Learn how to set up downtime monitoring alerts for your WordPress site and receive automatic notifications if your website or blog becomes unresponsive or is down …
If your business depends on your website being available and accessible to online users 24×7, then you need to make sure that people can visit your site and access your content any time of day or night.
Unless you are constantly checking your website, however, it’s hard to know if your website is up and running or if visitors can access your content 24×7.
This is where downtime monitoring is useful. A downtime monitoring service regularly checks your website to see if everything is ok. If it’s not, it immediately lets you know there’s a problem.
How To Set Up Website Downtime Monitoring For Your WordPress Site
In this tutorial, you will learn how to set up downtime monitoring alerts for your WordPress site and get automatic notifications if your website or blog becomes unresponsive or is down.
What Causes Website Downtime?
There are a number of factors that can cause website downtime.
Not performing regular website maintenance (see our WordPress Maintenance tutorials).
Distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.
Unauthorized site access by a hacker (see our WordPress Security tutorials).
Why Is Downtime Monitoring Important?
Even the most reliable web hosting providers will normally only guarantee around 99% uptime. This means that in a one-year period, you can expect your site to be down for at least 3.5 hours if you are hosting with the best of the best.
This may not seem too bad if an outage happens when no one is visiting your site. But what if your site goes down just as you launch a new product or service or send out your monthly newsletter promoting a special limited offer?
Clearly, if your business relies on your website for leads, sales, subscribers, etc. and your website goes down, then you are losing money.
If your website is frequently unresponsive, your reputation and credibility will suffer, visitors will leave and may not come back, and your ranking in search engines will also be affected.
This is one of the reasons why it’s important to host your website with a reliable web hosting provider (for more details see our tutorial on how to set up web hosting for your WordPress site). Make sure you use a reliable web hosting service provider but don’t rely exclusively on your web host to monitor your website 24×7 for you.
There are a number of different tests that can be used to monitor site uptime (e.g. Ping Monitor tests, HTTP tests, DNS server monitoring, etc.) and some services will perform complex backend checks and monitor dozens of checkpoints simultaneously to confirm problems.
WordPress Downtime Monitoring Plugins
When we last checked, many website monitoring plugins in the WordPress plugin repository are no longer being maintained, possibly because of the resources required to continually check if sites are up.
One WordPress plugin that is regularly maintained and provides downtime monitoring is Jetpack.
Jetpack is a powerful and useful WordPress toolkit plugin that gives you access to over 40 features, including web security and a free downtime monitoring service which automatically alerts you if your website goes down …
(Jetpack Monitor sends you an alert if your site goes down!)
Jetpack Monitor also notifies you when your site is back up and lets you know how long it was down for …
(Jetpack Monitor alerts you when your site is back up!)
Jetpack checks your site every five minutes from different locations around the world and sends your notifications by email and/or via mobile. You can also customize the email address where notifications are sent to.
To learn more about the Jetpack plugin, visit the Jetpack website, or see the tutorial below:
iThemes provides downtime monitoring as part of its comprehensive suite of WordPress backup, maintenance, and security services.
iThemes Sync Pro, for example, offers a way to monitor WordPress uptime, downtime & overall performance for multiple WordPress websites from one dashboard and sends notification emails when sites go down, with a history of your overall WordPress performance.
Server Monitor is a free browser extension for Chrome that lets you monitor any number of URLs for connectivity and content you specify and displays a status icon for quick reference.
This extension lets you poll one or more URLs at a defined interval to check the status and content of the page. An icon is added to your browser which indicates the status of the websites being monitored using different colors (e.g. Green = ok, Red = site is unresponsive).
Additionally, the extension can display pop-up notifications when the status of a monitored URL changes.
After installing the extension on your browser, right-click on the gray sphere icon and click on ‘Manage extensions’ …
(Server Monitor – Manage extensions)
Click on ‘Extension options’ …
(Click on ‘Extension options’)
This brings you to the ‘Settings’ screen where you can enable your notification settings (e.g. pop up notifications on unexpected responses, connection errors, and when the server is restored), specify the interval to run checks and set timeouts, and add the URLs you want to monitor.
