Does the plugin send my data anywhere?
No, with one clearly marked exception. Every check runs on your own hosting against your own site. The only feature that contacts a third party is the PageSpeed Insights lookup, which is disabled by default. When you turn it on, it sends your public homepage URL to Google and nothing else.
Will a one-click fix break my site?
Reversible switches can be turned off at any time and leave nothing behind. One-off actions that delete data or change visitor-facing behaviour are labelled “Review before applying” and ask you to confirm. Take a backup before applying anything in that category.
I applied a fix but the finding is still listed. Why?
The report you are looking at was generated before the fix ran. Re-run the audit and the finding will update. The plugin will prompt you to do this after any one-off action.
Some fixes stop after a few hundred items. Is that a bug?
No. Fixes that delete comments or write alt text work in batches so they cannot exhaust the request on a large site. The result message tells you when more remain - run the fix again to continue.
The privacy policy fix created a draft rather than a published page.
That is deliberate. WordPress generates the page with placeholder legal text, and publishing that unread would be worse than having no page. Review the wording, then publish it yourself. The audit will report the draft as an open notice until you do.
Why does the audit run one category at a time?
So a single slow check cannot time out the whole run. Each category is a separate request, which is also what drives the progress bar.
Can I add my own checks?
Yes. Hook kwaudit_audit_categories and register a class extending
KWAUDIT_Check. The Documentation screen inside the plugin includes a
working example.
The plugin also exposes kwaudit_required_capability to change who
may run audits and apply fixes (defaults to manage_options), and
kwaudit_needs_woocommerce_assets to keep WooCommerce assets on
specific pages.
What happens to my data when I uninstall?
Nothing is deleted unless you opt in. Tick Delete all plugin data on uninstall under Settings first if you want the plugin's options, reports and fix history removed when you delete it.
Why is there no WooCommerce section in my report?
The WooCommerce category and its fixes only appear when WooCommerce is active - otherwise the category is not registered at all, and it does not affect your overall score.
Does it need a subscription, licence key or account?
No. The plugin is free. There is no account, no licence key, no upsell gate and no telemetry. The only optional external service is the Google PageSpeed Insights lookup, and an API key for it is optional too.
Is this a replacement for my SEO plugin?
No. It audits, and it fills gaps where nothing else is handling them. The canonical-URL switch, for instance, automatically stands down when a dedicated SEO plugin is active, so you do not end up with two plugins emitting the same tag.
Is it a security scanner?
No. The security category reports configuration exposure - pending updates, missing headers, version disclosure, file editing, username enumeration. It does not scan for malware or detect an existing compromise. Use a dedicated malware scanner for that.
Will the audit slow down my site while it runs?
A full run takes 20–60 seconds and makes a small number of requests to your own front end, so the load is roughly that of a handful of visitors. Stored reports are kept in a single non-autoloaded option row, so they add nothing to ordinary page loads once the run has finished.
Can I run it on a staging or local site?
Yes, and it is the sensible place to try fixes first. Two caveats: HTTP basic authentication and unresolvable local hostnames both block the loopback requests, which disables the markup-based checks - and the PageSpeed Insights lookup cannot return field data for a site Google has never crawled.
Still stuck?
The documentation goes deeper on every area, and the support page explains what to include when reporting a problem.