---
title: Managing Review Approval Workflows and Moderation Statuses in ReviewX
description: "Maintaining a credible, trustworthy review section requires balanced moderation. While authentic customer testimonials build social proof, e-commerce stores must be protected against malicious spam bots, defamatory language, and competitor sabotage. **ReviewX** includes an intuitive, centralized **Review Moderation Center** directly within…"
url: "https://reviewx.io/docs/managing-review-approval-workflows-moderation-statuses-reviewx/"
updated: "2026-10-04"
category: Configuration
---

# Managing Review Approval Workflows and Moderation Statuses in ReviewX

Maintaining a credible, trustworthy review section requires balanced moderation. While authentic customer testimonials build social proof, e-commerce stores must be protected against malicious spam bots, defamatory language, and competitor sabotage. **ReviewX** includes an intuitive, centralized **Review Moderation Center** directly within your WordPress admin dashboard, giving store owners granular control over the review approval lifecycle.

  ![ReviewX Review Moderation Table and Status Filtering](https://reviewx.io/wp-content/uploads/2026/10/rvx_moderation_workflow_statuses_annotated.png)

Authenticity vs Store Protection

ReviewX gives you the flexibility to auto-publish verified buyer reviews instantly while quarantining suspicious submissions or low-rated reviews for administrative inspection and proactive customer service outreach.

## Understanding ReviewX Moderation Statuses

Every review in ReviewX exists in one of five distinct lifecycle states, accessible via the top status filter tabs (marked with **Badge 1**):

| Status Tab | Storefront Visibility | Description & Workflow |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **All** | Mixed | A complete, unfiltered log of all reviews regardless of moderation status. |
| **Published** | Publicly Visible | Approved reviews displayed on single product pages, widgets, and crawled by Google search engine bots. |
| **Pending** | Hidden from Public | New submissions awaiting review approval (when Auto-Approval is disabled). |
| **Spam** | Hidden from Public | Reviews flagged by reCAPTCHA, suspicious IP patterns, or manually marked as spam. |
| **Trash** | Hidden from Public | Deleted reviews held in staging. Can be restored or permanently emptied. |

## Executing Moderation Actions on Review Rows

In the review table (marked with **Badge 2**), each review item displays comprehensive metadata: reviewer identity, verified buyer badge, product thumbnail, star rating, multi-criteria breakdown, and media attachments.

Hovering over a review row reveals actionable moderation controls:

- **Approve:** Instantly transitions a *Pending* review to *Published*, triggering schema aggregation and customer notification.
- **Unapprove:** Temporarily unpublishes a live review without deleting it, allowing for dispute resolution.
- **Reply:** Opens the store owner reply side drawer to post an official response directly beneath the testimonial.
- **Spam:** Quarantines the review into the Spam folder to prevent future submissions from that IP or email.
- **Trash:** Moves the review to Trash.

## Configuring Review Auto-Approval Rules

To automate your moderation pipeline, navigate to **ReviewX → Reviews → Review settings** and locate **Review auto approval**:

- **Auto-Approval ON:** Reviews are published automatically upon customer submission, ensuring zero delay in social proof updates.
- **Auto-Approval OFF:** Reviews enter the *Pending* queue and require manual administrator review before appearing on the storefront.