Click ‘Save’ after adding URLs to update the extension’s settings …
(Server Monitor settings)
The extension’s icon will be split into as many segments as you have added URLs and indicates the status of the websites being monitored using different colors (e.g. Green = ok, Red = site is unresponsive)
(Server Monitor is now actively monitoring your websites)
You can view the status of your sites and refresh the monitor any time by clicking on the browser icon.
Many online services offer downtime monitoring as part of their suite of web services for all website platforms. Most of these services are not free but some offer free trials.
Pingdom provides a range of website checking services, including speed and downtime monitoring. Pingdom performs a second check on every incident to filter out false positives and will immediately alert you if something is wrong with your website, whether this is related to your site being unresponsive, or a failed transaction.
Pingdom also offers configurable alerts and performance reports.
Uptime Robot monitors your website every 5 minutes (or more depending on your monitoring settings) and alerts you if your sites are down.
The service asks for your website headers and if the status code returns a signal that your site is not loading, it performs several more checks in the next 30 seconds to make sure that your site is down. If the tests confirm that your site is, it will then send you an alert.
Site24x7 provides an all-in-one monitoring solution, including monitoring websites, servers, cloud services, networks, applications, users, and other web resources.
The above list of resources is just enough to get you started. To find more downtime monitoring services, just search online for “uptime monitoring” or “downtime monitoring.”
Also, many website monitoring services provide Chrome users with browser extensions that allow you to monitor your site at a glance from your web browser.
For example, if you use Uptime Robot, you can find extensions for your Chrome browser for this service …
(UptimeRobot Monitor – Chrome Browser Extension)
However you choose to monitor your website for downtime, the important thing is to have some form of detection system in place that can instantly alert you if your site becomes unresponsive so you can take action to resolve the problem and restore your business online.
As stated earlier, make sure you use a reliable web hosting service provider but don’t rely exclusively on your web host to monitor your website 24×7 for you.
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Learn about the Jetpack plugin for WordPress and how its 40+ suite of powerful tools can help you run a professional website or blog …
One of the things that makes WordPress the world’s leading platform for building and running websites is its flexibility and scalability through the use of themes and plugins.
And one of the plugins that can boost the power of your WordPress website or blog and enhance it in so many ways is Jetpack.
Jetpack Plugin – 40+ Useful Website Tools In One WordPress Plugin
In this this tutorial, you will learn about the Jetpack plugin for WordPress and how its 40+ suite of powerful tools can help you run a professional website or blog.
What Is Jetpack?
Jetpack is a WordPress plugin owned by Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com.
WordPress.com, the hosted WordPress service, offers loads of useful features to users that are lacking in the self-hosted version from WordPress.org. The self-hosted version of WordPress, however, is the preferred option for serious website owners and bloggers, as it puts them in complete control of their digital presence.
To learn more about the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, see this tutorial:
The Jetpack plugin brings many of the powerful security, traffic, and customization services and handy features available on WordPress.com to self-hosted WordPress sites into a well supported and integrated solution.
The plugin is constantly being updated. It currently provides more than 40 features, and most of these are free. We will cover many of these features and tools in more detail later in this tutorial.
Important – Before Installing Jetpack
Before installing the Jetpack plugin, you will need to set up an account with WordPress.com. If you run a self-hosted WordPress website or blog, you can set up a free WordPress.com account here.
After setting up your WordPress.com account, stay logged in and complete the step-by-step tutorial below to install and configure the jetpack plugin.
For this tutorial, we’ll install the free version of the Jetpack plugin, which you can do from your WordPress dashboard. We’ll discuss some of the premium features as we go through the setup process.
Installing The Jetpack Plugin
To install the Jetpack plugin, log into your WordPress site and select Plugins > Add Plugins from your main dashboard menu (if you need help see our tutorial on installing WordPress plugins).
