Documentation

Table of Contents

Installation

Navigate to Plugins > Add New and click on the Upload Plugin button.

Choose the plugin zip file and click Install Now.

Once installed, click Activate.

Next is to activate your license key. If you don’t do this, plugin updates will not be delivered to your site. That is, you won’t be able to see updates nor apply the update from your WordPress dashboard.

Getting started

After the installation, you can embed the rating widget to your posts with the shortcode [ratemypost] or automatically in the plugin’s settings. The “rating widget” lets visitors rate your posts (star rating).

The plugin also comes with the results widget. The results widget shows the rating but is not interactive (it doesn’t accept votes).

On most websites, you will find such a widget at the top of the post, after the title. You can embed the results widget with the shortcode [ratemypost-result] or automatically in the plugin’s settings.

It is also possible to embed a rating of whichever post by passing the post’s ID to the shortcode.

[ratemypost id="1"] – embeds rating widget for the post with the ID of 1

[ratemypost-result id="1"] – embeds results widget for the post with the ID of 1

Bulk Rating Tool

Adding Ratings & Votes to Existing Posts

If you want to add ratings and votes for all existing or historical posts on your site, you can use our Bulk Rating tool. However, this will only affect posts, pages, and custom post types on which the rating widget is displayed.

Go to Settings >> Tools.

Add a range of total votes and average ratings, and finally, click the Submit Button.

Options

The Rate My Post plugin is probably the most customizable and adjustable WordPress rating plugin. It has many options that allow you to customize the plugin to fit your website completely.

Below is a brief description of settings that might be a bit confusing to beginners.

Show star hover texts

This is a handy feature to prevent accidental votes. When a user hovers over the stars, the descriptive rating is shown under the stars.

Disabled (hovering over two stars):

Enabled (hovering over two stars):

Prevent accidental votes

When a visitor clicks on a star, they need to confirm the vote by clicking the “Rate” button that pops up under the widget. It prevents the visitors from accidentally casting votes. This feature is especially useful for touch devices.

Delete cookie on page load

After the page is refreshed, the cookie is deleted. This feature comes in handy while setting up the plugin, and you might want to cast multiple votes to see how the plugin performs.

Exclude rating and result widgets from

If you automatically add the rating/results widget to your posts or pages in the options, you might want to remove it from specific posts/pages, for example, the About Us page. Here, you should insert comma-separated post/page IDs. To get the post ID, visit your admin dashboard’s posts/pages menu and click on the page/post you need an ID for. Then check the URL, and you should see something like “www.example.com/wp-admin/post.php?post=61&action=edit”. The ID is the number in the URL. In this case, it is 61.

Type of structured data for rich snippets

Here, you can select which structured data type you want to embed. Search engines might show rich snippets on results pages if your website is trustworthy and high-quality. The Rate My Post plugin supports all structured data types that Google recognizes except HowTo, SoftwareApplication, and Event. SoftwareApplication and Event structured data types are available in the PRO version. Since September 2019, Google has shown rich snippets only for a handful of structured data types. Read more about this here.

If you are not sure which structured data type to choose, find information about each structured data type on schema.org. If your blog posts don’t fit any of the available categories, you are, according to Google Guidelines, not eligible for rich snippets.

Feedback Widget

It can be enabled in the settings. The Feedback Widget allows visitors to send you private feedback after they rate a post on your website. The idea behind the feedback widget is that you can improve your posts. It will be shown if the post gets a negative rating. You define what is a negative rating in the settings; “If post or page is rated X/5 stars or less, consider the rating negative.”.

Social Widget

It can be enabled in the options. The Social Widget shows social follow or social share icons/links after the post has been rated positively. You define what is a positive rating in the options. You can also choose whether to show social follow or share buttons.

how ratings on archive pages

This feature will show ratings with stars on archive pages (list of posts) next to the title. It will also show ratings on the main blog page.

Multilingual website compatibility mode

You should enable this feature if your website is available in more than one language. After enabling this feature, you won’t be able to modify strings in the Customize section. You should instead modify strings with a translation plugin such as Loco Translate.

