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A Google Reviews widget built around the five reviews Google actually gives it

Search for a Google business listing, import its reviews, choose which ones publish, and paste one snippet into any site builder. No Google login and no ownership check, because this reads public listing data. Google's public API returns 5 reviews per listing, so the whole widget is designed to make 5 look deliberate rather than thin.

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7-day full trial, no credit card. The free plan stays free.

pennygatebooks.com
Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves running around a corner of an independent bookshop, under a dark teal ceiling with trailing plants along the top shelf.Pennygate Books
5.0Based on 5 reviewsGoogle
Marta Reinholt2 weeks ago

Came in for one thing and left with four. The staff actually read what they sell, which is rarer than it should be. Whoever writes the shelf cards deserves a raise.

Deniz Ayverdia month ago

The secondhand table upstairs is dangerous. Found a 1974 paperback I have been chasing for years, for less than a coffee.

A mockup for Pennygate Books, an invented bookshop at an invented address. The reviews were written by us to illustrate the layout, and are not real customer reviews of any business.

5
Reviews Google returns per listing
40
Layouts in the studio
16
Themes, free on every plan
0
Google logins required
The number nobody quotes

Google's public API returns five reviews, and that is the API we use

Place Details caps its response at 5 reviews and offers no pagination, so five is the ceiling for anything reading it. Worse, those five are chosen by relevance, and relevance is not the same as representative. We found that out on a live listing while building this integration.

What the listing says
4.0153 ratings
  • 5
  • 4
  • 3
  • 2
  • 1

Mostly five stars, which is the picture a customer gets on Google.

What the API returned
  • Order took two hours and arrived cold.
  • Not what I ordered, and nobody answered the phone.
  • Paid extra for a topping that never turned up.
  • Third time in a row the order was wrong.
  • Was fine a year ago. Not any more.

Five reviews, five one-star ratings, ranked by relevance rather than by fairness.

The distribution and the counts are from our own field test of a live listing, written up in the article linked below. The five complaints are paraphrased and the business is unnamed, because the argument is about how the API samples reviews and not about one restaurant.

The test that produced those two panels

We pointed the integration at a real restaurant Google rates 4.0 stars across 153 ratings, where the five-star bar dwarfs every other. The API returned five reviews, and every single one of them was one star. Nothing was filtered and nothing was chosen by us. The full write-up, with the unedited screenshots and the response, is published in our field test of embedding Google reviews.

This is the reason the widget puts curation in front of you rather than publishing whatever arrives, and the reason the layouts below are built for five cards instead of fifty.

Try it here

Design your review widget right now, without signing up

Most of the question is whether it will look right on your site, and you should not have to hand over an email to find out. Switch layouts, try themes, and watch the same five reviews restyle. Connecting a real listing comes later.

Layout40 in the studio
Themeall 16 are free
5.0Based on 5 reviews
Marta Reinholt2 weeks ago

Came in for one thing and left with four. The staff actually read what they sell, which is rarer than it should be. Whoever writes the shelf cards deserves a raise.

Deniz Ayverdia month ago

The secondhand table upstairs is dangerous. Found a 1974 paperback I have been chasing for years, for less than a coffee.

The average and the star distribution on top, cards underneath. A preview, not the renderer: the widget itself is served by an edge function this page cannot import, so the geometry here is drawn to match. The reviews are the invented Pennygate Books set.

Build this with your own listing
Design

Five reviews, laid out on purpose

Five cards in a grid built for fifty looks like a page that failed to load. These three are shaped for a small set: an average with its distribution on top, one review set large, or one promoted with the rest reduced to initials. All 40 layouts and all 16 themes work with reviews.

5.0Based on 5 reviewsGoogle
Marta Reinholt2 weeks ago

Came in for one thing and left with four. The staff actually read what they sell, which is rarer than it should be. Whoever writes the shelf cards deserves a raise.

Deniz Ayverdia month ago

The secondhand table upstairs is dangerous. Found a 1974 paperback I have been chasing for years, for less than a coffee.

Review heroThe average and the distribution on top, cards underneath. Built for exactly this case.

They ordered in a title nobody else could find and rang me the day it arrived. Small thing, but it is why I stopped buying online.

Joanne Whitcombe
Quote wallOne review at a time, at size. Five reviews become five slides rather than five thin cards.
Samir Haddad2 months ago

Good coffee, quiet corner, and nobody hurries you along. I have written most of a dissertation in the window seat.

