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Set up PingAura Telemetry on WordPress

Install the PingAura Telemetry plugin to see AI-assistant visits and AI crawler requests on a WordPress site, including cached pages.

The PingAura Telemetry plugin sends visits from AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, and requests from AI crawlers, from a WordPress site to PingAura. It works with page caching plugins and CDNs, and needs no code changes. For Next.js, Node.js or Cloudflare Workers, use the telemetry SDK instead.

Before you begin

  • Your domain is added to PingAura.
  • PingAura Telemetry is enabled for your workspace. If the PingAura Telemetry tab in AI Traffic shows an upgrade notice, contact your account team.
  • You can install plugins on the WordPress site (the Administrator role).
  • WordPress 6.0 or later and PHP 7.4 or later.

Step 1: Create an ingest key

  1. In PingAura, go to Workspace settings → API & MCP.
  2. Create a key with the ingest scope only.
  3. Copy the key. It is shown only once.

An ingest key can only send telemetry events. It can't read or change anything in your workspace.

Step 2: Install the plugin

  1. Download pingaura-telemetry.zip from the latest release.
  2. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin, choose the zip and click Install Now.
  3. Click Activate.

Step 3: Connect it

  1. Go to Settings → PingAura Telemetry.
  2. Paste the key into Ingest key.
  3. Check that Domain matches the domain in PingAura, without https:// or www..
  4. Leave Mode on Test and click Save Changes.
  5. Click Send a ChatGPT visit. A reply that starts with 202 means PingAura accepted it.

Step 4: Go live

Set Mode to Live and click Save Changes. Every visit is now sent to PingAura. Saving clears LiteSpeed Cache, WP Rocket and WP Super Cache so the change shows straight away.

If your site sits behind a CDN with its own cache, such as Cloudflare or your host's CDN, purge that cache once too.

Record AI crawlers (optional)

AI crawlers don't run scripts, so the plugin records them on the server. A page cache answers most requests before WordPress runs, so crawler requests only reach the plugin if your cache lets them through.

  1. In your cache plugin, add the AI crawler user agents to the list of user agents that are never cached. For example: GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended.
  2. In Settings → PingAura Telemetry, turn on AI crawlers and save.
  3. Click Send a GPTBot request to check the connection.

If your site is on Cloudflare, the Cloudflare integration sees crawlers before any cache and needs no cache changes.

How it works

  • After a page has loaded, a small script sends the page address, referrer and title to your own site. Because it runs in the browser, pages served from a cache are counted.
  • Your site answers straight away, then adds the visitor's IP address and user agent and forwards the visit to PingAura. The ingest key stays on your server and is never sent to the browser.
  • Query strings are removed from page addresses, except utm_ campaign tags, and from referrers.
  • Visitors who are logged in to WordPress, such as editors and administrators, are not counted in Live mode.
  • If PingAura can't be reached, the plugin pauses sending for two minutes, so it never slows your site.
  • The plugin sets no cookies for visitors.

To keep the key out of the WordPress database, add define( 'PINGAURA_TELEMETRY_KEY', 'pa_...' ); to wp-config.php instead of pasting it on the settings page.

Privacy

The plugin sends each visitor's IP address and user agent to PingAura, which uses the IP address to work out the country. It adds suggested wording to Settings → Privacy in WordPress. If your site needs consent for analytics, connect your consent tool through the pingaura_telemetry_should_track filter described in the plugin's README.

Test mode

New installs start in Test mode, which sends nothing for real visitors. To try the script in your own browser, click Turn on test visits for this browser on the settings page, then open any page of your site. Test visits stay on for 24 hours.

Test events show up in your PingAura data like real ones.

Troubleshooting

ReplyMeaningFix
202Accepted.Data appears in AI Traffic → PingAura Telemetry within a few minutes.
401The key is wrong or revoked.Create a new ingest key and paste it again.
403 domain_not_registeredThe domain isn't on the key's workspace.Match Domain to the domain in PingAura.
403 not_entitledPingAura Telemetry isn't enabled for the workspace.Contact your account team.
not sent: no ingest keyNo valid key is saved.Paste the key. It starts with pa_.

No visits after going live. Clear your page cache and any CDN cache, then open a page in a private window while logged out of WordPress. View the page source and look for id="pingaura-telemetry".

Crawlers aren't showing. Check that AI crawlers is on, Mode is Live, and the crawler user agents are excluded from your page cache.