Normally Jetpack will display on the main screen. If not, just search for “jetpack” in the Keyword search field.
Click on the ‘Install Now’ button to install the plugin …
(Install the Jetpack plugin)
After installing the plugin, click on ‘Activate’ …
(Activate the Jetpack plugin)
After installing and activating the plugin, you will be asked to connect Jetpack to your WordPress.com account. You should have already set this up. If not, you will be asked to set up an account before you can proceed.
Click on ‘Set up Jetpack’ …
(Connect Jetpack to WordPress.com)
You will be asked to agree to sharing details between your WordPress.com account and your WordPress site. Click ‘Approve’ to continue with your plugin setup …
(Complete your plugin setup)
Jetpack will then automatically authorize your connection and complete the plugin setup …
(Wait for the plugin to complete the setup)
After the plugin completes the setup process, go ahead and choose the ‘Free’ plan for now by clicking on the ‘Start with free’ button …
(Start with the ‘Free’ plan)
This will bring you back to your WordPress admin dashboard …
(Jetpack is now installed and ready to go!)
The Jetpack plugin is now installed and ready to go.
After installation, Jetpack recommends that you activate a number of features. We recommend ignoring this recommendation and only turning on the features you need.
Jetpack – Full List Of Features
According to the plugin’s documentation, here is the full list of features Jetpack makes available to users in its toolkit:
Ads: Earn income by displaying ads on your site. (Premium feature)
Beautiful Math: Lets you write complex mathematical equations, formulas, and more.
Carousel: Transforms a standard WordPress image gallery into a full-screen photo browsing experience.
Comments: Replaces your default comment form with a new comment system that has integrated social media login options.
Comment Likes: Allows readers to like other comments to show their agreement, approval, or appreciation.
Contact Form: Lets you add a contact form to any post or page without giving out your personal email address.
Custom CSS: Lets you customize the appearance of your theme without creating a child theme or worrying about updates overwriting your customizations.
Custom Content Types: Adds custom post types like testimonials or portfolio items to your site.
Enhanced Distribution: Allows your content to be included in the WordPress.com “firehose” of public blog content.
Extra Sidebar Widgets: Adds extra widgets you can add to your site, including RSS Links, Twitter Timelines, and Facebook Like Boxes.
Gravatar Hovercards: Make your Gravatar profile visible to your site visitors.
Google Analytics: Track your WordPress site statistics using Google Analytics. (Premium feature)
Infinite Scroll: Pulls the next posts automatically into view when readers approach the bottom of your page.
JSON API: Authorizes applications and services to securely connect to your site and allows them to use your content or offer you new functionality.
Lazy Images: Makes your pages load faster by only loading visible images, waiting to load images that are offscreen as users scroll down.
Likes: Allows readers to show their appreciation for your posts with a single click.
Markdown: Allows you to compose posts and comments with links, lists, and other styles using regular characters and punctuation marks. Markdown is used by writers and bloggers who want a quick and easy way to write rich text without having to take their hands off the keyboard.
Mobile Theme: Jetpack’s Mobile Theme offers a way to make your site mobile-friendly if your current theme is not responsive or hasn’t been updated in a while.
Monitor: Alerts you via email if your site goes down.
Notifications: Allows you to receive notifications for new comments and Likes in your admin bar and on your mobile device.
Image CDN (formerly Photon): Provides faster delivery of your images via WordPress’ own content delivery network (CDN), resulting in less load on your host and faster images for your readers.
Plugin Updates: Allows you to choose which plugins on your site should update automatically.
Post by Email: Publishes posts to your WordPress site via email using any email client.
Proofreading: Checks your spelling, grammar, and written style prior to publishing.
Protect: Protects your site from traditional and distributed brute force attacks.
Publicize: Shares new posts on social media networks automatically, or schedule future shares with custom messages.
Related Posts: Shows contextual posts your visitors might be interested in reading after they’re done reading a current post.
