Review Widgets

Written By Chad McGuire (Sparrow Intel)

Showcase your real guest reviews on your own website

Your guest reviews are your best marketing — but they live on Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com, and Google, not on the website you own. With Review Widgets, you can embed your reviews directly on your own site with a simple copy-and-paste snippet. No developer required, and the widget stays up to date automatically as new reviews come in.

Review Widgets is part of Reputation Management. You'll find it in the portal under Automations → Review Widgets.

This guide covers:

  • Creating a Review Widget
  • Choosing which reviews appear (Scope & Content)
  • Designing the widget to match your brand
  • Installing the widget on your website
  • Managing your widgets

1. Creating a Review Widget

➡ View Review Widgets in Portal

From the Review Widgets page, click Create Widget. Give your widget a name (this is internal — visitors won't see it) and start customizing.

As you make changes, the live preview on the right updates in real time using your actual reviews, so you can see exactly what visitors will see before anything goes on your site.

Once you save, the widget's Install section appears with your copy-and-paste snippet.

2. Choosing which reviews appear

Scope

Choose which properties the widget pulls reviews from:

  • All Properties — reviews from your entire portfolio
  • Property Groups — reviews from one or more property groups
  • Specific Properties — reviews from just the properties you select

Want a widget for one specific property? Just choose Specific Properties and select it. If your direct booking site has templated property pages, choose All Properties and let each page pass its property ID in the embed — one widget serves every property page (see the Property Pages section below).

Content filters

Control exactly which reviews show:

  • Channels — include reviews from specific channels only: Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Expedia, Google, Facebook, Vacasa, or Feedback via Sparrow. Leave empty to include reviews from all channels.
  • Sort Order — show reviews Newest First or Highest Rated.
  • Max Reviews — cap how many reviews the widget serves (new widgets start at 50). Clear the field for unlimited.
  • Review Text Language — show review text in English or in the original language of the review.
  • Minimum Star Rating — show all reviews, or only reviews at or above a threshold (2 stars & up through 5 stars, in half-star steps).
  • Exclude reviews containing — hide any review containing specific keywords.
  • Hide rating-only reviews — skip reviews that have a star rating but no written text.
  • Only published reviews — only include reviews you have marked as published in Sparrow Intel. This is off by default — all reviews matching the filters above are shown.

3. Designing the widget

Make the widget look like it belongs on your site:

  • Widget Title — an optional heading displayed above the reviews.
  • Layout — the Wall layout displays reviews in a responsive grid. (A Slider layout is coming soon.)
  • Brand Color — pre-filled from your Brand Settings, and you can override it per widget.
  • Theme — Light or Dark, to match your site's background.

You can also toggle individual elements on or off:

  • Widget title
  • Global rating (your overall average across the included reviews)
  • Header channel badges (the channel logos shown at the top of the widget)
  • Review channel (the channel logo on each individual review)
  • Property name
  • Review date
  • Host responses (your public replies to reviews)

4. Installing the widget on your website

After saving, open the widget and scroll to the Install section. Copy the snippet and paste it into your website where you want the reviews to appear:

<div data-sparrow-widget="YOUR-WIDGET-TOKEN"></div> <script async="" src="https://widget.sparrowintel.com/widget.js"></script>

Your snippet includes your widget's unique token, so always copy it from the Install section rather than typing it by hand. The widget works on any website platform that lets you add custom HTML — WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Webflow, or a custom-built site.

That's it — your reviews are live, and the widget updates automatically as new reviews arrive. There's nothing to maintain.

Embedding on individual property pages

This is for direct booking sites with templated property pages: one widget serves every property page, so you do not need to create a separate widget for each property.

Your page template injects the property into the embed — set data-sparrow-property-source-id to the page's PMS listing ID, or data-sparrow-property-id to the Sparrow Intel property ID (the property ID wins if both are set) — and each page shows only that property's reviews:

<div data-sparrow-widget="YOUR-WIDGET-TOKEN" data-sparrow-property-source-id="YOUR-PMS-LISTING-ID"></div> <script async="" src="https://widget.sparrowintel.com/widget.js"></script>

Use the All Properties scope so every property is available; a page whose property is outside the widget's scope shows nothing. If you just want a widget for one specific property, use the Specific Properties scope instead — no attribute needed.

5. Managing your widgets

The Review Widgets page lists all of your widgets with their layout, scope, and status. From here you can:

  • Pause or resume a widget — a Hidden widget stops showing on your site without you touching your website; set it back to Live any time.
  • Duplicate a widget — a quick way to create variations, like a dark-theme version for a different page.
  • Edit a widget — changes take effect on your site automatically; no need to re-install the snippet.
  • Delete a widget you no longer need.

Prefer to build your own?

If you have a development team and want a fully custom review display, you can also pull your reviews programmatically through the Public API.