Installing the WordPress plugin
Drop-in plugin install for self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com Business plans.
title: "Installing the WordPress plugin" slug: "wordpress-install" description: "Drop-in plugin install for self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com Business plans." group: "Integrations" order: 10
The AIRRNK WordPress plugin gives the platform write access to your site so it can ship approved fixes (schema injection, llms.txt generation, FAQ answer updates, structured-data repair) without you touching code.
Requirements
- WordPress 6.3 or newer.
- PHP 7.4 or newer.
- An AIRRNK account with the site already verified via meta tag or DNS.
Works on self-hosted WordPress and WordPress.com Business / eCommerce plans. It does not work on WordPress.com Free/Personal/Premium because those tiers disallow plugin installation.
Install
- Download
airrnk.zipfrom your dashboard — Site settings → Integrations → WordPress. - In WP Admin go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin. Select the zip and install.
- Activate the plugin.
- A new top-level AIRRNK menu item appears. Open it and paste the site token from your dashboard. Save.
- You'll see Connected · healthy within a few seconds.
What the plugin does
On activation, it registers:
- A REST route at
/wp-json/airrnk/v1/syncthat the AIRRNK backend calls with signed requests. - A
llms.txtandllms-full.txthandler that serves from/llms.txtand/llms-full.txtat the site root — no conflict with static file plugins. - A schema injector that can add
FAQPage,HowTo, andProductJSON-LD into the<head>of pages you approve. - A draft-post creator for AI-generated programmatic content. All posts are created as drafts — nothing auto-publishes without explicit approval.
Scope & permissions
The plugin uses a scoped application password (not your admin login). It has exactly these WP capabilities:
edit_posts(for draft creation)edit_theme_options(for schema injection into<head>)manage_optionslimited to the plugin's own settings page
It cannot delete content, modify users, change themes, or install other plugins. All actions are logged locally under AIRRNK → Activity.
Uninstall
Deactivate the plugin. The schema injections and llms.txt handlers stop serving immediately. Drafts created by AIRRNK remain — delete them manually if you want a clean slate. Deleting the plugin purges all its options from wp_options.
Troubleshooting
Connection says "unreachable". Your host is blocking outbound requests to api.airank.tech. Ask your host to allow it, or switch to the self-hosted webhook mode (Site settings → Integrations → Self-hosted).
llms.txt returns 404. A caching plugin (usually WP Rocket or W3 Total Cache) is intercepting it. Add /llms.txt and /llms-full.txt to your cache exclusion list.
Schema not appearing. Check for conflicts with Yoast/RankMath — their schema modules will deduplicate JSON-LD blocks. The plugin's settings page has a "Defer to existing schema plugin" toggle.
Next steps
- Understanding the AI Score — now that the plugin is connected, here's what we'll try to fix.
- API reference — if you prefer to hit endpoints directly instead of using the plugin UI.