WordPress deploys are when indexing breaks. Watch both sides of the server.

The deploy is the disaster

Most WordPress indexing accidents are not attacks or penalties. They are ordinary maintenance: a staging copy promoted to production withDiscourage search engines still switched on, a security or SEO plugin update that starts sending X-Robots-Tag: noindex, a host migration that rewrites robots.txt, a canonical left pointing at the staging domain. The site looks fine. The traffic loss arrives one to three weeks later, and recovery takes as long again.

Search Console will tell you, days after indexing damage is done. A check that runs at deploy time is the difference between a five-minute fix and a client finding out first. That is why the plugin speaks up after every plugin, theme, or core update: it asks the public checker for a fresh outside look at your homepage and reminds you that deploys are when noindex accidents happen.

Free plugin inside WordPress, continuous watch outside it

The plugin is not a cut-down trial of the service. It answers a narrower question honestly, from the one place it can: inside. The service exists for everything a plugin on the same server structurally cannot catch, starting with the server itself.

For WordPress maintenance agencies: monitoring you can resell

A care plan sells vigilance, and vigilance is hard to prove in a quiet month. Agency (50 sites, every URL checked every 15 minutes) sends each client a white-label weekly report with no stillindexed.com branding, showing per site how many checks ran and how many actually loaded the page. In a clean week that report reads as proof of work. In a bad week it is the incident record: what changed, when it was detected, and when it resolved.

Put by client, the arithmetic is the pitch: $79 across a portfolio is a small line item inside a care plan that already charges for updates and backups, and it defends the retainer at the exact moment a client would question it, which is the day their traffic drops and they ask who was watching. You fix the deploy before that call. No access to client wp-admin is needed to start: monitoring uses public URLs only, so a client goes under watch without a credential request.

See Agency on pricing

How it works

1. Install the free plugin. Search for Indexability Monitor in the WordPress plugins screen, ordownload the zip from GitHuband upload it under Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin. The first reading appears under Tools → Stillindexed on activation, and it refreshes daily. Read-only; the only setting is enable or disable.
2. Add your sites to continuous monitoring. Enter the domain, choose the pages that matter, homepage included automatically. The first check runs immediately and is judged, not just recorded: a page already carrying noindex is reported at once.
3. Get alerted at deploy time. A confirmed change reaches Telegram and email with the before and after values, and a second notice arrives when it resolves. Weekly reports, white-label on Agency, close the loop with each client.

Questions

What does the free WordPress plugin check?

Once a day, and once on activation, it fetches your homepage and robots.txt from your own server and shows the reading under Tools in wp-admin: indexable yes or no, whether robots.txt blocks the homepage, whether an X-Robots-Tag header is present, the meta robots value, and whether a canonical is present. It is read-only, and the only setting is enable or disable.

Why is the plugin not enough on its own?

It runs on the server it is watching. If the server is down, DNS fails, or the domain or SSL certificate expires, a plugin on that server cannot report it, because it is inside the failure. It also reads only the homepage, once a day. Continuous monitoring fetches your important pages from outside every 15 to 30 minutes and watches robots.txt, sitemaps, certificates and domain expiry as well.

When do WordPress sites usually lose indexing?

At deploy time. A staging site with search engine visibility switched off is copied to production, a plugin or theme update rewrites robots.txt or starts sending an X-Robots-Tag header, or the site address changes during a move. The change is live for 24 to 72 hours before anyone notices, because Search Console reports arrive days later.

How does this fit a WordPress maintenance or care plan?

On Agency ($79/month) you watch up to 50 sites, each URL checked every 15 minutes, and every client gets a white-label weekly report with no mention of stillindexed.com. Agencies resell that as part of a care plan: the report is the artifact that proves the watching happened, and the alert is what lets you fix a deploy before the client notices.

Does stillindexed.com need access to my WordPress admin?

No. The monitoring service only fetches public URLs, the same pages a crawler sees. No wp-admin access, no credentials, and nothing installed on client sites. The free plugin is optional and separate: it is the inside view, the service is the outside watch.

What does it cost after the plugin?

Starter is $39/month for 15 sites checked every 30 minutes. Agency is $79/month for 50 sites checked every 15 minutes with white-label per-client reports. There is also a one-time early-bird lifetime option at $349 for 10 sites. Every paid plan carries a 30-day no-questions refund.

Start with the pages a deploy can break

Run the free indexability checker on your homepage now, install the plugin for the daily inside view, and put the sites you are paid to maintain under the outside watch.

See pricing