Brand & Embed Guidelines
The rules for displaying TrustRating scores, stars, and review content on your own website, marketing, and product.
TrustRating scores, stars, and review content may only be displayed through our official widgets and APIs. These guidelines explain what's allowed, what isn't, and why.
The short version
If you want to show your TrustRating on your own website, use the official widget from your business dashboard or the licensed API. Do not copy review text, scores, star graphics, or the TrustRating name and logo into hand-built HTML. Hardcoded reproductions are a violation of our business terms and can lead to widget suspension, loss of your verified status, and removal of your profile's badges.
What's allowed
- Official widgets. Any widget template generated from your dashboard (including the review carousel) may be embedded on domains you control. Widgets always render live, moderated data and carry the required attribution.
- Licensed API access. Plans that include API access may render review data in custom interfaces, provided every rendered review links back to your TrustRating profile, shows the review's original rating and date unaltered, and displays the "Reviews from TrustRating" attribution.
- Plain links. Anyone may link to a TrustRating profile, with or without the TrustRating name in the link text.
- Screenshots in press & social. Unmodified screenshots of your public profile may be shared in social posts, press kits, and presentations.
What's not allowed
- Hardcoding review content. Copying review text, reviewer names, dates, star ratings, or scores from TrustRating into static HTML, CMS content, or images. Hardcoded content goes stale, survives moderation removals, and misrepresents what our platform actually shows.
- Cherry-picking. Reproducing only a hand-picked subset of reviews (for example, only 5-star reviews) in a format that implies it is your live TrustRating feed.
- Imitating the widget. Rebuilding our widget's appearance — the shield mark, star rows, "Verified" chips, or "Posted on TrustRating" footers — in your own markup so visitors believe they are seeing an official embed.
- Altering data. Rounding scores up, editing review text, changing dates, or removing negative context.
- Using the marks without a live integration. The TrustRating name, logo, and star style may not decorate ratings that did not come from TrustRating.
Why this matters
Consumers trust the TrustRating mark because it always represents live, moderated, unfiltered data. A hardcoded copy freezes a moment in time: reviews that were later removed for fraud stay up, new reviews never appear, and the overall score drifts from reality. The official widget exists so that the number on your site is always the same number on ours.
Enforcement
When we find hardcoded or misleading use of TrustRating content, we will contact the business and ask for it to be replaced with an official widget within 14 days. Continued misuse can result in suspension of widget access, removal of the verified badge, a public notice on the company's profile, and — for API customers — termination of API access under the business terms.
Reporting misuse
If you see TrustRating content displayed outside an official widget, report it through our contact page with a link to the page in question. We review every report.
Getting the official widget
Business owners can generate their embed code — including the auto-updating review carousel — from the Widgets section of the business dashboard. The snippet is unique to your company and keeps itself up to date automatically.