A customer says they recommended your business on Facebook, yet a colleague cannot see the same text from another account. The Page still shows a rating, and older feedback may look different again. It is easy to assume that something is missing when several visibility and format rules are involved.
When comparing Facebook Recommendations vs reviews, focus on the actual source and what is publicly available. The terms are often used loosely, but a website should not promise to display content that the source does not make available.
Understand the format on the Page
Facebook has used Recommendations as the customer feedback format for business Pages, while historical reviews and ratings may still appear in the Page's experience. Interface names and availability can vary, so inspect the current Page rather than relying on an old screenshot.
Meta's help page on Recommendations explains the relationship between enabling the feature, the Page's rating and Recommendations shared publicly. Use Meta's current description as the starting point when explaining what a customer can see.
Avoid assuming that every written recommendation corresponds to a familiar five-star review card. Preserve the source's meaning rather than forcing different forms of feedback into a label that suggests a different submission process.
Separate a rating from the visible comments
A Page's rating and the written feedback available to a particular viewer are not the same thing. A number on a Page does not establish that every underlying experience can be retrieved and displayed elsewhere.
If you show a rating on your website, identify its source and avoid recomputing it from a selected set of comments. Likewise, a few displayed Recommendations should not be described as the complete feedback record unless that claim can be supported.
The UK CMA's guidance on fake reviews explains responsibilities around publishing review information in that market. It also provides a useful reason to examine how a selection or summary is presented, even when the source platform uses different terminology.
Keep visibility and attribution clear
Public visibility matters when content is used outside its original setting. Do not ask a customer to expose private information merely to fill a website section, and do not assume that your own logged-in view matches every visitor's view.
Where you provide a route to the source, use a clear label. W3C's guidance on descriptive link text explains how a link's wording can communicate its purpose. “Read the feedback on Facebook” gives more context than an unexplained icon or a repeated “click here.”
Keep the business identity consistent as well. A recommendation for another branch or an older Page should not quietly become evidence about a different location.
Explain the website display honestly
A missing Facebook Recommendation is first a source question. Consider this situation: the person who wrote it can see the post, but someone viewing the Page from another account cannot.
What that tells you: visibility differs between those views. It does not yet establish that the website feed is broken.
What to check next: inspect the original content's availability and the Page connection, then confirm what the connected source actually supplies. Do not promise to reproduce feedback that is unavailable through that source.
For visitors, the useful result is straightforward: they can read a relevant customer experience, recognise Facebook as the source and understand what the selected collection represents. That clarity matters more than making unlike review formats look identical.
Mirror App's Reviews Widget can display supported Facebook feedback on a business website. Check what the connected source supplies, keep Facebook attribution visible and avoid presenting the selection as a complete record of every Recommendation.
