About this plugin
Rewind Review Sync for Google Maps and Elementor pulls real Google Maps reviews into WordPress and stores each one as a post. From there you can display them two ways: with the bundled Google Reviews widget (works with free Elementor), or by building your own Loop Grid template using the plugin’s dynamic tags (requires Elementor Pro).
Reviews are fetched through the Apify platform, an external third-party service you connect with your own account. See the “External services” section below for exactly what is sent and when.
Key features
- Automatic sync — reviews refresh on a configurable schedule using WordPress Cron (default: every 24 hours)
- Manual sync — trigger a fresh fetch at any time from the plugin’s admin screen
- Design gallery and shortcode — preview ready-made layouts (sliders, grids, badges, popups and more) in the admin screen and place one anywhere with [rewind_reviews design="slider-header-shadow"]
- Bundled Elementor widget — slider, grid and list layouts with full style controls, no Elementor Pro required
- Loop Grid ready — every review field is available as an Elementor dynamic tag for your own templates
- Place-level data — the overall average rating and total review count are stored and available as tags
- No bundled libraries — built entirely on the WordPress HTTP API, WP-Cron and native Elementor APIs
Available dynamic tags
All tags appear under the Google Reviews group in the Elementor dynamic tags picker:
- Review Rating (1-5) — text and number categories
- Reviewer Photo — image category
- Review Date — text category, relative or formatted
- Reviewer Profile URL — text and URL categories
- Place Average Rating — text and number categories
- Total Review Count — text and number categories
The reviewer’s name and the review body are stored as the post title and post content, so use Elementor’s built-in Post Title and Post Content dynamic tags for those.
Requirements
- WordPress 6.5 or later
- PHP 7.4 or later
- Elementor 3.5 or later for the review widget
- Elementor Pro for Loop Grid and dynamic tags
- A free Apify account
Elementor is a hard requirement and is declared through the Requires Plugins header, so WordPress will not activate this plugin until Elementor is installed and active.
How it works
- Reviews are fetched from Google Maps by running the compass~google-maps-reviews-scraper actor on Apify
- Each review is saved as a post of the rewind_review custom post type
- Review metadata (rating, photo, date, profile URL) is stored in post meta
- Place-level data (average rating, total count) is stored as a site option
- Everything is exposed to Elementor as a widget and as dynamic tags
External services
This plugin connects to the services below. Apify is required for syncing reviews. Freemius is optional and only starts after you agree to it.
Google image servers are contacted by your visitors’ browsers when reviewer photos are shown.
Apify (required for syncing reviews)
com) to retrieve Google Maps reviews. It does not work without it.
What the service is used for: running the Google Maps Reviews Scraper actor, which collects the public reviews for the business URL you configure and returns them to your site.
What data is sent, and when: the Google Maps URL you enter in the plugin settings, and your Apify API token for authentication. The scraper is asked to include reviewer details, so each review is saved with the reviewer’s public name, profile photo address and profile link as well as the rating, text and date. This is public Google Maps information.
Data is sent only when you click Sync Now, or when the scheduled automatic sync runs. No request is made until you have entered your own Apify token and saved it.
com/
- Apify Terms of Service: https://docs.apify.com/legal/general-terms-and-conditions
- Apify Privacy Policy: https://docs.apify.com/legal/privacy-policy
Freemius (optional usage insights)
com) to learn how the plugin is used so it can be improved. Every feature of the plugin is free and works whether or not you opt in.
What happens by default: nothing is sent. After activation an opt-in screen asks whether you want to share information. Choose Skip and no data is sent to Freemius.
What data is sent if you opt in: your WordPress user’s name and email address, your site’s URL and title, the WordPress, PHP and plugin versions, the site language, and the list of installed plugins and themes with their versions. Freemius may also receive basic events such as activation, deactivation and uninstall. You can opt out at any time from Google Reviews → Account, which stops further data being sent.
com/
- Freemius Terms of Service: https://freemius.com/terms/
- Freemius Privacy Policy: https://freemius.com/privacy/
Google image servers (reviewer photos)
Reviews show the reviewer’s profile photo. com ). As with any image hosted elsewhere, this means the visitor’s IP address and browser details are visible to Google when a photo loads.
The plugin asks the browser not to send a referrer. Your site does not send any visitor data to Google itself.
- Google Terms of Service: https://policies.google.com/terms
- Google Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Source code and third-party assets
The admin screen is a React app. js and the other build files. To rebuild, run npm install and then npm run build in the plugin folder.
The plugin bundles the Freemius SDK in the freemius/ folder, licensed under GPLv3.
The admin screen is built with React and bundles these open-source libraries (all MIT licensed): Redux Toolkit and React Redux, React Router, and clsx. It also uses the React and i18n packages that WordPress itself provides. The Google logo shown in some layouts is a trademark of Google LLC and is used only to identify reviews that come from Google.
1. It is served from the plugin folder; no fonts, scripts or styles are loaded from an external server.