Add Google reviews to Joomla

Joomla puts this in a Custom module, which you then assign to a template position and to the pages it should appear on. Before you start, check one global setting — Joomla's text filters strip <script> for every user group except Super Users, and they do it silently on save.

The snippet

Build a widget in the app, press Install, and you get three lines:

<div data-rpi="your-widget-id" class="rpi"></div> <a href="https://reviewsplugin.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Verified by ReviewsPlugin</a> <script src="https://cdn.reviewsplugin.com/embed.js"></script>

Copy it from the app rather than from here — your-widget-id is unique to each widget you build, and a placeholder id is the single most common reason a widget renders as Unable to load reviews.

Reviews on selected pages

A Joomla module appears wherever its position is rendered, and you choose which menu items it shows on.

Check System → Global Configuration → Text Filters first. Your group needs No Filtering, or the script line will not survive.
Go to System → Manage → Site Modules and press New, then choose Custom. (Joomla 4 uses the same path. On Joomla 3 it was Extensions → Modules.)
Press Toggle Editor to get the source view, and paste all three lines.
On the Module tab pick a Position in your template.
On the Menu Assignment tab choose the pages, then save.

Title *Customer reviews

Module Menu Assignment Options Advanced Permissions

<div data-rpi="your-widget-id" class="rpi"></div> <a href="https://reviewsplugin.com">Verified by ReviewsPlugin</a> <script src="…/embed.js"></script>

Toggle Editor

A Custom module with the editor toggled to source. This is a drawing, not a capture — Joomla has no public demo we could reach, so it is redrawn from the screenshot in Joomla's own manual. Pasting into the rich editor instead lets TinyMCE apply its filter on top of Joomla's.

That is the whole job. Published, the page shows this — a live widget, running the same snippet described above:

yoursite.com/about

What our customers say

Verified by ReviewsPlugin

Not a picture — this is the widget itself, loading real reviews as you read.

A badge on every page

Same module type, different assignment. A footer position plus On all pages is the whole trick.

Create a second Custom module for the badge.
Set its Position to a footer position in your template — footer in Cassiopeia.
On Menu Assignment, choose On all pages.
Save & Close.

Module Menu Assignment Options Advanced Permissions

Module AssignmentOn all pages

<div data-rpi="your-badge-id" class="rpi"></div> <a href="https://reviewsplugin.com">Verified by ReviewsPlugin</a> <script src="…/embed.js"></script>

Position footer plus On all pages on the Menu Assignment tab. Joomla renders the module wherever the template outputs that position — also redrawn from Joomla's manual rather than captured.

Before you decide it failed

Four checks, in this order

Look at the published page, not the editor. Most builders do not run third-party JavaScript inside their own canvas, so an empty box there means nothing either way.
Count the loaders. View source and search for embed.js. It should appear exactly once, however many widgets the page has.
Check both widths. Reviews are taller on a phone than you expect, and some containers clip rather than grow.
Confirm the attribution is visible and still a sibling of the widget, not inside it — on the free plan that is a condition of use.

If nothing appears

Joomla strips scripts in two independent places, which is what makes this confusing:

Global text filters. System → Global Configuration → Text Filters. Every group except Super Users gets the Default Forbidden List, which includes script. Set No Filtering for the group you are in — and only for a group you trust, since it is a real security setting.
The editor's own filter. TinyMCE has a separate Use Joomla Text Filter option and sanitises regardless. Use Toggle Editor, or set your editor to None while pasting.
The module is unpublished. New modules default to unpublished in some workflows. Check the status column.
The position does not exist in your template. You can see every position the template outputs by adding ?tp=1 to your site URL — but only after switching it on, or the parameter does nothing and looks broken. In Joomla 5 go to System → Templates → Site Templates Styles → Options and set Preview Module Positions to Enabled. The positions are then outlined in red on the front end.
Check the widget id. Unable to load reviews means the script ran and the id in data-rpi does not match a widget.

Still nothing? Send us the page address and we will look at it.

Where this was checked

Admin screens get renamed. These are the pages this guide was written against, and what each one settles — checked August 2026.

Custom module.
Global Configuration — the Text Filters tab.

On another open-source CMS? Drupal, WordPress, or go back to all platforms.