Recipe Reviews
Features the strongest credible reader review near the top of a recipe post, so new cooks see real social proof before they bounce.
Version 0.2.31 · About fifteen minutes start to finish · Starts in admin-only preview so nothing goes public until you say so
You need your licence key and the plugin zip. Both are in your purchase email from Draftili, called "Thanks for upgrading". After the first install, new versions appear under Plugins > Updates.
What's new
- 0.2.31: Posts set to Use Recipe Reviews now show the Spotlight in your usual site-wide spot. Members-only posts no longer show the Spotlight to visitors who cannot read them. Posts where the whole article sits in one Group block now get the Spotlight above the Ingredients heading. Clicking Sync on the Account page now checks for an update straight away.
- 0.2.30: Finding your own review boxes is stricter, so fewer posts are flagged by mistake. A post is checked again as soon as you update it.
- 0.2.29: New Your own reviews screen for posts where you already added a review box by hand.
What you need
- WP Recipe Maker (free is fine) with comment ratings turned on the way you already collect them
- Approved recipe comments and ratings on at least a few posts (the plugin never invents quotes)
- Your purchase email ("Thanks for upgrading"), with your licence key and the zip
- About fifteen minutes, and a willingness to leave the Overview tab open while the first archive scan runs
You do not need Recipe Return, Recipe Affiliate, or any Amazon setup. Reviews stands alone.
Works with WP Recipe Maker comment ratings. Create and Tasty Recipes are not supported.
What it does (and does not do)
Does: picks the strongest credible approved review for each recipe and places a Featured reader review block high in the post. By default it sits just above your Ingredients heading.
Posts where you already added a review box yourself: Recipe Reviews shows nothing extra on those until you choose. See Posts with your own review boxes below.
Does not: invent, paraphrase, or combine reviews. If nothing qualifies, the block renders nothing. It does not edit your post content. Switching visibility back to administrators only (or deactivating the plugin) removes the public block after cache clear.
Install and activate
- Plugins > Add New Plugin > Upload Plugin
- Choose the zip > Install Now > Activate
- If WordPress asks, choose Replace current with uploaded
- The plugin folder must stay
recipe-reviews. If a second Recipe Reviews appears in your plugin list, deactivate and delete the older one. - Go to Recipe Reviews > Licence in the left menu
- Paste the licence key from your purchase email > Activate licence
Do this only: paste the key on Recipe Reviews > Licence.
Do not click Freemius Allow & Continue, Re-send, or any confirm-email loop. If you land on that screen, leave it and go back to Recipe Reviews > Licence.
After a clean activate, the Get started screen opens. The left menu under Recipe Reviews then shows Recipe Reviews, Get started, Your own reviews, Licence and Account. The main screen has the tabs Overview, Stats, Design, Placement & rules, Rollout and Spotlights.
Get started walks you through four steps: activate your licence, choose where the Spotlight appears, check your Spotlights (press Looks good), then show it to your readers. This guide covers the same steps in more detail.
Front-end spotlights need an active licence. If the licence expires, the public block stops showing until you renew.
After the first install, new versions appear under Plugins > Updates. If a new version is not showing yet, see Updates below.
Part one: safe preview (do this first)
Do these in order. Nothing is public until you change Visible to on Rollout.
Step 1 · Confirm licence, then open Overview
Recipe Reviews (left menu) opens on Overview.
You should see scan status, how many recipes were found, how many spotlights are ready, and waiting buckets. Keep Visible to on Administrators only (safe preview) until you have checked a few recipes yourself.
Step 2 · Run the archive scan
On Overview, press Rescan all recipes (or start the scan if the plugin prompts you).
Leave the tab open. The scan runs in small batches while the page stays open. Counters update as each batch finishes. Existing spotlights stay live throughout.
What it is doing: walking published posts that contain a recipe card, reading approved top-level comments and WPRM ratings, and preparing a spotlight where the rules allow one.
What it skips: posts without a recipe card. Those never show a spotlight.
When it finishes, Overview should show prepared spotlights (or explain why recipes are still waiting). If everything stays at zero, open Placement & rules and check the minimum rating settings (Step 4), then scan again.
Waiting lists on Overview are clickable. Open Spotlights from a waiting row to jump straight into Choose review for that recipe.
Step 3 · Check Design (optional first pass)
Recipe Reviews > Design
Defaults are fine for a first look:
- Block heading (default: Featured reader review)
- Style: Subtle (pale box with a coloured edge), Prominent (filled panel in your accent colour), Minimal (no box, just a rule above) or Custom (set every colour yourself)
- Heading size, Quote size and Line height
- Accent colour, seeded from your theme. Use my theme colours reads it again. Custom also lets you set Block background, Quote text and Stars.
- Optional Rating line ("Rated 4.8 out of 5 by 47 readers") when a recipe has enough ratings
Use the on-screen preview, then Save design.
