PowerReviews uses a JavaScript library to render user interfaces that display and collect content about your products and/or services. This JavaScript library is referred to as the Content Engine.
This article contains the following sections:
- Service Information
- Initializing the Content Engine
- The Content Engine API
- The Product Configuration Object Model
- The Components Object Model
- Callbacks
Service Information
As a third-party service, PowerReviews recognizes the importance of providing highly performant software. The Content Engine is served on PowerReviews' hosting platform - a Cloudfront-based Content Delivery Network (CDN). A CDN is a network of servers located throughout the world that ensures the Content Engine JavaScript is delivered quickly and reliably, regardless of where your customers are located. The size of the Engine is roughly 200 KB. By hosting the Content Engine on a CDN, PowerReviews can deliver new features and updates that don’t require any changes to how the JavaScript is integrated and implemented on your website.
Additionally, the Content Engine loads JavaScript asynchronously to maximize your page load speed. This means that your browser can load other elements while the Content Engine loads the JavaScript on your webpages. It also ensures that the remainder of the page is unaffected should the Content Engine or corresponding API become unavailable.
Initializing the Content Engine
The Content Engine is a JavaScript library that gives you the ability to render various user interfaces that display and collect content from PowerReviews. You should source the Content Engine within the <body> tags of your page.
<script src="https://ui.powerreviews.com/stable/4.1/ui.js" async></script>
The Content Engine API
The pwr("render") calls the API on page load. This product configuration object, or array of configuration objects, renders PowerReviews content on your webpage.
The pwr("render") can only be called once per page load. PowerReviews batches UI rendering into a single call, so requests to the PowerReviews API are also batched into as few calls as possible. This ensures optimal performance on your page. If a page loads via infinite scroll (or other subsequent calls), you are then able to make additional render calls at that time.
The Product Configuration Object Model
The Product Configuration Object Model contains identifying information necessary to find content for your products, as well as instructions on where to inject PowerReviews content into your webpage.
| Key | Description | Required? |
| api_key | Your PowerReviews API Key | Yes |
| merchant_id | Your Merchant ID | Yes |
| merchant_group_id | Your Merchant Group ID. | Yes |
| locale | The content locale. | Yes |
| page_id | The unique identifier of the page or product you'd like to display content for. | Yes |
| name | The product name. | Yes |
| image_url | A public-facing URL to an image of the product. | Yes |
| description | A description of the product. | Yes |
| category_name | The PowerReviews-formatted category hierarchy of the product. For example, Shoes > Women's Shoes > Pumps. | Yes |
| manufacturer_id | The manufacturer id for the product. | Yes, for syndication. |
| upc | The 13-digit UPC for the product. | Yes, for syndication. |
| brand_name | The brand of the product. | Yes, for syndication. |
| price | The price of the product. | No |
| in_stock | If the product is in stock. This is a true/false key. | No |
| url | The URL of the product detail page on your website. This key shouldn't contain spaces. | Yes |
| on_read_reviews_click | A mechanism to attach a callback function to the Read Reviews link. | No |
| on_write_review_click | A mechanism to attach a callback function to the Write A Review link. | No |
| on_view_answers_click | A mechanism to attach a callback function to the View Answers link. | No |
| on_ask_question_click | A mechanism to attach a callback function to the Ask A Question link. | No |
| review_wrapper_url | The full URL path to your Write-a-Review page. | If you're not using PowerReviews' Follow-Up Email, this key is required. |
| style_sheet | The full URL path to your PowerReviews CSS theme CSS. | No |
| components | An object that contains mappins of PowerReviews content keys to DOM element IDs where the content should be injected. | Yes |
| on_render | A callback function that's triggered when components render. For more information, see Callbacks. | No |
| on_submit | A callback function that's triggered when a Content Collection interface is submitted. For more information, see Callbacks. | No |
| on_back_to_top_click | A callback function that's triggered when a user clicks the back to top link. For more information, see Callbacks. | No |
| merchant_user_email | The email address for the customer writing the review. | No |
| merchant_user_id | The unique identifier for the customer writing the review. Typically, this is your internal user ID or customer ID, and can be passed over to the Write-a-Review form. | No |
| source | Indicates whether the user has arrived at the Write-a-Review page from a Web page or email message link. | No |
| enable_content_collection_modal | Set to 'false' if the modal is not being used to allow for additional performance enhancement. | No |
The Components Object Model
The Components Object Model defines what PowerReviews content you'd like to render, and where to render it to. The keys of the properties within the Components Object correlate to the content you'd like to render for a product. Their values correspond to the ID of the container HTML element where the content should be rendered.
The following table contains the various types of content that the Content Engine can render:
Callbacks
You can attach Callback functions to milestones within the PowerReviews component lifecycle.
on_render(config, data)
When the Product Configuration Object contains a function assigned to the on_render property (a callback function), that callback function is called once for each item in the components map when the component renders.
Example:
Two parameters are included in the callback function - config and data.
The config object contains the key of the component that was rendered, as well as the page_id of the product used in that component. Using this data, you can identify the rendered component. The data parameter includes high-level aggregate data related to the product and component.
For Review-related components, this object includes the total number of reviews (review_count) and the aggregate rating (aggregate_rating). For Question-related components, this object contains the number of questions (question_count).
on_submit(config, data)
The on_submit callback works similarly to the on_render() callback, but is specific to the Content Collection interfaces: the Write-a-Review, Write-a-Question, Write-an-Answer, and Seller Ratings interfaces.
When a Content Collection product configuration object contains a function assigned to the on_submit property (a callback function), that callback function is called for the corresponding component when a user submits data.
Example:
Two parameters are included in the callback function - config and data.
The config object contains the key of the component that was rendered, as well as the page_id of the product used in that component. Using this data you can identify the rendered component. The data parameter includes an array called fields. This array contains all of the inputs the user provides.
on_back_to_top_click (config, data)
You can assign a function to the on_back_to_top_click property to attach a custom click event handler to the Back to Top button that appears on the Review Display. You can use this event handler to add custom behavior to this button, like specifying a custom scroll-to-top target.
Example:
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Last update:
08-20-2025
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