CritiquePlus Comparator is a complete WordPress comparison builder for
publishers, affiliate websites, review portals and editorial teams. Create a
reusable product catalogue, define your own criteria, write in the familiar
WordPress editor and publish responsive comparison tables, cards and rankings.
Professional comparison creation
- Comparison editor: Build each comparison from clear Information,
Products, Criteria, Content, Design, SEO and Publication sections.
- Classic WordPress editing: Write the comparison description and complete
product content in Visual or Text mode with the native WordPress editor.
- Rich editorial formatting: Use paragraphs, H2-H6 headings, lists,
blockquotes, links, separators, code, media, captions and editable
information, success and warning callouts.
- Reusable product catalogue: Maintain product names, brands, prices,
platforms, features, descriptions, images, galleries and commercial data in
one place.
- Custom comparison criteria: Create public or internal criteria, control
their order and enter product-specific values and scores.
- Editorial verdicts: Publish advantages, disadvantages, recommendations,
FAQs and supporting content without changing theme files.
Flexible public presentation
- Responsive comparison views: Present the same data as a comparison table,
cards or a ranked selection on desktop, tablet and mobile.
- Reusable WordPress blocks: Insert comparisons and focused presentations
from the block editor without duplicating catalogue data.
- Shortcode support: Place comparisons in classic content areas and page
builders that accept WordPress shortcodes.
- Public catalogues: Provide browsable product and comparison directories
with search, filters and sorting.
- Accessible interactions: Use labelled controls, keyboard-compatible
actions, semantic headings and meaningful image alternative text.
- Theme-aware design: Apply configurable presets, colours, widths and
display options while keeping the public output responsive.
Notifications and editorial workflow
- Notification centre: Follow important catalogue, publication, link and
extension events from a dedicated notification screen and administration
toolbar indicator.
- Read and unread status: Identify new events immediately, mark individual
notifications as read and clear items that no longer require attention.
- Notification search: Search the notification history instead of manually
browsing every message.
- Notification preferences: Choose which types of information should appear
and configure the plugin's error-notification behaviour.
- Actionable alerts: Open the relevant product, comparison, affiliate link
or settings area directly when a notification requires intervention.
Appearance and ready-to-use templates
- Global appearance workspace: Configure the visual foundation used by
public comparisons from one administration screen.
- Colours and typography: Select the primary colour, font family and other
visual values without editing theme files.
- Corners and shadows: Control border radius and shadow intensity to match
the WordPress site's existing identity.
- Custom CSS: Add carefully scoped presentation adjustments when the built-in
controls are not sufficient.
- Responsive preview: Inspect appearance changes in a live preview before
applying them to public content.
- 10 included comparison templates: Start from one of the ten ready-made
Free comparison models, preview its presentation, duplicate it as a draft and
adapt its products, criteria, content and design instead of starting from an
empty comparison.
- Per-comparison design: Choose a presentation template and adjust colour,
width, mobile behaviour, scores and calls to action for each comparison.
Gutenberg blocks and WordPress integration
- Complete comparison block: Insert a published comparison with its
introduction, views, scores and detailed sections.
- Comparison table block: Display a responsive criteria-by-product table
with optional scores, calls to action and sticky presentation.
- Product card block: Highlight one catalogue product with its price, score,
advantages and offer button.
- Ranking block: Publish a configurable selection of the best products from
a comparison.
- Pros and cons block: Reuse detailed advantages and disadvantages for a
comparison or a selected product.
- Best choice block: Promote the recommended product with its score, price,
label and call to action.
- Affiliate button block: Add a traceable product offer button with size,
alignment, colour and new-tab controls.
- Product grid block: Build responsive catalogue grids with a configurable
product limit and number of columns.
- Editorial note block: Add a signed and dated editorial note using a
configurable visual style.
- Server-rendered previews: Select products and comparisons from the editor
and preview dynamic output without duplicating saved catalogue information.
- Shortcode compatibility: Use equivalent presentations in classic editors,
widgets and page builders that support WordPress shortcodes.
Detailed, privacy-friendly statistics
- Performance dashboard: Review comparison views, affiliate clicks and
click-through rate from a dedicated statistics screen.
- Flexible periods: Analyse the last 7, 30, 90 or 365 days and follow daily
activity over the selected period.
- Top comparisons: Identify the comparisons that generate the most activity
and prioritise editorial improvements.
