--- title: "How to install RankReady on WordPress" url: https://hostmy.blog/docs/rankready/how-to-install-rankready/ date: 2026-08-24 modified: 2026-08-25 lang: en author: "Aditya Sharma" description: "Install and activate RankReady, handle the usage data prompt, and confirm the plugin is serving its endpoints." word_count: 755 --- # How to install RankReady on WordPress By the end of this page RankReady will be installed, activated, and serving its AI endpoints on your site. It takes a few minutes. You do not need an API key to install it, and you do not need to remove your existing SEO plugin. ## Check your site meets the requirements RankReady 1.3.0 needs: - WordPress 6.9 or newer. It is tested up to WordPress 7.1. - PHP 7.4 or newer. If your site runs an older WordPress version, update WordPress first. The plugin will not install on 6.8 or below. ## RankReady sits alongside your SEO plugin You do not have to choose between RankReady and Yoast, [Rank Math](https://hostmy.blog/docs/rankready/rankready-with-yoast-rankmath-aioseo/), AIOSEO, SEOPress, The SEO Framework or Slim SEO. RankReady runs next to all of them. It has no title editor, no meta description editor and no XML sitemap, so there is nothing for it to fight over. Where those plugins already emit schema, RankReady merges into their graph using their own documented filters instead of printing a second block. ## Install from the WordPress admin This is the normal route and the one most people should use. - In wp-admin, go to **Plugins, Add New**. - Search for `RankReady`. - Click **Install Now** on the RankReady result, made by Host My Blog. - Click **Activate**. ![The WordPress Add Plugins screen showing the RankReady search result with an Install Now button](https://hostmy.blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/rr-plugin-search-v2-scaled.png)Search for RankReady in Plugins, Add New. ## Install by uploading the zip If you downloaded the zip from WordPress.org rather than searching from inside your site: - Go to **Plugins, Add New, Upload Plugin**. - Choose the zip file and click **Install Now**. - Click **Activate Plugin**. The plugin folder is `rankready-ai-llm-seo`. Leave that folder name alone. Renaming it breaks updates from WordPress.org. ## What happens when you activate Two things happen. First, a **RankReady** item appears in the wp-admin menu with five tabs: Dashboard, AI Visibility, AI Content, Insights and Settings. Second, you are asked whether you want to share plugin usage data. ![The WordPress Plugins list with RankReady active and its action links visible](https://hostmy.blog/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/rr-plugins-list-v2-scaled.png)RankReady active on the Plugins screen. ## The usage data prompt, and what happens if you skip it Version 1.3.0 includes the Freemius SDK for plugin usage data. It is opt-in. You are asked once on activation and you can skip it. If you allow it, it receives your site URL, your WordPress and PHP versions, your name and email, your list of active plugins and theme, and activation and deactivation events. It never receives post content, your AI API keys, or anything about your visitors. If you skip it, nothing else changes. Every feature works the same way. There is no nag gate, no reduced functionality and no repeated blocking prompt. You are simply not sending usage data. You can change your mind later. An **Opt Out** link appears next to RankReady on the Plugins page. ## Flush your permalinks once RankReady serves URLs such as `/llms.txt`, `/index.md` and `/okf/` through WordPress rewrite rules. On most sites these start working immediately. If any of them return 404, go to **Settings, Permalinks** and click **Save Changes** without changing anything. That regenerates the rewrite rules and clears stale ones. This is worth doing once straight after activation so you are not debugging it later. Version 1.3.0 also added a raw request-path fallback for stacks where another plugin intercepts the rewrite, such as LiteSpeed running with Rank Math, so 404s on those setups are much less likely than they were. ## One thing to check if you run nginx The [WebMCP manifest](https://hostmy.blog/docs/rankready/how-to-add-webmcp-wordpress/) lives at `/.well-known/mcp.json`. Nginx blocks dotfile paths by default, so `/.well-known/` returns 403 on a stock nginx configuration. No plugin can override that, because the request never reaches PHP. The fix is a server configuration change. Add this to your nginx site config and reload: `location ^~ /.well-known/ { allow all; default_type text/plain; try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args; }` If you are on managed hosting and cannot edit nginx yourself, send that block to your host's support. Everything else in RankReady works without it. Only the WebMCP manifest is affected. ## Confirm the install worked Open these two URLs in a browser tab: - `https://yoursite.com/llms.txt` should return a plain text index of your site. - `https://yoursite.com/robots.txt` should contain a managed block between `# BEGIN RankReady` and `# END RankReady`. If both load, the install is done and the plugin is serving. A crawler that fetches those URLs has fetched your page. That is what these endpoints prove, and nothing more. ## Next Work through the setup path in order, starting with [Brand Identity](https://hostmy.blog/docs/rankready/brand-terms-setup/) under the AI Visibility tab. If you want [AI summaries](https://hostmy.blog/docs/rankready/generate-ai-summaries-wordpress/) or generated FAQs you will need to paste an API key in Settings, but that is optional and nothing else depends on it.