SpotlightOne review promoted, the rest reduced to initials and stars. Density without a wall of text.

A mockup for Pennygate Books, an invented bookshop at an invented address. The reviews were written by us to illustrate the layout, and are not real customer reviews of any business.

In place

A review says it is good. A photograph shows why.

Reviews do their strongest work next to the thing being reviewed, which is why the same feed can carry both. One section, one snippet, one place to curate.

pennygatebooks.com
A flat white in a dark ceramic cup on a pale terrazzo table, photographed from above.
Joanne Whitcombea month ago

They ordered in a title nobody else could find and rang me the day it arrived. Small thing, but it is why I stopped buying online.

A narrow shopping street of pale stone buildings with arched shopfronts, shaded by a tree canopy.
Marta Reinholt2 weeks ago

Came in for one thing and left with four. The staff actually read what they sell, which is rarer than it should be. Whoever writes the shelf cards deserves a raise.

A secondhand book table piled several layers deep with paperbacks, spines facing every direction.
Deniz Ayverdia month ago

The secondhand table upstairs is dangerous. Found a 1974 paperback I have been chasing for years, for less than a coffee.

A narrow aisle between two tall dark bookcases, receding towards a bright window at the far end.
Samir Haddad2 months ago

Good coffee, quiet corner, and nobody hurries you along. I have written most of a dissertation in the window seat.

Reviews and photography in one feed, on the invented Pennygate Books site. The review text is ours, written to illustrate the layout.

Curation

You choose which of the five go live

Every imported review waits as a card: approve it, pin it to the front, or remove it. Given how Google picks the five, this is not a nicety. It is the difference between a section that helps and a section that actively works against you.

Collect5 imported
Came in for one thing and left with four. The staff actually read what they sell, which is rarer than it should be. Whoever writes the shelf cards deserves a raise.Approved
The secondhand table upstairs is dangerous. Found a 1974 paperback I have been chasing for years, for less than a coffee.
They ordered in a title nobody else could find and rang me the day it arrived. Small thing, but it is why I stopped buying online.

The queue drawn as the product draws it: approve, pin or remove. The reviews are the invented Pennygate Books set.

Curating is not the same as faking

Dropping a review that is about a delivery app rather than about you is curation. Publishing five perfect reviews for a business rated three stars is a claim your customer checks against Maps in one tap, and a card can open its reviewer on Google so they can. Set the bar where you would be happy to be found out.

Setup

From a business name to a live widget in four steps

Four steps, in the order you meet them, each shown with what it actually produces. There is no Google sign-in step, because this flow genuinely does not have one.

  1. 01

    Find the listing

    Create a feed, add Google Reviews as a source, and search by business name or address. The picker runs on Google Places autocomplete, so it finds the same listings Maps does, service-area businesses included.

    No Google sign-in
    Find your business
    Pennygate Books
    Pennygate Books14 Pennygate, AshcombeSelect

    Name and address, which is everything the autocomplete returns. No star rating appears here because Google does not send one at this step.

  2. 02

    Import the reviews

    Pick the right listing and the reviews import. Google's public Place Details endpoint returns at most 5, chosen by its own relevance ranking, and we show you all 5 rather than quietly keeping the flattering ones.

    5 per listing
    Imported5 of 5
    • Marta Reinholt
    • Deniz Ayverdi
    • Joanne Whitcombe
    • Samir Haddad
    • Ellen Brackmann

    Five is the ceiling Google's public endpoint sets, not a plan limit. No tool clears it without the listing owner signing in.

  3. 03

    Curate and style

    Approve, pin or remove each review, then pick a layout and a theme. 40 layouts and 16 themes, with review-shaped ones among them.

    Every theme is free
    Design studio
    Review heroQuote wallSpotlight+37
    +12

    The preview is the real widget, rendered by the same script your site will load.

  4. 04

    Paste one snippet

    The embed dialog asks where the widget is going and hands out the right snippet for that host. Paste it once. It never changes as your reviews do.

    One paste, no developer
    Get the codeScript embed
    <link rel="preload" as="fetch" …><div id="collectsocials-8b3d04e5"></div><script src="…/api/widget"data-feed-id="…" data-token="…"defer></script>

    The real snippet shape, abridged. Your feed id and token are filled in for you.