Customize

In the customize section, you can change colors and sizes and modify strings. All settings here are pretty straightforward.

Security Options

Ratings manipulation requires the role of

Rate My Post enables you to change ratings in the backend in the post editor (meta box at the bottom). Here, you can set which role is required to manipulate ratings. Available options are Admin, Author, and Editor.

Who can rate posts

Here, you can select who can rate posts. By default, all visitors can rate posts. Nevertheless, you can limit rating capability to only logged-in users.

Track IP addresses

If this feature is enabled, voters’ IP addresses will be tracked and available in the Analytics section. This feature must be enabled to prevent double votes via IP address. If this feature is enabled, GDPR compliance is voided.

Track users

If this feature is enabled, you will see the nicknames of logged-in users who rated your posts in the analytics section. This feature also prevents double votes for logged-in users.

Google reCAPTCHA v3

Google reCAPTCHA v3 verifies if an interaction is legitimate without any user interaction. You will need the reCAPTCHA v3 site and secret keys to use this option. The service is free of charge. You can get the keys here: reCAPTCHA v3.

Migration Tools

With one click, the migration tools allow you to migrate votes and ratings from kk Star Ratings, YASR, and WP-PostRatings. The tools are available if one of the plugins is installed on your website.

Filters

Filters provide a way for functions to modify data of Rate My Post functions.

Modifying strings for custom post types, specific categories, etc.

The rmp_custom_strings filter allows you to change strings in various scenarios. For example, if you have a book custom post type, you probably want different texts in the book posts. The strings for the book posts can be easily modified, as shown in the example below.

/*FILTER EXAMPLE
The array has the following keys:
rateTitle,
rateSubtitle,
rateResult,
rateResult2,
cookieNotice,
noRating,
afterVote,
star1,
star2,
star3,
star4,
star5,
socialTitle,
socialSubtitle,
feedbackTitle,
feedbackSubtitle,
feedbackText,
feedbackNotice,
feedbackButton,
feedbackAlert,
submitButtonText
*/

function blazzdev_modify_rmp_strings( $stringsArray ) {
  if ( is_singular( 'book' ) ) { //modify only for Book custom post type
    $stringsArray['rateTitle'] = 'Did you like this book?';
    $stringsArray['rateSubtitle'] = 'Click on a star to rate this book!';
    $stringsArray['afterVote'] = 'Thank you for rating this book';
    $stringsArray['socialTitle'] = 'As you found this book useful...';
    $stringsArray['feedbackTitle'] = 'How come you did not like this book?';
    $stringsArray['feedbackSubtitle'] = 'How could this book be improved?';
    $stringsArray['feedbackText'] = 'Give us some tips...';
  }
  return $stringsArray;
}

add_filter( 'rmp_custom_strings', 'blazzdev_modify_rmp_strings' );

Code goes to your child’s theme functions.php.

Removing specific social share icons

If you enable the social widget and the “use social share icons instead of social follow icons” in the settings, the plugin will, by default, print all available social share icons. However, as shown below, you can remove specific social share icons with the filter. The snippet below will remove the Twitter and the Reddit social share icon.

function blazzdev_remove_social_icons( $socialLinks ) {
  unset( $socialLinks['twitter'] );
  unset( $socialLinks['reddit'] );
  return $socialLinks;
}
add_filter( 'rmp_social_links', 'blazzdev_remove_social_icons' );

Remove the rating widget from posts in a specific category

The snippet below will remove the rating widget from posts in the Uncategorized category

add_filter( 'rmp_display_rating_widget', 'blazzdev_show_rating_widget' );

function blazzdev_show_rating_widget() {
  if( in_category( 'uncategorized' ) ) { // category slug
    return false;
  }
  return true;
}

Remove the results widget from posts in a specific category

The snippet below will remove the results widget from posts in the Uncategorized category

add_filter( 'rmp_display_results_widget', 'blazzdev_show_results_widget' );

function blazzdev_show_results_widget() {
  if( in_category( 'uncategorized' ) ) { // category slug
    return false;
  }
  return true;
}

Change the best rating

The snippet below will change the 5-star rating system to the 10-star rating system.

