Reviews Page turns your existing review archive into a dedicated “[Your Brand] Reviews” page that shows your total review count, your average rating, and every individual guest review linked back to the property it describes, so a search for your brand plus “reviews” lands guests on your own site instead of a booking platform.
What it does #
Right now, a guest who searches “[Your Brand] reviews” is more likely to land on Airbnb, Vrbo, or Google than on your own website, simply because that is where most guest reviews live online. Reviews Page closes that gap. It takes the review archive your site already has, usually at yoursite.com/reviews/, and turns it into a real, fully written-out page built to rank for that search and to be quoted directly when someone asks an AI assistant about your reviews.
For example, “Sunset Rentals Reviews” becomes a page headed “Sunset Rentals Reviews”, showing 254 guest reviews with an average rating of 4.8 out of 5, followed by every individual review, newest first. Each review shows the guest’s name, their star rating (when they left one), the month of their stay, the booking channel if it is known (for example, “via Airbnb”; a review left on a direct booking reads “via” followed by your own site’s domain, such as “via sunsetrentals.com”), and, when the specific property can be identified, a “Stayed at: [Property Name]” link straight to that listing.
Above the list, a search box lets guests look for what they care about, such as “hot tub” or “walk to the beach”, with the matching words highlighted in the results. Under the box, topic chips show the subjects guests mention most across all your reviews, each with its count, for example “Pool (137)”. One click on a chip shows the reviews about that topic.
On this page:
- Guests see your total review count and average rating at a glance, plus, once you have rated reviews, a star-by-star breakdown of how many 5-star, 4-star, and so on reviews you have.
- Guests can search the reviews by keyword, or click a topic chip to read every review about the pool, the kitchen, or whatever else your guests bring up most. They can also sort the list (newest, oldest, highest rated) and narrow it to one property.
- Every review with real text on it appears. A review with no text, or one you have hidden, never appears here.
- A review with no rating, or with a rating that does not make sense (below 1 or above 5), still appears in the list; it is simply not counted toward the average or the star breakdown.
- Reviews that can be matched to a property on your site link straight to it. A review that cannot be matched still shows, just without that link.
- Long lists of reviews paginate automatically instead of loading everything onto one page.
How to turn it on #
1. Switch on Reviews Page #
In the HomeRunner Toolkit Hub, switch on Reviews Page, listed under Reviews.
Before it turns on, HomeRunner checks that nothing else on your site is already using the reviews page address. It refuses to enable, and tells you exactly what to fix, if:
- Your site is still using plain, non-“pretty” web addresses (turn on a pretty permalink structure under Settings, Permalinks first).
- A page or post already exists at that address. Move or delete it before trying again.
- Something else on your site is already routing that same address.
- An active Rank Math redirect touches that address.
Resolve whatever it flags, then try switching it on again.
Switching on Reviews Page also switches on Property Rating Stats, which keeps the review markup in your property pages valid for Google. If you turn Property Rating Stats off afterward, it stays off.
2. Decide who builds the page #
By default, Reviews Page owns the entire layout of your reviews page (Own the archive layout, on by default). Most operators should leave this on.
If you would rather keep your own page-builder design for that page, turn this off, add the [homerunner_reviews_page] shortcode where you want the reviews to appear, and check Builder-mode confirmation once your layout shows the reviews. The page’s search-engine signals (its title, whether it is indexed, its sitemap listing) stay off in this mode until you confirm it, so the page never claims to show something it does not.
3. Set your brand name and page size #
Add a Brand name override if you want a different name than your site title to appear in the page title and intro. Change Reviews per page if you do not want the default of 20.
4. Choose whether guests can search (optional) #
Guest search is on by default. A keyword search box appears above the reviews once your review index has been built, and only while Reviews Page owns the page layout (step 2). Turn it off if you would rather show the plain list. You can also replace the hint text inside the empty box with your own Search box placeholder; leave it empty to keep “Search reviews”.
Topic chips are on by default too. They sit under the search box and list the subjects guests mention most, most mentioned first, with a count on each. Set Chips shown to the number you want, from 1 to 12 (the default is 8), or turn the chips off and keep the search box on its own.
Sort and property filters are on by default as well. Under the chips, a Sort control orders the reviews newest first, oldest first, or highest rated, and a Property picker narrows the list to one home, with the number of reviews next to each name. The two work together with the search box and the chips: a guest can pick a home and then search “pool” within it, or click a topic chip to read that subject for that home alone. Each filtered view has its own address (for example /reviews/?rp_property=123 or /reviews/?rp_sort=oldest) that can be shared or bookmarked; search engines are told not to index those views, so your main reviews page stays the one that ranks. Turn the filters off here if you prefer the search box on its own. Two things to know: a property view shows up to 60 reviews on the page, and the “Stayed at” link on any card opens that home’s own page with all of its reviews; “Oldest first” follows the date each review was left in your booking platform.
5. Fill in your business details (optional) #
Add your sameAs profiles (your Google Business Profile, social accounts, OTA profiles, your Revyoos page), an entity description, a telephone number, and an address, if you want your business more fully described to search engines. None of this is required to publish the page.
6. Customize the wording (optional) #
Override the intro paragraph and meta description if you want your own wording instead of the built-in copy. Both accept {brand}, {count}, and {average} placeholders that fill in automatically.
