User Ratings
In the free plugin you can get ratings on your recipe with comment ratings. The Premium plugin makes it even easier to get ratings by allowing your visitors to simply click on the stars within the recipe card to leave a rating, without having to leave the recipe card.
When visitors click on the stars it will then open a modal where they can decide to leave a comment as well. Comments will be a big trust factor for other visitors, so we try to make it as easy as possible for visitors to leave one.
Both comment and user ratings will be combined to an average that is shown both in the recipe and the recipe metadata.
Changing the User Ratings Modal
On the WP Recipe Maker > Settings > Star Ratings > User Ratings Modal page you will find settings to change the text and colors used in the modal:
The "Thank You Message" can be a great place to direct visitors to an email sign up form, for example. If they took the time to rate your recipe, they might be interested in joining your email list as well.
Settings for the modal colors in general can be found on the WP Recipe Maker > Settings > Custom Style page.
How to prevent bad user ratings
To prevent visitors from leaving bad ratings by just clicking on the stars we recommend using the "Force visitors to leave a comment" setting on the WP Recipe Maker > Settings > Recipe Ratings page. This forces people to actually leave a comment if they want to give the recipe a rating of 3 stars or less, for example:
Take note that you need to have the Comment Ratings feature enabled for this setting to show up.
Having a comment alongside a bad rating allows you to learn from it or interact with the visitor. Maybe the recipe can be improved or some things could be communicated better?
Can we edit User Ratings for a recipe?
The individual user ratings can be viewed and edited on the WP Recipe Maker > Manage > Features > Ratings page.
It's also possible to reset all User Ratings for a recipe on the WP Recipe Maker > Manage > Recipes page.
I can only seem to vote once from my house?
The User Ratings feature includes an IP check to prevent spam. Because of this you can probably only vote once from your house, even when using different devices. Take this into account when testing the feature.
I cannot click on the stars in the recipe
This usually happens because of a JavaScript problem caused by another plugin or your theme. Try these debugging steps or contact us.
I want vistors to just click on the stars to rate and not have it open a modal
In earlier versions of WP Recipe Maker this was indeed possible. In version 9.3.1 that option was removed, alongside this notice:
"As warned in our previous updates, Google has clearly indicated that anonymous recipe ratings are on thin ice. To make these star ratings more trustworthy we introduced Modal Mode for user ratingsto make sure visitors do not accidentally vote for your recipes and actually confirm their vote. Modal mode also makes it easier than ever for users to leave a quick written comment along with the rating. We have now removed the old method, so if you have User Ratings enabled it is automatically using Modal Mode.
For now, these votes can still be anonymous, but next updates will likely require more details to make sure recipe ratings can be trusted, both by Google and your visitors.
If you want, you could already enable the option to always require a comment alongside the rating. That can be done using the "Force visitors to leave a comment" setting on the WP Recipe Maker > Settings > Star Ratings page.
In general, we do not like taking away options, but we strongly feel like this is a necessary step for the food blogging space as a whole and to make sure your ratings do not become a liability if/when Google decides to take proactive corrective action. WP Recipe Maker reacted quickly with updates to help protect recipe trust. All other commonly used recipes plugins followed our lead and are also phasing out anonymous ratings."