Security Scanning: Provides a suite of Anti-virus, malware, and threat detection for your WordPress site with automated resolution. (Premium feature)
Search: Replaces your WordPress site’s built-in search feature with advanced search functionality. (Premium feature)
SEO Tools: Optimizes your site for search engines using a suite of SEO tools. (Premium feature)
Sharing: Adds sharing buttons to your posts so readers can easily share your content on social networks, via email, etc..
Shortcode Embeds: Lets you easily embed content from a range of external services into your own content, e.g. videos from YouTube, tweets from Twitter, and other media across the web.
Single Sign On: Uses your WordPress.com credentials to register for and sign into self-hosted WordPress sites quickly and securely.
Site Backups: Automatically backs up your entire WordPress site, including all your content, data, media, and WordPress settings. (Premium feature)
Site Stats: Lets you view site visits by date, as well as your most popular pages and posts, and more.
Site Verification: Lets you verify your site for use with Google, Bing, and Pinterest and their tools.
Sitemaps: Generates a sitemap with a list of pages to be indexed by search engines like Google or Bing.
Spam Filtering: Automatically filters out spam from comments, pingbacks, and contact form submissions. (Premium feature)
Subscriptions: Allows visitors to receive notifications of your latest posts or comments.
Tiled Galleries: Displays your image galleries in three different styles: a rectangular mosaic, a square mosaic, and a circular grid.
WP.me Shortlinks: Lets you generate short and simple links to your content using the wp.me domain.
Widget Visibility: Allows you to configure widgets to appear only on certain pages (or be hidden on certain pages).
WordPress.com Toolbar: Replaces the default admin bar and offers quick links to the Reader, all your sites, your WordPress.com profile, and notifications.
Some of above features are activated by default when the plugin is installed and others must be turned on (see next section).
Also, Jetpack is continually being updated and improved. Refer to the full list of features on the official Jetpack documentation for module updates and new features.
Configuring The Jetpack Plugin
After installing Jetpack, the next step is to configure the plugin.
The plugin adds a new ‘Jetpack’ section to the main WordPress dashboard menu. To configure the plugin settings, click on Jetpack > Settings …
(Jetpack – Settings menu)
The modules in the Jetpack Settings screen are grouped into different tabbed sections. These include:
Writing module
Sharing module
Discussion module
Traffic module
Security module
(Jetpack Settings screen)
Let’s go through each of these sections and cover its main modules and features.
Jetpack – Writing Module
The Writing module contains tools and features designed to make the writing process easier.
(Jetpack – Writing Module)
Some of the main tools and features in the Writing module include …
Proofreading
Proofreading tools let you check your spelling, style, and grammar …
(Jetpack – Proofreading)
Custom Content Types
You can use custom content types to add testimonials and showcase your work through portfolios …
(Jetpack – Custom content types)
Note: Turning on features like Testimonials, will add a new section to the main menu …
(Jetpack – Testimonials)
Post by email
Turning on this feature lets you publish posts to WordPress by email …
(Jetpack – Post by email)
Jetpack – Sharing Module
The Sharing module contains tools and features designed to help you integrate your WordPress site with social media networks …
(Jetpack – Sharing Module)
Some of the main tools and features in the Sharing module include …
Publicize Connections
Publicize connections automatically shares your posts to social networks …
(Jetpack – Publicize connections)
This is one of the tools we recommend using to automate traffic with WordPress …
(Jetpack – Publicize Your Posts)
Sharing buttons
You can add sharing buttons to your posts …
(Jetpack – Sharing buttons)
This feature allows your site users to share your posts with others via social networks, emails … even print your content …
(Jetpack – Sharing Buttons settings)
Jetpack – Discussion Module
The Discussion module contains tools and features designed to improve user engagement on your site …
(Jetpack – Discussion Module)
Some of the main tools and features in the Discussion module include …
Comments
With this feature enabled, the default WordPress commenting form is enhanced with social login integration, allowing your site visitors to use their social media accounts to leave comments …
(Jetpack – Comments)
Additional features in this section include enabling Gravatar Hovercards, Markdown, and comment likes.