7. Save #
Save your settings. Your review count and average refresh right away, and keep themselves current automatically from then on (see Tips below).
Settings #
| Setting | What it controls |
|---|---|
| Brand name override | The name shown in the page title, intro, and business information. Empty uses your site title. Default: empty. |
| Accent color | A hex color for the booking button, bars, and highlights. Empty uses the site brand accent from Toolkit Settings, or the neutral default when no palette is set (see Brand Palette). Default: empty. |
| Sidebar top offset | How far, in pixels, to push the pinned rating summary down on desktop so a sticky site header does not cover it as the page scrolls. Leave it at 0 and the page measures your sticky header for you, whether it is a UIkit sticky header (YOOtheme, for example) or a header your theme pins in place. Enter a number from 1 to 400 to override the measurement with your header’s height. On narrow screens the summary stacks above the reviews, so the offset has no effect there. Default: 0. |
| Schema entity type | Whether your business is described to search engines as an Organization or a LocalBusiness (a physical, address-based business). Default: Organization. |
| sameAs profiles | One link per line (Google Business Profile, social accounts, OTA profiles, your Revyoos page) tying your business to those other identities online. Default: none. |
| Entity description | A short description of your business included in your business information. Default: empty. |
| Telephone | Your business phone number, included in your business information when set. Default: empty. |
| Address | Street, city, state, postal code, and country, included in your business information when set. Default: empty. |
| Intro paragraph | The opening sentence on the reviews page. Accepts {brand}, {count}, {average}. Empty uses the built-in wording. Default: empty. |
| Meta description | The description search engines show under your page’s title in results. Same placeholders. Default: empty (built-in wording). |
| Reviews per page | How many reviews show before the page paginates (1 to 100). Default: 20. |
| Guest search | A keyword search box above the reviews, with the matching words highlighted. It appears once the review index is ready, and only while Reviews Page owns the page layout. Default: on. |
| Search box placeholder | The hint text inside the empty search box, up to 120 characters. Empty uses “Search reviews”. Default: empty. |
| Topic chips | Clickable chips under the search box for the subjects guests mention most, each with its count. A click shows the reviews about that topic. Default: on. |
| Chips shown | How many chips appear, most mentioned first (1 to 12). Default: 8. |
| Sort and property filters | Whether the sort control and the property picker appear in the search form. On by default; shown with the search box once the review index is ready, and only while Reviews Page owns the page layout. |
| Channel strip | Shows a per-channel breakdown (for example, “Airbnb (120), Vrbo (80)”) in the page header. Reviews left on a direct booking are listed under your site’s domain. Default: off, until you have confirmed every booking channel is tagging its reviews consistently. |
| Own the archive layout | When on, Reviews Page builds the entire page for you. Turn off only if your own page-builder layout will show the reviews instead. Default: on. |
| Builder-mode confirmation | Only relevant when “Own the archive layout” is off. Confirms your layout shows the reviews, which turns the search-engine signals on. Default: off. |
Tips #
- If reviews you expect to see are missing, check Review visibility first. Hidden reviews, and reviews with no text, never appear here, by design.
- Reviews arrive on this page through Review importer. If a review is missing entirely rather than just hidden, confirm it has been imported before troubleshooting Reviews Page itself.
- The search box, the topic chips and the filters appear only once your review index has finished building. Right after you turn Reviews Page on, and again after each Toolkit update, they can be missing for a short while as the index rebuilds, usually within about ten minutes, longer on a site with many thousands of reviews. The Guest search line on the settings panel tells you where things stand: available on the archive, waiting for the review index, needs takeover mode, or off.
- A search needs at least two letters. Results show up to 60 matching reviews under a line such as “Showing 60 of 137 reviews that mention “pool””. When more than 400 reviews match, the count shows as “400+”.
- A chip searches the whole topic, so “Cleanliness” finds reviews that praise a spotless kitchen as well as ones that use the word clean. Start typing in the box after clicking a chip and the search switches back to your own words.
- Search results and topic views are kept out of search engines on purpose. Only the plain reviews page is indexed, so your rankings are unaffected.
- If your site runs Google Analytics or Tag Manager, each search and chip click is reported as a reviews page search event that carries the words or topic searched, so you can see what guests look for. See How conversion tracking works on HomeRunner.
- Review Showcase can show the same most-mentioned topics as a line above its review cards on any page of your site.
- Fill in your sameAs profiles and address once, even if you never look at them again. It strengthens how clearly search engines understand who the reviews belong to.
- The count and average at the top of the page come from a snapshot the plugin keeps current, not a fresh calculation on every visit, so the page stays fast no matter how many reviews you have. It refreshes automatically at least once a day, right after you save a change on this settings screen, and any time you click Rebuild now on the settings screen’s status card.
- This page deliberately does not add the markup that sometimes makes Google show a star rating next to a search result. That markup is only meant for reviews a business collected itself, and these reviews originate on booking sites before being imported here, so adding it would not be a legitimate use of it. Your review count and average are still fully visible in the page’s own text, which is what shows up in search results and what AI assistants read when they cite your reviews.
- If your reviews page used to live at a different web address (for example, after a permalink structure change), old links redirect to the new one automatically. Once you have confirmed the new address is working correctly, use Make permanent (301) on the settings screen’s status card so browsers and search engines cache the redirect for good.