Warning: After enabling, there is no way of going back to the 5-star rating system except by deleting all ratings.

add_filter( 'rmp_max_rating', 'blazzdev_max_rating', 10, 1 );

add_filter( 'rmp_custom_strings', 'blazzdev_modify_rmp_strings' );

function blazzdev_max_rating( $rating ) {
  return 10;
}

function blazzdev_modify_rmp_strings( $stringsArray ) {
  $stringsArray['star6'] = 'Perfect';
  $stringsArray['star7'] = 'Perfect';
  $stringsArray['star8'] = 'Perfect';
  $stringsArray['star9'] = 'Perfect';
  $stringsArray['star10'] = 'Perfect';
  return $stringsArray;
}

Remove ratings from specific archive pages or home page

If you enable the “show ratings on archive pages” feature in the settings, the plugin will, by default, show ratings on all archive pages and the main blog page. With this filter, you can remove ratings from specific archives or the main blog page.

Example 1:

The code below will remove ratings from author archives.

function blazzdev_exclude_author( $content ) {
  if ( is_author() ) {
    return false;
  } else {
    return $content;
  }
}
add_filter( 'rmp_archive_results', 'blazzdev_exclude_author' );

Example 2:

The snippet below will remove ratings from the main blog page.

function blazzdev_exclude_home( $content ) {
  if ( is_home() ) {
    return false;
  } else {
    return $content;
  }
}
add_filter( 'rmp_archive_results', 'blazzdev_exclude_home' );

Replacing the default icons (stars, etc.) with custom icons

This filter enables you to add a custom class to the icon or replace the default class with the custom class. Therefore, you can use your icons (via background-image property) or whichever icon from FontAwesome (if you use FontAwesome on your website). The code below will replace the stars with the FontAwesome car icons.

[class^="rmp-icon--"], [class*=" rmp-icon--"] {
    font-family: 'Font Awesome 5 Free'!important;
}

The code goes to your child theme’s style.css.

Then you append the FontAwesome car icon to Rate my Post icons like shown below:

function blazzdev_custom_class( $class ) {
  return $class . ' fas fa-car';
}

add_filter( 'rmp_rating_icon_class', 'blazzdev_custom_class' );

Changing the schema type

This filter enables you to change the schema type.

Example 1 – Change the schema type for a custom type:

Let’s say that you have a custom post type of recipe, and of course, you want the recipe schema in all recipe posts. Nevertheless, elsewhere, you want the schema type selected in the options.

function blazzdev_schema( $schemaType ) {
  if( is_singular( 'recipe' ) ) {
    return 'Recipe';
  }
  return $schemaType;
}

add_filter( 'rmp_schema_type', 'blazzdev_schema' );

Changing the structured data

This filter enables you to modify the complete structured data.

Example:

function blazzdev_structured_data( $structuredData ) {
  $structuredData = '
  <script type="application/ld+json">
    //your structured data
  </script>
  ';

  return $structuredData;
}

add_filter( 'rmp_structured_data', 'blazzdev_structured_data' );

Remove IP double vote protection for posts, custom post types, etc.

This filter enables you to remove IP double vote protection if specified conditions are met. In the example below, we remove IP double vote protection for the post with the ID 246.

function blazzdev_remove_ip_double_vote( $doubleVotes, $postID ) {
  if ( $postID == 246 ) {
    //return an empty array - meaning no matches for the ip
    $doubleVotes = array();
  }
  return $doubleVotes;
}

add_filter( 'rmp_double_vote', 'blazzdev_remove_ip_double_vote', 10, 2 );

Remove double vote protection based on user IDs (applies only to logged-in users)

If user tracking is enabled in the security options, the plugin checks if the user has already rated the post before saving the rating. This is useful in case you only allow logged-in users to rate. The plugin doesn’t run this check for admins. To disable double vote protection based on user IDs, use the filter below.