- Traffic sources: Understand where recorded comparison visits originate
without installing a separate analytics interface.
- Statistics export: Export available reporting data for further analysis or
internal reporting.
- Responsible measurement: Tracking is optional and disabled by default;
local events exclude visitor IP addresses, raw user agents and tracking
cookies from the plugin's statistics tables.
- Retention controls: Choose how long statistics and activity logs remain in
the WordPress database.
User access and permissions
- Role-based access: Decide what administrators, editors, authors,
contributors and the dedicated custom Comparator role can do.
- Granular permissions: Control viewing, creation, editing, publication and
deletion of comparisons separately from product, affiliate, statistics,
settings, user and import/export permissions.
- User overview: Review WordPress users, their assigned role and their last
recorded Comparator activity from the plugin interface.
- User invitations: Invite a user by email and assign an appropriate role
for the comparison workflow.
- Protected administration: Keep administrator permissions protected while
allowing safer delegation of editorial responsibilities.
Complete extension settings
- General settings: Configure language, currency, price presentation, score
scale, default product count, drafts, automatic display and autosave.
- Affiliate settings: Manage nofollow and sponsored attributes, click
tracking, sponsored badges, transparency notices, UTM values and automatic
link verification.
- SEO settings: Control structured-data types, indexation, canonical URLs,
sitemap and robots options, title affixes, authors, reviewers and metadata for
answer engines.
- Performance settings: Configure comparison caching, image optimisation,
lazy loading, WebP conversion, CSS/JavaScript delivery, font preloading and
database cleanup.
- Privacy settings: Control anonymous statistics, affiliate-click records,
user-action logs, consent, Cookiebot, Axeptio, ePrivacy, data requests,
uninstall behaviour and retention periods.
- Advanced settings: Access integration and technical controls intended for
experienced administrators.
- Diagnostic tools: Inspect the plugin environment, cache and database,
trigger maintenance actions and identify configuration problems.
- Safe reset controls: Restore an individual settings group without having
to reset the entire extension.
SEO and discoverability
- SEO title and description: Define comparison-specific search metadata or
use a clean, automatically shortened description fallback.
- Canonical URLs: Output consistent canonical destinations for dedicated
product, comparison and catalogue pages.
- Indexing control: Choose whether public comparison pages may be indexed;
the setting is respected in WordPress robots directives.
- Structured data: Enable Product, Review, ItemList, FAQPage and
BreadcrumbList schema independently at global and comparison level.
- Valid rating markup: Rating schema is emitted only when a real positive
score is available.
- Social sharing metadata: Reuse the principal image, alternative text,
title, description and public URL for Open Graph and Twitter previews.
- SEO plugin integration: Supply titles, descriptions, canonicals, robots
rules, social images and schema adapters for Rank Math, Yoast SEO and All in
One SEO.
- Semantic page structure: Dedicated comparison pages use one primary H1;
embedded comparisons preserve the host page heading hierarchy.
Affiliate publishing and measurement
- Affiliate destinations: Save product or offer URLs and configure button
labels without hard-coding links in page content.
- Link attributes: Apply sponsored, nofollow, new-tab and noopener behaviour
to affiliate calls to action.
- Transparency notices: Display a configurable affiliate disclosure above
or below the comparison.
- Optional link verification: Let an administrator check saved destinations
and identify unavailable links.
- Local anonymous statistics: Optionally count views and affiliate clicks
inside WordPress without storing visitor IP addresses or raw user agents.
Data management and ownership
- Import tools: Import structured catalogue data from CSV, JSON, XML or an
administrator-provided remote URL.
- Export tools: Export reusable CSV or JSON data and create complete plugin
backups.
- WordPress-owned storage: Keep products, comparisons, criteria and optional
events in the website's own database.
- Controlled uninstall: Preserve content by default and remove plugin data
only after an administrator explicitly enables that option.
- No forced account: Use the complete free edition without a CritiquePlus
account, licence key, subscription or automatic connection to CritiquePlus.
Optional CritiquePlus Comparator Pro add-on
The separately distributed CritiquePlus Comparator Pro add-on extends the Free
plugin for teams that need guided configuration, interactive recommendation
experiences, artificial intelligence and centralised licence management. All
Free features described above remain available without Pro.
- Quick setup assistant: Configure comparison types, appearance, primary
colour, affiliate behaviour, artificial intelligence and licence activation
through a guided seven-step workflow.