A mockup for Pennygate Books, an invented bookshop at an invented address. The reviews were written by us to illustrate the layout, and are not real customer reviews of any business.

More than five

Five per listing. Add a listing per location.

The cap is per listing, not per widget. Each branch is its own source contributing its own 5, and one feed can hold as many as your plan allows: 3 sources on the free plan, 5 on Pro, 15 on Business and 30 on Scale.

Pennygate Books14 Pennygate, Ashcombe5 reviews
Pennygate Books, Harbour Road2 Harbour Road, Ashcombe5 reviews
Pennygate Books, The ArcadeUnit 6, The Arcade, Ashcombe5 reviews
One feed, 15 reviews
Where the line is

What this widget will not do

Three things a review widget can be built to do that this one is not, each with the reason. They cost us features. We think they are the reason to trust the rest of the page.

No star markup

We emit no aggregateRating structured data

Marking up your own site with your own review scores to win star snippets is self-serving review markup, which Google’s own structured-data guidelines rule out. The reviews render as readable text and the page stays inside the rules.

Official API only

The reviews come from Google’s Places API

That endpoint returns 5 reviews per listing and no more. We do not read Google Maps pages to get around it, because Google’s platform terms forbid extracting their content outside the API, and one enforcement action would take down every Google feed we serve at once.

Nothing invented

No review is ever written, padded or reworded by us

What Google returns is what you see in the queue, including the unflattering ones. You choose what to publish; nothing is generated to fill a layout out.

Compatibility

One widget, every website platform

A script tag is not universally installable: some builders sandbox custom code, others strip it. So the embed dialog asks where you are installing and hands out the right snippet for that host.

Script embed

Plain HTML, WordPress, Webflow, React

One script tag and one container div. The widget mounts in your page and renders inside a Shadow DOM, so its CSS and yours cannot interfere.

Wrapped script

Shopify

The same script with a page-width wrapper, because Shopify themes lay sections out with flexbox and would otherwise compress the container.

Iframe embed

Wix and Squarespace

Both sandbox or strip custom scripts, so these get an iframe that resizes itself as content loads. No clipped cards, no scrollbars.

Bare URL

Notion and Google Sites

Builders that cannot run scripts at all take a fixed-height frame by URL. Content scrolls inside it.

On WordPress you can skip the snippet entirely and install our plugin instead, which renders the feed from your own site.

One wall

Reviews are rarely the only proof a page needs

One feed can combine 10 platforms, so a Google review can sit beside a Facebook post, an Instagram reel and a YouTube video in the same section. Every platform is on the free plan except X (Twitter), which is premium for one reason: X charges for API access.

A couple silhouetted on a dune crest against a wide sunburst, ripples in the sand belowInstagram

Made the crest just before the sun did.

A city canal at night with pink and violet signage reflected the full length of the waterTikTok

The canal does this every night

Atlas & Pine7wFacebook

Stayed out for the last of the light and the whole lake turned pink with it.

A pink and violet sunset over dark mountain silhouettes and a still lake
Priya R.2 weeks agoGoogle

Booked the sunrise trip on the strength of the photos and it was better than the pictures. The guides knew exactly where to be and when.

Atlas & Pine@atlasandpine · 3dTwitter/X

Sunrise crew made the ridge before the storm broke. Whole set is up on the site now.

Marcus T.1 month agoGoogle

Second trip with them this year. Everything ran on time and the small group size is the whole point.

A surfer coming off the lip of a breaking wave, board clear of the waterInstagram

Off the top, first swell of the week.

A walker standing on a dark volcanic ridge as the sun breaks under storm cloud over the seaYouTube

Three days on the ridge trail, start to finish

Atlas & Pine5wFacebook

Lagoon day. Six boats out, nobody tipped in, and the water stayed that colour the whole afternoon.

Kayakers in red and yellow boats threading a turquoise lagoon between limestone cliffs
Hot-air balloons drifting over pale rock formations at dawnInstagram

Up before the balloons were.

A demo feed for an invented brand, showing 6 of the 10 live sources in one wall. The posts, reviewers and engagement numbers are illustrative, not product metrics. Every field on these cards is one the widget really renders, but the wall itself is drawn for this page rather than served by the widget.

Pricing

Google Reviews is not a paid add-on

It is on the free plan, at the same 5 reviews per listing everyone else gets, because that number is Google's and not a lever for us to pull. What you pay for is layouts, sources and sync speed.

