
  2. Fill in the customer’s name and their quote
  3. Add optional details like company, photo, or rating
  4. Set status to Published
  5. Click Publish

I already have testimonials in another plugin — do I need to import them?

Not necessarily. Trustie can read directly from your existing testimonial post type without importing anything. Go to Trustie > Settings > Testimonials, select Use Existing Post Type, choose the post type, and map the fields. Trustie will display them with its own templates and styling — no data is copied or moved.

If you’d prefer to migrate the data into Trustie’s own post type, Trustie can detect and import from Strong Testimonials, Easy Testimonials, and Starter Templates. Look for the Import Testimonials section under the Testimonials tab.

Full guide: Import & Migration Tools

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Google Reviews

Why can’t I see my Google reviews?

A few things to check:

  1. API Key — Your Google API key needs the Places API enabled. Verify this in your Google Cloud Console.
  1. Place ID — Double-check your Place ID is correct. Use Google’s Place ID Finder to verify.
  1. Billing — Google requires billing to be set up on your Cloud project, even for the free tier. You almost certainly won’t be charged, but a payment method needs to be on file.
  1. Rate limits — If you’ve been testing a lot, you might have hit Google’s rate limits. Wait a day and try again.

Full setup guide: Connecting Google Reviews

How often do Google reviews sync?

Once per day by default. You can change this in Trustie > Settings > Google Reviews.

Daily is usually plenty — your Google reviews don’t change that often, and more frequent syncing means more API calls.

Are Google reviews cached?

Yes. Trustie saves a local copy of your Google reviews so your pages load instantly instead of fetching them from Google every time someone visits. This local copy refreshes based on your sync frequency setting (daily by default).

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Star Ratings

How do I change star colours?

Go to Trustie > Designer > Colours and look for the Star Rating Colours section. You’ll find settings for:

  • Filled Stars: The colour of earned stars
  • Empty Stars: The colour of unfilled stars

The live preview updates as you change colours. Once you’re happy, click Save.

Can I use hearts instead of stars?

Stars are the default, and there isn’t a built-in option to change them. If you need a custom icon for your brand, get in touch — we may be able to help.

How do I change the star size?

Star size is controlled per-shortcode using the size parameter:

[trustie_loop_stars size="20"]

This sets the size in pixels.

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Email Issues

Why aren’t my review request emails sending?

This is the most common question, and it’s usually one of these:

  1. Email delivery not configured — WordPress can write emails but can’t actually deliver them on its own. It needs a delivery service (called SMTP — think of it as the postal service for your website’s outgoing mail). Without it, emails are created but never reach anyone’s inbox. You need a free plugin like WP Mail SMTP to connect WordPress to an email service. Full guide: Review Request Emails
  1. Feature not enabled — Check Trustie > Settings > Request Emails and make sure the toggle is on.
  1. Delay hasn’t passed — If you set “7 days after order”, emails won’t go out until 7 days have passed since the order was placed.
  1. Order not processing — In Trustie Free, emails are triggered when an order reaches Processing status (payment received). If the order is still on hold or pending payment, the email timer hasn’t started yet. Check the order status in WooCommerce > Orders.

How do I test if emails work?

Install the WP Mail SMTP plugin (free). It has a Send Test Email feature under WP Mail SMTP > Tools > Email Test. If the test email arrives in your inbox, your Trustie emails will work too.

If the test fails, WP Mail SMTP will tell you what’s wrong — usually a configuration issue with your email service.

Can I customise the email template?

Yes. Edit the subject and message in Trustie > Settings > Request Emails. Use placeholders like {customer_name} and {product_names} to personalise each email.

For multi-step email sequences (a gentle follow-up if the first email doesn’t get a response), check out Trustie Pro.

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The Designer

Where is the Designer?

Go to Trustie > Designer (or Tracksies > Designer if you have the full plugin suite).

What can I customise?

The Designer gives you control over:

  • Colours: Primary brand colour, star colours, text, backgrounds, borders, widget tab colours
  • Border radius: How rounded your corners are
  • Drop shadows: That modern floating-card look (or disable for flat design)
  • Hover effects: Cards that respond when visitors hover over them

Do I need to know code to use the Designer?