- Saved setup progress: Resume an incomplete configuration without starting
the entire assistant again.
- 10 additional premium templates: Add ten Pro designs to the ten models
included in Free, providing 20 comparison templates in total when both
extensions are active.
- Premium visual systems: Use Atlas, Prism, Executive, Magazine, Benchmark,
Conversion, Bento, Horizon, Aurora and Monochrome for different editorial,
benchmark and conversion-oriented presentations.
- Personalised calculator: Transform comparison criteria into visitor
questions and recommend products according to individual priorities.
- Weighted recommendations: Combine visitor answers, criterion weights and
saved product scores to produce an understandable personalised ranking.
- Calculator management: Create, edit, publish and reuse calculators linked
to existing Free comparisons and catalogue products.
- Public calculator catalogue: Publish calculators on dedicated routes and
make them available from a browsable public catalogue.
- Calculator Gutenberg block: Insert a selected calculator directly from
the WordPress block editor.
- Two-product Versus mode: Place two products face to face in a focused,
responsive presentation designed for direct purchasing decisions.
- Shared Versus data: Reuse saved products, public criteria, features,
scores and commercial information without maintaining duplicate records.
- Versus Gutenberg block: Select a comparison and the two products to show
from a dedicated dynamic WordPress block.
- Multi-provider AI assistant: Connect OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google
Gemini or DeepSeek and select the provider and model used by the assistant.
- Secure AI configuration: Store provider API keys encrypted on the
WordPress server and test each connection before production use.
- Product and comparison assistance: Use catalogue context to accelerate
product and comparison creation and ongoing management.
- Criteria generation: Prepare structured criterion proposals adapted to a
product family or comparison subject.
- SEO assistance: Generate contextual SEO title and meta-description
proposals for products and comparisons.
- Editorial assistance: Prepare advantages, disadvantages, FAQs, summaries
and content suggestions from the selected catalogue context.
- Consistency and update suggestions: Identify incomplete information and
prepare proposals for correction or future editorial updates.
- Explicit AI validation: Review generated proposals before applying them;
catalogue content is not modified without user validation.
- AI activity history: Record the provider, model, operation, latency,
status and available usage data for diagnostics.
- Support interface available 24/7: Consult help resources or submit a
support request at any time. Human response times depend on the active
support plan.
- Licence and Help hub: Review activation status and open documentation,
support and account resources from a central WordPress screen.
- Centralised licence management: Authorise licences and domains from the
CritiquePlus Panel before connecting the WordPress installation securely.
- Licence visibility: Review the active plan, authorised site, activation
usage and expiration information from WordPress.
- Secure licence storage: Encrypt the local licence key and avoid exposing
the saved value in the browser after activation.
- Authenticated Pro updates: Receive compatible Pro releases through the
private update channel while the licence remains valid.
CritiquePlus Comparator Pro is a separate optional add-on. No premium
executable code is included in this
WordPress.org package. Activation creates
the required data structure only; it does not publish sample products or
demonstration comparisons.
0.28.75
- Fixes Code-editor lookup for React-generated IDs containing CSS-special characters.
- Explicitly restores the Code textarea display, visibility, opacity, and 420-pixel editable height.
0.28.74
- Makes the Code tab display its main HTML textarea directly, without waiting for WordPress class timing.
- Enriches the installed-plugin description with templates, editing, blocks, SEO, affiliate, notification, access, and statistics features.
0.28.73
- Restores the single full-width HTML textarea when the Code tab is selected.
- Explicitly synchronizes textarea visibility after every Visual or Code tab switch.
0.28.72
- Removes the temporary duplicate HTML field displayed below the Visual editor.
- Keeps the underlying textarea hidden in Visual mode and full-width in Code mode for products and comparisons.
0.28.71
- Forces the WordPress Code editor and its generated container to use the complete available width.
- Applies the width correction after WordPress switches from Visual to Code mode in product and comparison editors.
0.28.70
- Kept comparison and product rich editors in the normal page flow so they no longer overlap the editor tabs while scrolling.
- Disabled floating WordPress and TinyMCE toolbars inside both editor locations.
- Expanded the Code editor and Quicktags interface to the full available width.
0.28.69
- Prevented Information > Description from remaining an empty plain textarea when the native WordPress editor does not finish loading.
- Added verified WordPress editor initialisation checks and an automatic complete rich-editor fallback.