Step 4 · Placement & rules
Recipe Reviews > Placement & rules
Recommended first settings (these are the defaults):
| Setting | Suggested start |
|---|---|
| Position | Automatic (first choice, then a backup) |
| First choice | Heading contains: Ingredients |
| If that isn't available on a post, use | After paragraph 4 (or Before H2 #1 if your posts use a clear early H2) |
| Don't place above | Paragraph 3 or the first H2, whichever comes later (recommended) |
| Reviews to show | 1 for the first visual check (you can use 1 to 3 later) |
| Automatic rotation | Rotate featured reviews automatically: on. Refresh every 30 days. Turn it off if you want quotes to stay until you change them. |
| Minimum recipe rating | Keep the default (4.0 stars) unless you know you need looser |
| Ratings-only fallback | On if you want the average when there is no useful written review |
| Block keywords | Optional. Leave empty at first. Add site words later (one per line or commas) so reviews containing them do not auto-qualify |
A heading match uses the first h2 to h4 in the post body whose text contains your words. "Ingredients" also matches "Ingredients to make…". Headings inside the WP Recipe Maker recipe card are ignored on purpose.
If that heading or paragraph sits inside a layout block (a Group, Columns, Cover, Quote or Kadence row), the review goes above or below the whole block, never inside it.
If your posts use a content heading like "Important Ingredients", that can match "Ingredients". Change the First choice heading text, or use After paragraph or the shortcode, if that lands in the wrong place.
Other position: Only where I add the shortcode. Place [recipe_reviews] yourself.
Press Save. Changing qualification rules (minimum rating, ratings-only, rotation, block keywords, review count) re-runs the archive scan. The screen will tell you.
Step 5 · Preview on a live recipe (admin only)
While logged in as an administrator, open a recipe that already has a strong approved written review.
You should see the spotlight in the first choice spot (or the backup).
Check:
- The quote belongs to that recipe
- Only the reviewer's first name is shown
- Stars match the WPRM comment rating
- The block sits where you expect (not inside the recipe card)
- Read all reviews reaches the comment area
- Desktop and mobile both look right
If a recipe has no qualifying review, nothing appears. That is correct.
Step 6 · Spotlights (pin, hide, never use, choose)
Recipe Reviews > Spotlights
One row per recipe with a prepared spotlight, and the exact quote it will print. Hover the ? next to each action for a short tip.
- Pin / Unpin: keep this quote fixed; automatic rotation will not replace it
- Hide / Show: turn the Featured reader review off for this recipe only. Comments stay on the post
- Never use / Allow again: ban one comment from Spotlights, rotation, and Choose review. The comment stays on the post. Allow again undoes it. Ban survives rescans and updates
- Show another: swap to a different qualifying review for this recipe
- Choose review: open the picker under that row (stays in place; no jump to the top of the list)
- Use this review: make that comment the Spotlight. You should see "Spotlight set for {recipe title}." Overview waiting/ready counts update straight away
In Choose review you can switch between qualifying comments and Show all approved comments (including ones that did not auto-qualify). Blocked (Never use) comments appear in their own list so you can Allow again.
From the Comments screen
- Go to Comments in the left menu.
- Hover an approved comment on a recipe.
- Click Use as live Spotlight.
- If that recipe already has a Spotlight, click Replace live Spotlight to confirm.
The comment is pinned, so automatic rotation will not replace it. The comment that is already showing says Live Spotlight.
Read a few before readers do.
Posts with your own review boxes
Recipe Reviews > Your own reviews
Some posts already have a reader review you pasted in by hand. Recipe Reviews finds these and lists them here. Until you choose, it shows nothing extra on those posts, so readers never see two boxes.
What gets flagged: a styled box (such as a Group, callout or quote block) with a review heading like "What readers are saying", or review-style content like stars with a quote, or "left 5 stars and said". Any box you mark yourself (see below) is always listed. Recipe cards and tables of contents are never flagged.
For each post, pick one choice under What to do:
| Choice | What readers see |
|---|---|
| Keep mine and skip (the default) | Your box stays. No Spotlight on that post. |
| Use Recipe Reviews | Your box is hidden and the Spotlight shows in your usual site-wide spot from Placement & rules, the same as the rest of your site. If the post has no qualifying review yet, your box stays. |
| Not a review | We got it wrong. Your box stays and the Spotlight shows as normal. |
- Pick a choice in the What to do column.
- Click Save changes.
To change many at once: tick the posts, choose from Bulk actions, then click Apply to ticked posts. Use the filters (All, Keep mine, Use Recipe Reviews, Not a review) and Search by title to find posts.
Your post content is never changed. Use Recipe Reviews only hides your box when the page is shown, so you can switch back at any time.
Mark a box yourself
If one of your review boxes is missing from the list, add the CSS class drr-manual-quote to it.