Subscriptions
Enable this feature to allow users to subscribe to your posts and comments and receive notifications via email …
(Jetpack – Subscriptions)
Turning on the Subscriptions feature adds an additional ‘Follower Settings’ section to the Reading Settings section where you can customize the emails sent out to subscribers …
(Reading Settings – Follower Settings)
Jetpack – Traffic Module
The Traffic module contains tools and features designed to improve user engagement on your site …
(Jetpack – Traffic Module)
Some of the main tools and features in the Traffic module include …
Site stats
Site stats provide valuable traffic stats and insights directly in your WordPress dashboard …
(Jetpack – Site Stats)
To view your traffic stats, click on Jetpack > Site Stats …
(Jetpack – Site Stats menu)
This brings up the ‘Site Stats’ screen with information on your site’s traffic activity …
(Site Stats screen)
You can view enhanced stats in your WordPress.com account by clicking on the ‘Show Me’ button in your Site Stats screen …
(WordPress.com enhanced stats)
Related posts
Enable the Related posts feature to show related content to users after they have read your current post …
(Jetpack Related posts)
Enabling this feature adds a ‘Related posts’ section to your Reading Settings screen, allowing you to configure the feature’s settings …
Enabling WordPress.com log in allows users to log into your site using their WordPress.com account. This feature also provides additional authentication options …
(Jetpack WordPress.com log in)
With the feature enabled, users are presented with the option of logging into your site using their WordPress.com account or their username and password.
(WordPress Login screen with WordPress.com log in feature enabled)
As well as the options displayed in the Jetpack Settings screen, the plugin automatically turns on additional features, which can be viewed from the Jetpack Dashboard.
Using The Jetpack Dashboard
To switch to the Jetpack Dashboard, click on the ‘Dashboard’ button at the top of the Jetpack Settings screen …
(Click on the Dashboard button)
You can also access the Jetpack Dashboard screen by selecting Jetpack > Dashboard from the main WordPress menu …
(Jetpack – Dashboard menu)
This brings you to the ‘Jetpack Dashboard’ screen …
(Jetpack Dashboard screen)
Here you can view your stats, security activity, and, depending on which plugin features you have enabled, other details about your site’s performance, users, etc. …
(Jetpack Dashboard Security activity)
As well as default site protection, some of the other features worth knowing about in the Jetpack security dashboard, include:
Downtime Monitoring
Activate the free Downtime Monitoring feature to receive automated email notifications if your website goes down …
(Jetpack Downtime Monitoring)
Jetpack Monitor is a useful feature to have enabled, as it will not only send you an email alert (or mobile notification) if it detects that your site is down (indicating that your server is not loading your site and may be experiencing issues) …
(Jetpack Monitor sends you an alert if your site goes down!)
Jetpack Monitor also notifies you when your site is back up and lets you know how long it was down for …
(Jetpack Monitor alerts you when your site is back up!)
Jetpack checks your site every five minutes from different locations around the world and sends your notifications by email and/or via mobile. You can also customize the email address where notifications are sent to.
Plugin Autoupdates
Jetpack has a plugin autoupdate feature, which automatically updates plugins when a new version is released …
(Jetpack plugin autoupdates)
You can enable this feature for the plugins you choose, allowing you to manage installed plugin autoupdates individually …
Jetpack Shortlinks is another useful feature that is automatically enabled when you activate the Jetpack plugin. This allows you to use shortened links for your posts using the wp.me domain …
(Jetpack Shortlinks)
To learn more about all the tools and features of Jetpack, see the plugin’s full list of features.
Jetpack – Additional Info
With Jetpack installed on your site, you can seamlessly navigate between your WordPress.com dashboard and your self-hosted WordPress dashboard …
(WordPress.com dashboard)
This allows you to manage not only your Jetpack plugin features, but all of your WordPress site’s options as well …
(Manage your site from your WordPress.com dashboard)
To return to your self-hosted site’s admin dashboard, scroll down to the botton of your WordPress.com dashboard’s menu and click on ‘WP Admin’ …
(Click WP Admin to return to your site’s dashboard)
Because Jetpack has grown to include so many tools and features over the years, the dashboard interface has been simplified with different modules grouped into separate tabs and the plugin activates its most useful modules by default upon installation, so these don’t appear in the primary settings interface …
(Jetpack Settings screen)
To view all Jetpack modules on one page, enter the URL below into your web browser (replace “[your-site-URL]” with your actual domain) …
Click image to enlarge.
