If your reviews aren't appearing on your storefront, work through the checks below in order. Most cases come down to one of five root causes: no reviews available yet, a SKU mismatch, a widget installation issue, a moderation hold, or a caching delay.
Step 1 — Check you have at least one published review
Widgets only render when there is at least one approved, published review to display. If your account is new or all your reviews are still moderated, the widget will appear blank.
Go to your Timeline in the dashboard.
Check whether any reviews exist and are set to published (no red x moderation icon).
If all reviews are moderated, approve at least one and allow up to 20 minutes for the widget to refresh.
Step 2 — Check the widget is installed correctly
The widget needs three components to load: the HTML snippet, the JavaScript file, and the CSS stylesheet. If any of these are missing or placed incorrectly, the widget won't render.
For Shopify users, also confirm:
The Core Snippet app embed is enabled in your Shopify theme editor.
Your Store ID in the widget code matches your REVIEWS.io Store ID exactly — it should not be the default placeholder "REVIEWS.io". Find your Store ID under Publishing → Integrations → Shopify.
To re-copy the correct widget snippet, go to your REVIEWS.io dashboard → Publishing → Widgets, select your widget, and use the Install tab.
Step 3 — Check the SKU matches
Product reviews are linked to products via SKUs. If the SKU in your widget code doesn't exactly match the SKU in your REVIEWS.io product catalogue, no reviews will display — even if reviews exist for that product.
Common causes of SKU mismatches:
Placeholder SKU left in the widget code (e.g. "sku1;sku2" instead of your actual values)
SKU changed in Shopify after reviews were collected — reviews are still linked to the old SKU
Product migrated from another platform — reviews may be linked to a legacy SKU that no longer exists
Variant SKUs not passed correctly — for Shopify, use the format: sku: "{{ product.variants | map: 'sku' | join: ';' }};{{ product.variants | map: 'id' | join: ';' }};"
If your SKUs have changed, use the Unmatched SKUs tool to reassign reviews to the current SKU:
Go to dash.reviews.io/products/unmatched-skus
Find the old SKU and reassign it to the live product
Step 4 — Check for a conflicting theme (Shopify)
If your product page shows 0 reviews but product cards (e.g. collection pages) show ratings correctly, your Shopify theme is likely overriding the widget with its own built-in star rating.
To fix this:
Open your product template in the Shopify theme editor.
Remove or disable the theme's default rating/review snippet.
Add the REVIEWS.io rating snippet in its place.
Ensure the REVIEWS.io scripts and styles are loading on the page.
Step 5 — Check your review moderation status
Reviews must be approved before they appear on your site. Reviews submitted via a product widget are unmoderated by default and won't display until you approve them.
In your Timeline, look for reviews with a red icon — these are moderated/pending.
Click the review and set it to published to make it visible.
Reviews submitted via invitation are verified and published automatically.
Step 6 — Wait for caching to clear
Even after fixing the root cause, reviews may not appear immediately due to caching. Allow the following time before assuming the issue is unresolved:
Change made | Time to allow |
Widget installed or updated | Up to 1 hour |
New review published | Up to 20 minutes |
SKU remapped | Up to 3 hours (Shopify caches pages) |
Review imported from another platform | Up to 30 minutes — contact support if still missing after this |
Step 7 — Check for browser or script conflicts
If the widget isn't rendering at all — no stars, no count, no container — open your browser's developer console (F12 → Console) and check for errors before contacting support:
"store_id is not defined" → The widget snippet is missing required parameters. Re-copy the snippet from your dashboard.
CORS or network errors → Your site's Content Security Policy (CSP) is blocking REVIEWS.io. Add reviews.io and widget.reviews.io to your script-src and connect-src directives.
Widget hidden but present → Inspect the widget container. A parent element may have overflow: hidden, display: none, or a z-index conflict from your theme or another app.
Ad blocker or cookie consent blocking → Test in an incognito window with extensions disabled. If the widget appears, the issue is client-side blocking.
Domain changes and redirects
If you've recently changed your domain or redirected your store to a new URL, reviews may not appear until your domain is updated in REVIEWS.io. Your review profile is tied to your registered domain — a mismatch will break the connection.
Contact support via live chat from your dashboard to update your domain and re-sync your reviews.
When to contact support
If you've worked through all the steps above and reviews are still not displaying, contact the support team via live chat from your REVIEWS.io dashboard. To speed up the investigation, have the following ready:
The affected product URL and its SKU(s)
Your REVIEWS.io Store ID
Any browser console errors (screenshot or copy)
The date the issue started
Any recent changes made — SKU edits, theme updates, new apps installed, imports, or domain changes