- Block editor: select the box, open the block settings, then Advanced, then Additional CSS class(es). Type
drr-manual-quote. - Classic editor: open the Text tab and wrap the box like this:
<div class="drr-manual-quote">...</div>
Then click Update on the post. The post is checked again as soon as you update it. To check every post again, click Check my posts again on Your own reviews. You can leave the page while it runs.
Part two: show it to readers
Only do this after admin preview looks right.
Step 7 · Rollout: selected recipes first
Recipe Reviews > Rollout
Work down this list, not straight to the bottom:
- Visible to > Selected recipes below
- Tick a small handful of prepared recipes (the list fills after the archive scan)
- Save rollout
Readers then see the block only on those posts. Give it a couple of weeks, re-read quotes on Spotlights, then widen.
Step 8 · Widen when you are happy
- Add more selected recipes, or
- Set Visible to to Every eligible recipe (or press Show it to everyone on Get started)
Saving clears the whole cache for you in WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache and LiteSpeed Cache. With any other page cache, clear it yourself after changing rollout so logged-out visitors see the update.
Safe rollback
Switch Visible to back to Administrators only (safe preview) or deactivate the plugin. No post content is rewritten, so the public block disappears after the page cache is purged.
Part three: Stats and ongoing care
Recipe Reviews > Stats
- Written reviews and star ratings across scanned recipes
- Reviews per month
- Most-reviewed recipes
- Spotlight engagement (impressions and Read all reviews clicks over the last 30 days)
Rescan from Overview when you have added many new recipes, or after changing Placement & rules qualification settings.
Members-only posts
If a post is locked by Paid Memberships Pro, MemberPress or Restrict Content Pro, visitors who cannot read it do not see the Spotlight. Members who can read the post see it as normal.
Recommended: exclude members-only posts from page caching. Most caches already skip logged-in members, but if yours does not, members could get the visitor copy without the Spotlight.
Using another membership plugin? A developer can use the drr_spotlight_post_restricted filter (return true to hide the Spotlight on a post).
Licence and updates
- Activate only via Recipe Reviews > Licence with the key from your purchase email
- One licence covers one site
- If Activate fails because the key is already active on another site, deactivate it there first, or reply to your purchase email
- Do not edit wp-config.php for this plugin
- Do not chase Freemius email confirmation
- Get new versions from Plugins > Updates
Update not showing? Click Sync
- Go to Recipe Reviews > Account. (Or Recipe Reviews > Licence > Change or remove this licence, which opens the same page.)
- Click Sync (the link with the circular arrow).
- Go to Plugins. The new version should now show, ready to update.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | What to try |
|---|---|
| Confirm-email / Allow & Continue screen | Leave it. Use Recipe Reviews > Licence and paste the key only |
| Licence already active on another site | Deactivate it on the other site first, or reply to your purchase email |
| Scan stuck at zero | Keep Overview open; press Rescan all recipes; confirm posts use WPRM recipe cards |
| No block on a recipe | No qualifying approved review yet, recipe is outside Rollout selection, still in admin preview, licence inactive, the post is set to Keep mine and skip on Your own reviews, or the post is members-only |
| Block for you but not for readers | Still on Administrators only, or page cache serving old HTML |
| Wrong quote | Use Spotlights: Show another, Choose review, Pin, Hide, or Never use. Check comments are approved and top-level |
| My own review box and the Spotlight both show | Check the post on Your own reviews. If it is not listed, mark the box with drr-manual-quote and update the post. If it is set to Not a review, change it |
| Set to Use Recipe Reviews but my box still shows | The post has no qualifying review yet, so your box stays until one arrives. Clear the page cache too |
| New version not in Plugins | Recipe Reviews > Account > Sync, then check Plugins |
| Spotlight colours missing on some posts (WP Rocket) | If you use Remove Unused CSS, safelist drr-review-spotlight and drr-review-spotlight--prominent, then clear used-CSS / cache |
| Lands on "Important Ingredients" (or similar) | First choice "Heading contains: Ingredients" matched that H2. Change the First choice heading text, use After paragraph, or the shortcode |
Caching
From version 0.2.28, when the featured review changes, Recipe Reviews automatically clears the cache for just that recipe post if you use WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, BigScoots Cache, WP Super Cache or Nginx Helper.
The official Cloudflare plugin, SiteGround Optimizer and Breeze only offer a whole-site clear (or need a Cloudflare API key), so the plugin does not clear them for you. After you change a Spotlight, clear that page's cache yourself (or purge the URL in Cloudflare). Otherwise the new review shows once the cache naturally refreshes.
Developers can hook the drr_review_spotlight_changed action to clear a URL themselves.
Feedback and help
James would love your thoughts.
Tell him:
- Whether the spotlight sits where cooks actually decide
- Whether the selected quotes feel fair and useful
- Whether Never use vs Hide is clear
- Anything confusing on Overview, Placement & rules, Rollout, Spotlights, Your own reviews or Licence
Stuck? Reply to your purchase email or email james@draftili.com.
Draftili · Recipe Reviews · Setup guide v0.2.31 · October 2026