This brings up all modules in one page and lets you know which are active or inactive …
(Control all Jetpack modules from one page)
Jetpack Support
The plugin is very well documented and supported. To learn more about any of the plugin’s modules or features, just visit the official Jetpack plugin website …
(Access all plugin documentation on the official Jetpack website)
The plugin also comes with free basic support. Upgrading to one of the premium optionsgives users faster resolution to support questions …
(Search the plugin website for additional plugin information)
Upgrading To Jetpack Premium
You can do most things you will need using the free version of the Jetpack plugin. If, however, you feel you need any of the additional premium features (e.g. security, backups, etc.), then Jetpack offers users a range of affordable upgrade plans …
As you can see, the Jetpack plugin offers WordPress users a powerful toolkit for running a professional website or blog. We recommend installing the plugin and only turning on the features you need.
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Learn about WordPress plugins that can help your website comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements for new European Union laws on data protection …
GDPR – General Data Protection Regulation Compliance
As well as making sure that your website complies with all laws and regulations governing how businesses operate online (see Is Your Website Legally Compliant?), new European Union laws on data protection require all website and webshop owners wherever they are located to comply with the European privacy regulations known as GDPR from May 25th, 2018 to avoid incurring hefty fines.
What Is The GDPR?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a regulation in European Union (EU) law on data protection and privacy for all EU individuals. It addresses the export of personal data outside the EU and aims to give control back to citizens and residents over their personal data …
Taking effect from May 25, 2018, the GDPR affects businesses of all sizes that collect, process, or store data of any citizen, resident, or individual within the European Union.
GDPR compliance requires all businesses and website owners who collect any information or personal data from EU individuals (including mobile apps) to have certain things in place, including documentation (e.g. privacy notice) on the website informing visitors that their information is being collected, the type of data being collected, why it’s being collected, and how long the information is being held for.
The GDPR also requires business to take additional steps to ensure any personal data it collects is protected. This includes:
Setting up internal plans and policies for data collection, data storage, and data access and being prepared for potential breaches of data.
Providing details to users before collecting data, including full disclosure of personal information purposes and time limits.
Making sure that consent forms are unchecked by default and have an easy confirmation process.
Listing contact information of your data privacy administrator clearly on your website.
Providing users the ability to send inquiries regarding their information and view, edit, or delete their personal information.
Having a process in place for easy data deletion and for handling data deletion requests in a timely manner.
Having a process in place to allow people to transfer or download their information (e.g. a CSV file).
Lack of compliance with GDPR rules can lead to significant fines.
For additional information about adding legal pages to your website, see the post below:
With new data protection laws and privacy regulations having come into effect recently, we thought it would be useful to let you know about some WordPress plugins that can assist you with GDPR compliance.
We are not lawyers and cannot give you legal advice about how GDPR will affect your website or your business. The plugins described below will not make your website GDPR compliant, they are only tools to assist in the process. Please seek advice from competent legal experts about GDPR compliance for your business.
WP GDPR is a free WordPress plugin that automates the administration process of handling user requests for information about their data.
The plugin creates a page where users can request access to their personal data stored on your website and provides you with an overview of these requests in the WordPress backend.
In the backend, you can also see which plugins collect personal data and require an ‘ask for approval’ checkbox.
When users ask to view their personal data, they receive an email with a unique URL that allows them to view, update and download all comments they have posted on your site, and request for removal of any or all comments.
Thre plugin developers also offer premium add-ons for integration with plugins that collect user data and allow users to view, update, and download their personal data or ask for its removal.
