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Connect WordPress

Push AI Coworker articles directly to WordPress via the REST API and Application Passwords.

PingAura connects to WordPress through the official WP REST API and an Application Password. Once connected, the AI Coworker can publish or update articles in your WordPress site without leaving the chat.

Before you begin

  • A self-hosted or WordPress.com Business+ site with the REST API enabled at https://your-site.com/wp-json/wp/v2.
  • A user account on that site with edit_posts capability (Editor or higher recommended for publishing).
  • The ability to create an Application Password for that user (Users → Profile → Application Passwords).

Connect

  1. Go to Integrations in PingAura and click Connect on the WordPress card.
  2. Enter your Site URL — the root of your WordPress install (e.g., https://example.com or https://blog.example.com). Don't include /wp-json or any sub-path.
  3. Enter your WordPress username (the user that owns the App Password).
  4. Generate an Application Password in WordPress and paste the value (spaces are fine — WordPress accepts the hyphenated display form).
  5. Click Connect. PingAura will validate the credentials and the REST API before saving.

What we test at connect time

When you click Connect, PingAura issues an authenticated GET https://your-site.com/wp-json/wp/v2/. The connection is rejected if any of the following is true:

  • The request times out (>15 s) — your site is unreachable.
  • The response is 401/403 — the username or App Password is wrong.
  • The response is 2xx but the body is HTML — your URL points at a marketing/landing page, or the REST API is being intercepted by a security plugin / WAF.
  • The response is 200 but not valid JSON — something else is sitting in front of the API.

The error message in the dialog tells you which one fired. Each one points at a specific fix below.

Troubleshooting

"Site URL returned an HTML page instead of the WP REST API"

Your site URL responded 200 OK but with HTML, not JSON. The most common causes, in order:

  1. You entered the wrong URL. It needs to be the WordPress install itself, not a marketing site. Visit https://<your-url>/wp-json/wp/v2/ in a private browser window — if you don't see JSON, the URL is wrong. Common mistakes:

    • example.com when WordPress lives at blog.example.com.
    • A Webflow / Framer / Wix site that isn't WordPress at all.
    • A landing page that proxies /wp-json to a 404 page rendered as HTML.

  2. A security plugin is blocking the REST API. Wordfence, iThemes Security, "Disable REST API", and similar plugins often serve an HTML challenge or block page for /wp-json/* requests instead of letting them through. Either:

    • Whitelist the REST API in the plugin settings.
    • Whitelist PingAura's egress IPs (contact support for the current list).
    • Or temporarily disable the plugin to confirm it's the cause.

  3. A host-level WAF or CDN is intercepting the request. Some hosts (notably free tiers like InfinityFree, 000webhost, and similar) serve an anti-bot HTML interstitial to non-browser traffic. The WP REST API never gets a chance to respond. The fix is to host on a provider that doesn't gate API requests — most paid WordPress hosts (Kinsta, WP Engine, Cloudways, SiteGround, Bluehost, etc.) don't have this problem.

  4. .htaccess rewrite is broken. If you've recently changed permalinks or migrated, the rewrite rules may not be regenerated. Go to Settings → Permalinks in wp-admin and click Save Changes without changing anything — this rewrites .htaccess.

"Authentication failed (401/403)"

  • The username is the WordPress login name, not the display name or the email address.
  • Application Passwords must be generated under Users → Profile → Application Passwords in wp-admin. Regular passwords don't work — WordPress disabled regular-password Basic Auth in 5.6.
  • The Application Password value PingAura expects is the long string with spaces shown right after you create it (e.g., xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx). Paste it exactly as shown.
  • The user must have at least the Editor role to create + publish posts. Contributors can save drafts but not publish.

"Request timed out after 15s"

  • Open https://<your-site>/wp-json/wp/v2/ in your browser. If it loads slowly there too, your host is slow — consider upgrading the host plan or enabling object caching.
  • If your browser is fast but PingAura times out, your host may be rate-limiting non-browser User-Agents. Whitelist PingAura's egress IPs in your firewall.

"WordPress REST API returned status N"

  • 404 — REST API isn't reachable at the URL you provided. Same fixes as the HTML-response case above.
  • 500/502/503/504 — your host is having a moment. Retry in a few minutes.
  • Anything else — the message in the dialog includes the specific status. If it's not in this list, contact support with the exact text.

Publishing an article

Once connected, the AI Coworker shows a "Publish to WordPress" button on every article. Clicking it pushes the article as a draft (or directly publishes, if you choose). PingAura stores the WordPress post ID, so subsequent edits to the same article update the existing post instead of creating duplicates.

Disconnecting

Disconnect from Integrations → WordPress → ⋯ → Disconnect. Your existing WordPress posts are NOT deleted — only the link between PingAura and your site is removed.