- Preserved the comparison description value while switching safely to the fallback editor.
0.28.68
- Expanded the WordPress.org description with complete Free and optional Pro feature documentation.
- Documented notifications, appearance, 10 Free templates, Gutenberg blocks, privacy-friendly statistics, user permissions and extension settings.
- Clarified that Pro adds 10 premium templates for a total of 20, plus calculators, Versus mode, multi-provider AI, support and centralised licensing.
0.28.67
- Added the native WordPress Visual/Text editor to Information > Description in the comparison builder.
- Preserved rich comparison descriptions, editable callouts, media and semantic H2-H6 headings on public pages.
- Corrected H1 hierarchy, breadcrumbs, metadata fallbacks, robots controls and structured-data switches.
- Prevented empty AggregateRating markup and expanded the WordPress.org plugin documentation.
0.28.66
- Replaced the product description field with the native WordPress Visual/Text editor when available.
- Kept the WordPress editor toolbar visible above its internally scrolling content.
- Made Info, success and warning callouts immediately editable after insertion.
- Selected the callout placeholder text so typing replaces it directly.
- Restored editor focus after dropdown controls and kept subsequent tools usable.
0.28.65
- Restored the editor focus after every toolbar button and block-style selection.
- Preserved the caret or selected text while controls temporarily receive browser focus.
- Kept Enter after H1-H6 inside the editor and continued typing in a paragraph.
0.28.64
- Preserved the rich-editor caret and selection when using formatting controls.
- Replaced rich-editor text buttons with accessible WordPress toolbar icons.
- Kept Enter after H1-H6 focused in a new paragraph and synchronized the block selector.
- Prevented public advantage and disadvantage text from being visually truncated.
0.28.63
- Editor Enter after H1-H6 returns to a paragraph.
- Compatibility is now a dedicated public section.
- Pros/cons preserve full text including apostrophes and encoded punctuation.
- Public feature output remains free of automatic AI signature text.
0.28.62
- Replaced the long product-description field with a structured rich-text editor and WordPress media integration.
- Preserved semantic headings, paragraphs, lists, callouts, separators, images, captions and alternative text on public product pages.
- Matched canonical URLs to public product, comparison, catalogue, category and search-result URLs across Rank Math, Yoast SEO and AIOSEO.
- Refined product advantages, disadvantages and feature lists with a quieter editorial presentation.
- Added linked Review and AggregateRating properties to valid rated Product structured data.
0.28.61
- Fixed the blank Publication tab in the comparison editor and hardened its saved-state handling.
- Replaced the final public table label with an accessible Offers label while preserving every offer button.
- Exposed the comparison primary image, alternative text, SEO metadata and structured data to search and social integrations.
- Invalidated public comparison caches after catalogue changes so product features appear immediately.
- Improved visible success, validation, media-sync and API error messages in comparison and product editors.
0.28.60
- Connected the main product image and alternative text to public markup, WordPress media, social metadata, and structured data.
- Improved the accessible gallery close control and corrected the reported Plugin Check findings.
- Added safe deactivation cleanup for scheduled tasks while preserving user data.
0.28.59
- Moved the product primary image into the upper-right corner of the detailed presentation panel.
- Added a final Images du produit gallery with horizontal thumbnails and an accessible modal viewer.
- Applied the Images du produit title to gallery media and exposed gallery images in Product structured data.
- Corrected the SEO preview URL and title colors with reliable inline presentation values.
0.28.58
- Completed the product-editor-to-public-sheet field mapping, including primary images, offers, commercial facts, features, and technical data.
- Added reliable direct WordPress media upload for product primary images.
- Rendered advantages with green checks and disadvantages with red crosses.
- Added Product, Review, and Organization JSON-LD to individual product pages.
- Rebuilt the product SEO preview and added a Pro-gated AI generation control.
0.28.57
- Connected catalogue Résumé and Détails disclosures to product short and long descriptions.
- Made catalogue search, category, feature, and platform filters update results and counts immediately.
- Completed rating, name, relevance, and recent sorting and broadened indexed product data.
- Exposed additional product-editor data on public product sheets and preserved affiliate-link attributes.
- Audited public selectors, interaction targets, and CritiquePlus database prefixes.
0.28.56
- Removed public resource sidebars and placed their cards below comparison, calculator, and Versus content.
- Expanded central public content and aligned headings to a consistent 64-pixel desktop margin.
