=== SPOT Guides ===
Contributors: spotguide
Tags: embed, oembed, restaurants, food, guides
Requires at least: 5.9
Tested up to: 7.1
Requires PHP: 7.2
Stable tag: 1.0.1
License: GPLv2 or later
License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Paste a SPOT guide link into your post and it becomes a live, interactive restaurant guide, right in your page.

== Description ==

[SPOT](https://www.spot-guide.com) turns your restaurant recommendations into interactive guides, with a map, what to order at every spot, and your byline.

This plugin makes embedding one exactly as easy as embedding a YouTube video: paste your guide's link (like `https://www.spot-guide.com/g/your-guide`) on its own line in the editor, and the live guide appears.

**What your readers get, without leaving your page:**

* The full guide as a scrollable list: every spot, with what to order
* One-tap directions to any place
* Your byline, linking back to your profile

**What you get:**

* An interactive map: tap a pin and the list moves to that spot
* The guide's restaurant structured data (JSON-LD) is added to **your** page, so your post is eligible for rich results
* Readers can subscribe to your next guide, and the email list is yours, exportable any time
* Longer time-on-page from an interactive element, which is what your ad RPM is built on

**No account needed to embed.** Creating your own guides takes a free SPOT account. SPOT never pays for recommendations, and restaurants can't pay to be included, by anyone, ever.

A `[spot_guide url="…"]` shortcode is included for widget areas and templates.

== Installation ==

1. Upload the plugin ZIP via Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, or install from the directory.
2. Activate it.
3. Paste any `spot-guide.com/g/…` link on its own line in a post. That's it.

== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= Does this slow my site down? =

No. The embed is a lazy-loaded iframe plus one small async script. Nothing loads until the reader reaches it.

= Does embedding compete with my post in search? =

The embed itself never competes with you: it carries a noindex directive, so the iframe can never appear in search results in place of your post. The guide's structured data is added to your page rather than kept on ours, so it is your post that is eligible for the rich result. SPOT keeps its own guide page indexed, with your byline and a link to your profile on it.

= Can I change how it looks? =

Add ?theme=dark for a dark palette, or ?accent=RRGGBB for your own accent colour, to the end of the embed URL. Anything else, get in touch through spot-guide.com/creators.

== Changelog ==

= 1.0.1 =
* Guide links carrying utm_ or other query parameters now embed instead of being rejected.
* Failed shortcodes leave an HTML comment in the source rather than rendering nothing.
* Shortcode normalises links to one canonical form, so WordPress caches one entry per guide.
* Tested against WordPress 7.1.

= 1.0.0 =
* Initial release: oEmbed provider registration and the [spot_guide] shortcode.