Plugin Installation
WP GDPR installs like any WordPress plugin (need help installing plugins? See this tutorial).
To install the plugin, go to the ‘Add Plugins’ screen (Plugins > Add Plugins), and type in ‘GDPR’ in the keyword search field. Locate the WP GDPR plugin and click on ‘Install Now’ …
(Install WP GDPR)
After the plugin has been installed, click on ‘Activate’ ….
(Activate WP GDPR)
After the plugin has been installed and activated, you will see a new WP GDPR menu item on your main menu …
(WP GDPR menu added)
We’ll go through this menu in a moment. The plugin also creates a page where users can request access to their personal data.
To view this page, go to your Pages screen, find the plugin page and click on ‘View’ …
(The plugin creates a new ‘GDPR request personal data’ page)
You can point users to this page and they will be able to enter their email, tick a consent checkbox and submit a request for information about any personal data stored on your website …
(‘GDPR request personal data’ page)
The plugin also places a GDPR consent notice and checkbox below every post comments field …
(GDPR consent notice and checkbox)
Plugin Usage
When users want to access information about their data, they visit the GDPR request page and submit a request …
(Users submit a request for personal data)
The plugin then sends the user an email with a link where they can view what personal data has been stored on your site …
(GDPR request email confirmation notice)
In your WordPress backend, you can see a list of data requests by clicking on the WP GDPR > List of data requests menu …
(WP GDPR menu – List of data requests)
This brings up a list of all users that requested information with a status of their request …
(List of user requests)
The user receives an email with a link they can click on to check their personal data …
(User request email)
Clicking on the button takes the user to a page on your site where they can view data stored on your site (e.g. comments) and either send your site administrator a delete request for any or all of the data, or download it to a CSV file …
(Users can view what data is stored on your website)
You can view delete requests by going to the WP GDPR menu and selecting ‘List of delete requests’ …
(WP GDPR menu – List of delete requests)
This brings up a list of all delete requests. The site administrator can then delete personal data or make personal data anonymous …
(List of delete requests)
To view a list of all plugins that collect personal user data, click on ‘List of plugins’ …
(WP GDPR menu – List of plugins)
This brings up a list of all plugins that store user data …
(List of plugins)
To configure the plugin’s settings, click on ‘Settings’ …
(WP GDPR menu – Settings)
This lets you edit the wording of comment forms and the personal data request page, hide comments, send notifications and requests to your DPO’s (Data Protection Officer) email address, etc. …
(WP GDPR plugin settings)
Remember to update your Privacy Policy page and add a link to the page in your GDPR form’s privacy policy text …
(Add a link to your Privacy Policy page)
Also, remember to add your GDPR page to your Legal Pages section (you can create a custom menu to do this) …
(Add your GDPR page to your Legal Pages section)
If you need help using the plugin, see the ‘Help’ section of the WP GDPR menu …
(WP GDPR menu – Help)
As you can see, this a useful plugin for automating and assisting the process of receiving and sending notifications about user data requests.
For more details, visit the plugin website: WP GDPR
There are other WordPress GDPR plugins you can also look at …
WP GDPR Compliance is another free WordPress GDPR compliance plugin you can install that will assist website owners and online shops to comply with European provacy regulations.
Once installed, the plugin provides integrations with other plugins that collect personal data of your site users …
(WP GDPR Compliance – Integrations screen)
The plugin also provides a Checklist to help you assess what private data you collect on your website with useful tips on how to comply with GDPR requirements, and a Settings tab …
Don’t assume that GDPR laws and regulations don’t apply to you if you live outside the European Union. To learn more about the GDPR and how it can affect your business, see the resources below. Once again, we strongly recommend that you seek competent legal advice from experts on this matter.
We hope you have found the above information on GDPR compliance and WordPress GDPR plugins useful.
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If your business depends on your website being available and accessible to online users 24×7, then you need to make sure that people can visit your site and access your content any time of day or night.
As well as making sure that your website complies with all laws and regulations governing how businesses operate online (see 
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