- Applied the same responsive page margin to every plugin-rendered public page.
- Moved public catalogue links to the right side of page introductions on desktop.
0.28.55
- Distributed wide public layouts across the complete viewport independently of theme container limits.
- Moved central comparison content toward the left edge and resource cards toward the right edge while keeping both visible at 100% zoom.
0.28.54
- Kept wide comparison and experience layouts inside the viewport while using the empty left margin.
- Kept resource sidebars fully visible at the right edge without reducing the central content unnecessarily.
- Improved catalogue filter spacing, filter icon size, and search-field width.
- Added a server-rendered product-features section below detailed advantages.
0.28.53
- Fixed the product features editor panel after a bundled JavaScript function-name collision.
- Anchored wide public layouts on the existing left edge and moved resource sidebars farther right.
0.28.52
- Added structured product features to the editor, public product sheets, comparison tables, and product schema.
- Rebuilt the public product catalogue with server-rendered cards, search, filters, and sorting.
- Expanded public layouts for comparison, calculator, and Versus pages while preserving responsive behavior.
- Renamed public library wording to catalogue.
0.28.51
- Expanded standalone comparison, calculator and Versus pages to use the available desktop viewport.
- Prioritized central comparison content while keeping resource cards compact and responsive.
- Added semantic comparison summaries, table captions, explicit column structure and richer product criterion schema data.
0.28.50
- Fixed published product retrieval by reading product details from settings JSON instead of nonexistent SQL columns.
- Added three similar-product cards below individual public product sheets.
- Widened public comparison layouts and improved desktop and mobile presentation.
- Added circular, contain-fit public logos, a highlighted criteria column, left-aligned content and premium card numbering.
0.28.49
- Added route fallbacks for public product and comparison libraries and detail pages.
- Added published-only View actions to comparison and product editors and libraries.
- Expanded public product pages into detailed product sheets using editor data.
0.28.48
- Restored public comparison styling with valid WordPress stylesheet dependencies and early enqueueing.
- Added comparison-specific browser titles to preview pages.
- Unified the Comparator administration menu labels in French.
- Changed published comparison and product actions from Publish to Update.
0.28.47
- Removed the obsolete public click endpoint and retained the validated analytics endpoint only.
- Restricted user administration to site administrators and protected privileged accounts.
- Prevented analytics requests and browser storage when the relevant tracking option is disabled.
- Prefixed the weekly cron schedule, expanded explicit uninstall cleanup and documented Tailwind CSS.
- Routed temporary import and backup files through the WordPress filesystem API.
- Expanded PHP and JavaScript translation support and updated the product-specific plugin URL.
0.28.46
- Replaced the historical short global and data prefix with the WordPress-compliant
critco prefix.
- Added a non-destructive migration for existing settings, tables, user metadata and role capabilities.
- Loaded administration branding through the WordPress stylesheet API.
- Prepared translations for distribution through translate.wordpress.org.
0.28.45
- Unified every Pro invitation in the dashboard and Upgrade page with the official CritiquePlus Comparator product page.
0.28.44
- Prepared a clean WordPress.org release package without development-only files.
- Kept the human-readable administration source and reproducible build instructions.
- Confirmed compatibility with the separately installed Pro add-on.
0.28.43
- Replaced all internal extension and scheduled-event hooks with the complete CritiquePlus Comparator
prefix required by WordPress coding standards.
- Moved build documentation to an accepted production text file.
0.28.42
- Updated the plugin author identity to CritiquePlus and the plugin website to
app.critiqueplus.com.
- Documented the separate CritiquePlus design-system reference used for future
product interfaces.
0.28.41
- Removed automatic sample catalogue creation from activation.
- Disabled local anonymous statistics and affiliate-click tracking by default.
- Rebuilt the administration application with WordPress
wp-element instead
of bundling a separate React and ReactDOM runtime.
- Added the human-readable administration source and reproducible build steps.
- Cleaned the WordPress.org package structure and release documentation.
0.28.40
- Added an extensible preview renderer for optional comparison templates.
0.28.39
- Replaced demonstration notifications with current catalogue events.
- Added extension points for optional comparison templates.
0.28.38
- Added a secure manual FAQ editor and public FAQ schema output.
- Corrected SQL placeholder warnings reported by Plugin Check.
For the complete development history, see
changelog.txt in the plugin package.