Free, indefinitely
  • 7 of the 40 layouts
  • All 16 themes, plus the theme builder
  • Full curation: approve, pin, remove
  • 3 connected sources, so up to 3 listings

Free widgets carry a small CollectSocials credit link.

Paid, from $20/month
  • All 40 layouts, review-shaped ones included
  • 5 sources on Pro, 15 on Business, 30 on Scale
  • Faster sync for every platform that refreshes
  • Remove the credit link

Sources are the number that matters here: each Google listing is one. Full pricing breakdown.

FAQ

Google Reviews widget questions, answered straight

How many Google reviews can a widget show?

Five per listing. Google’s public Place Details endpoint returns a maximum of 5 reviews and offers no pagination, so that ceiling applies to any tool reading it, including this one. The only route to more is the Google Business Profile API, which returns every review but requires the owner or a manager of a verified listing to sign in and authorise it. If a widget shows you twenty reviews for a business you have not signed in for, it is not reading Google’s public API.

Do I need a Google Business Profile, or to own the business?

Neither. This source reads public listing data through Google Places, so there is no Google login, no OAuth screen and no ownership check anywhere in the flow. You search for the listing by name or address, pick it, and the reviews import. That also means it works for an agency setting a widget up on a client’s behalf.

What if Google returns no reviews for my listing?

It happens on a minority of profiles, most often service-area businesses: Google reports a rating and a review count but hands back an empty list of reviews, and no tool reading the public API can get around that. We check for it at the moment you add the listing, tell you plainly that Google returned nothing, and roll the source back so it does not sit in your account as an empty feed or use up one of your source slots. The one route that escapes it is the listing owner authorising access to their own Google Business Profile.

Do the reviews update automatically?

No, and this is the one place a Google feed differs from most of the sources we run. Google is deliberately left out of the automatic refresh schedule, so the reviews are collected once, when you add the listing, and stay as they were until you add it again. Most other platforms sync on your plan’s schedule, from every 24 hours on the free plan down to every 10 minutes on Scale. A few carry their own floor whatever your plan says: X (Twitter) because its API is metered, and YouTube because it refreshes when a widget is viewed rather than on a timer.

Will this give me star ratings in Google search results?

No, and that is a deliberate choice rather than a missing feature. Star snippets come from aggregateRating structured data, and marking up your own website with your own review scores is self-serving review markup that Google’s structured-data guidelines exclude from rich results. We publish no such markup on your behalf. On a script embed the reviews render as readable text in your page; on the builders that only accept an iframe, Wix and Squarespace among them, they render inside the frame.

Can I hide bad reviews?

You can approve, pin or remove any of the 5 before they publish, and most people should curate, because Google ranks the five it returns by relevance rather than by fairness. That is a real problem: on a business Google rates 4.0 across 153 ratings, the API handed us five reviews and every one of them was a single star. Curating for relevance is reasonable; publishing five perfect reviews for a business that has not earned them is the kind of thing a customer checks against Maps in one tap.

I have several locations. Can they go in one widget?

Yes, and this is the honest way past the five-review cap. Each listing is its own source, contributing up to 5 reviews, and one feed can combine as many of them as your plan allows: 3 sources on the free plan, rising to 30 on Scale. Three branches in one feed is fifteen reviews, all of them genuinely from Google.

Which website builders does it work with?

WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, Notion, Google Sites, plain HTML and React. The embed dialog asks where the widget is going and hands out the right snippet for that host, because some builders sandbox custom scripts and others strip them. WordPress can skip the code entirely with our plugin.

Is the Google Reviews widget free?

Yes. Google Reviews is not a paid add-on: it is on the free plan along with every other platform except X (Twitter), which is premium for one reason, which is that X charges for API access. The free plan includes 7 of the 40 layouts, all 16 themes and the theme builder, and full moderation. The 7-day trial opens everything with no credit card.

Can the same widget show more than reviews?

Yes. One feed can combine 10 platforms, so a Google review can sit beside an Instagram photo, a Facebook post and a YouTube video in the same section. For a shop or a restaurant that is usually the point: the review says it is good and the photograph shows why.

Put your reviews on your site tonight

Search your listing, pick what publishes, choose a layout, paste one snippet. No Google login at any point, and the 7-day trial asks for no card.

Create your widget free

Works with WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, Notion and plain HTML.