Not at all. Everything is point-and-click with colour pickers and sliders. The live preview shows exactly how things will look before you save.

Does Trustie match my theme automatically?

Yes. Trustie reads your theme’s colour palette and pre-fills the Designer with your existing colours. Your theme’s body and heading fonts are automatically applied to all Trustie output — review cards, testimonial grids, the floating widget, everything.

The result is that Trustie looks like it was built into your theme from day one, not bolted on from somewhere else. Most sites won’t need to touch the Designer at all. Full details: The Designer

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SEO & Schema

Does Trustie help with SEO?

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is about making your site more visible in Google and other search engines. Trustie helps in two ways:

  1. Review content — A page full of genuine customer reviews gives search engines fresh, relevant content to index. This is especially true of your dedicated reviews page.
  1. Star ratings in Google search results — You’ve probably seen star ratings appear directly in Google search results (those gold stars under certain listings). Trustie makes this possible by adding special code to your pages that tells Google “this page has reviews, here’s the average rating.” Google calls these rich snippets, and they can significantly increase clicks to your site.

You don’t need to do anything to enable this. Trustie adds the code automatically behind the scenes.

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Accessibility

Is Trustie accessible?

Yes. Trustie meets WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards out of the box. WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the international standard for making websites usable by everyone, including people with disabilities. “Level AA” is the level most businesses aim for — and increasingly, the level that regulations like the EU’s European Accessibility Act require.

In practice, this means:

  • All forms and controls work with keyboard-only navigation — no mouse required
  • Screen readers (software that reads web pages aloud for people who can’t see the screen) properly announce form submissions, loading states, and content changes
  • Focus indicators — a visible outline that shows which element you’re currently on when pressing Tab — are clearly visible and use your brand colour
  • The floating widget can be closed with the Escape key
  • Animations are toned down for visitors who have “reduce motion” enabled in their device settings

No configuration needed — accessibility works automatically.

Can I customise the focus indicator colour?

Yes. Focus indicators use your Primary Colour from the Designer. Change your primary colour and focus indicators update to match.

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Troubleshooting

Shortcode shows as text instead of content

This means WordPress isn’t recognising the shortcode. Common causes:

  1. Typo in shortcode name — Check spelling carefully. It’s trustie_reviews not trustie_review (note the ‘s’).
  1. Plugin not active — Make sure Trustie is activated in Plugins > Installed Plugins.
  1. Page builder issue — Some page builders need shortcodes in a specific element type. Try using a Shortcode block (in the block editor) or Shortcode widget in your page builder.

Everything looks broken or weird

Theme conflicts can occasionally cause styling issues. Here’s how to narrow it down:

  1. Test with a default theme — Temporarily switch to Twenty Twenty-Four under Appearance > Themes. If Trustie looks fine there, your theme has conflicting styles.
  1. Adjust the Designer — Sometimes changing the border radius or disabling shadows helps things blend better with your theme.
  1. Clear your cache — Caching plugins can serve old styles. Clear your cache and do a hard refresh (Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows, Cmd+Shift+R on Mac).

Review counts seem wrong

Review counts are cached for performance. They update when new reviews are submitted, reviews are approved or deleted, or you clear your cache. If counts seem off, try clearing your caching plugin.

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Performance

Does Trustie slow down my site?

Trustie is designed to be lightweight. The floating widget loads after the rest of your page, and review content in the widget is fetched when a visitor clicks the tab — not when the page first loads.

To minimise impact:

  • Turn off unused features in Tracksies > Settings > Features — if you’re not using testimonials, disable them
  • Use appropriate shortcodes — trustie_loop_stars is lighter than trustie_rating for product loops
  • Use caching — Trustie works well with caching plugins

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Getting Help

Where can I report bugs?

Open an issue on GitHub — we read every one.

Is there priority support?

Free support is community-based. If you need faster, dedicated support, Trustie Pro includes priority support from our team.

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More Resources

How can we help?