Most Shopify merchants treat review moderation as spam filtering — approve the good ones, reject the bad ones. That's a starting point, but it misses what moderation actually communicates to the shoppers who read your reviews. A store with only five-star reviews looks curated. A store that visibly responds to its three-star reviews looks trustworthy.
Understanding the four statuses
Revova uses four review states. Pending is the default — new reviews land here and are invisible to shoppers until actioned. Approved publishes the review to the storefront immediately. Rejected declines the review permanently and hides it; the customer is not notified. Suspended is a temporary hold — useful when you want to pause visibility without making a final call, for example if a review mentions a specific order issue you're still investigating.
When to reject (and when not to)
Rejection is appropriate for reviews that contain personal information, clearly fraudulent content, profanity that slipped past the filter, or content that has nothing to do with the product. It is not an appropriate response to a low rating. Rejecting legitimate negative reviews erodes trust the moment a customer checks whether their review was published — and some will.
The case for auto-approve
For high-volume stores where manual moderation creates a bottleneck, auto-approve moves new submissions directly to Approved without a queue. The key nuance: auto-approve and the profanity filter work together. Reviews containing flagged language are held in Pending even with auto-approve enabled, giving you a targeted queue of only the reviews that actually warrant human review.
Replies are public, and that's the point
Admin replies appear below the review on the storefront with a 'Store reply' label. The audience isn't just the reviewer — it's every future shopper who reads that review. A concise, professional reply to a three-star review that addresses the specific concern converts hesitant shoppers far more effectively than another five-star review. Pro and Enterprise plan merchants can use AI-assisted reply suggestions to generate two or three draft options in a few seconds, then customise before posting.
A store that publicly responds to a critical review is demonstrating something a five-star average can't: that there are real people behind the brand who take feedback seriously.
Pinning as editorial curation
The pin feature lets you anchor specific reviews to the top of the review list regardless of sort order. Use it sparingly — one or two pinned reviews that are unusually detailed, specific, and credible. Not your most enthusiastic, but your most informative. The review that answers the question most shoppers are asking is the one worth pinning.