add_filter( 'rmp_double_vote_by_id', 'blazzdev_disable_double_vote_protection_by_id', 10, 2 );

function blazzdev_disable_double_vote_protection_by_id( $match, $post_id ) {
  return array();
}

Hide usernames in the analytics section and feedback section

If user tracking is enabled, usernames are shown in the analytics and feedback section. If you only use user tracking to prevent double votes and want to hide usernames in the analytics and feedback section, use this filter as shown below.

add_filter( 'rmp_rater_username', 'blazzdev_hide_rater_username' );

function blazzdev_hide_rater_username( $username ) {
  return 'Hidden for privacy reasons!';
}

Merge ratings during the migration

This filter enables you to merge the ratings of the Rate My Post plugin and another plugin during the migration. Rate My Post supports migration from the following plugins: kk Star Ratings, YASR, and WP-PostRatings.

function blazzdev_merge_during_migration( $merge ) {
  return true;
}

add_filter( 'rmp_migrate_merge', 'blazzdev_merge_during_migration' );

Change email address

Rate my Post plugin, which, by default, sends emails about new votes and feedback to the admin email. You can change the email with this filter.

add_filter( 'rmp_mail_address', 'blazzdev_change_rmp_email' );

function blazzdev_change_rmp_email( $email ) {
  return '[email protected]';
}

Change subject for “post-rated” emails

You can modify the subject of the “post-rated” email with this filter.

add_filter( 'rmp_mail_subject', 'blazzdev_rate_mail_custom_title', 10, 7 );

function blazzdev_rate_mail_custom_title( $subject, $postID, $rating, $newAvgRating, $newVoteCount, $postTitle, $postLink ) {
  return $postTitle. ' rated ' . $rating . ' and now has ' . $newVoteCount . ' votes and rating of ' . $newAvgRating;
}

Change the text for “post-rated” emails

You can modify the text (content) of the “post-rated” email with this filter.

add_filter( 'rmp_mail_text', 'blazzdev_rate_mail_custom_text', 10, 7 );

function blazzdev_rate_mail_custom_text( $message, $postID, $rating, $newAvgRating, $newVoteCount, $postTitle, $postLink ) {
  return 'Post rated ' . $rating . '. Post name ' . $postTitle;
}

Change subject for “feedback” emails

You can modify the subject of the “feedback” email with this filter.

add_filter( 'rmp_feedback_mail_subject', 'blazzdev_feedback_mail_custom_subject', 10, 4 );

function blazzdev_feedback_mail_custom_subject( $message, $postID, $feedback, $postTitle ) {
  return $postTitle . ' has a new feedback!';
}

Change the text for “feedback” emails

You can modify the text (content) of the “feedback” email with this filter.

add_filter( 'rmp_feedback_mail_text', 'blazzdev_feedback_mail_custom_text', 10, 4 );

function blazzdev_feedback_mail_custom_text( $message, $postID, $feedback, $postTitle ) {
  return 'Comment from a visitor: ' . $feedback . ' Post: ' . $postTitle;
}

Change thumbnail size in top-rated posts widget

You can use custom image sizes for thumbnails with this filter.

add_filter( 'rmp_thumbnail_size', 'blazzdev_rmp_thumb', 10, 2 );

function blazzdev_rmp_thumb( $imageSize ) {
	return 'large';
}

Modify query that retrieves top-rated posts

This filter allows you to modify the query, which retrieves top-rated posts. The top-rated posts widget first retrieves all posts from the website and orders them by average rating and conditions defined in the widget’s settings. So, for example, if you want to display top-rated posts in the current category, you can do this with this filter. The snippet below will display the top-rated posts from the current category.

add_filter( 'rmp_top_rated_query', 'blazzdev_modify_top_rated_query' );

function blazzdev_modify_top_rated_query( $args ) {
  if( is_category() ) {
    $category = get_the_category();
    if( $category ) { // category has posts
      $cat_id = $category[0]->cat_ID;
      $args['cat'] = $cat_id;
    } else { // no posts in category
      return array();
    }
  }
  return $args;
}

Actions

Actions provide a way to run a function at a specific point in the execution of the plugin.