Description

wAnswers turns your WordPress site into a structured community Q&A platform. Every question is a WordPress post with its own canonical URL, server-rendered HTML, and complete QAPage JSON-LD schema – the exact format Google uses to surface Q&A content in rich snippets, People Also Ask boxes, and AI Overviews.

No JavaScript rendering. No iframe embeds. No third-party dependencies. No jQuery.

Live demo: https://wbuild.dev/questions/

Why wAnswers Is Different: SEO & GEO First

Most Q&A plugins render everything via a single shortcode page – one URL, no per-question structured data, effectively invisible to crawlers. wAnswers works the opposite way.

Every question gets its own permanent URL (/questions/my-question/). Every page ships with the structured data Google and AI search engines need to surface your content in search results, rich snippets, and AI citations.

GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation)

AI search engines like Perplexity, ChatGPT Browse, and Google AI Overviews favour content with clear Q&A structure, explicit authorship, date signals, topic tagging, and Speakable content markers. wAnswers outputs all of these automatically on every question page.

Core Q&A Features

Ask questions with a title and optional body text
Categorise questions by topic (custom taxonomy with live AJAX filter)
Answer questions inline with no page reload
Accept an answer (question author or admin only)
Threaded replies on answers – one level deep
Sort questions: Newest, Top Voted, Most Answered, Unanswered
Filter by topic with instant AJAX
Live search within the feed
Load-more pagination – no full page reloads
Edit questions and answers within a 1-hour window
Delete your own questions and answers

Voting & Scoring

Upvote and downvote questions and answers
Cannot vote on your own posts
Lifetime vote tracking that persists across leaderboard resets
Automatic backfill for users who existed before vote tracking was added

Leaderboard

Four tabs: Top Score, Most Questions, Most Answers, Most Accepted
Five position options: none, above feed, below feed, sidebar left, sidebar right
Optional sticky sidebar
Configurable max users shown (3 to 50)
Transient-cached and busted on every vote, answer, and reset

User Profiles

Unique profile URLs at /questions/author/username/
Gravatar support with letter-initial fallback
Lifetime score, coloured upvote and downvote counts
10 badges across 4 tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond
SVG 12-month activity chart
Recent questions and answers list
Topic badge links navigate to the filtered tag archive

Email Notifications & Weekly Digest

Notifies question author when a new answer is posted
Notifies answer author when a reply is posted
Weekly digest email via WP-Cron on a configurable day
Token-based one-click unsubscribe – no login required
Admin button to send digest immediately for testing
Configurable maximum recipients per send

Settings & Customisation

Homepage Mode – serve Q&A at your site root with automatic 301 redirect from /questions/
Admin-editable heading, subtitle, SEO title, and meta description for the archive page
Questions per page, answers per page, max answers per question page
Minimum and maximum content length validation
Rate limiting per user for questions, answers, and votes
Custom CSS field – override plugin styles without editing files
Question moderation mode – hold new questions for admin approval
Noindex shortcode pages to prevent duplicate content with the CPT archive
Footer credit toggle – shown by default, completely optional and freely removable
Full compatibility with Yoast SEO and RankMath

SEO & GEO Schema

QAPage JSON-LD on every single question page
Question and Answer entities with author, dates, and vote counts
acceptedAnswer marked in schema when set
BreadcrumbList on single, archive, and taxonomy pages
CollectionPage schema on archive and topic pages
Organization schema sitewide for brand entity recognition
WebSite and SearchAction for Google Sitelinks Searchbox eligibility
Speakable specification on question pages – AI and voice citation signal
Open Graph and Twitter Card meta on every question page
Explicit canonical link on every page type
dateModified updated on every edit, answer, and reply
Microdata itemscope and itemprop on question cards in the feed

Shortcodes

[wanswers_qa] – Embed the full Q&A feed on any page.

[wanswers_leaderboard] – Embed a standalone leaderboard on any page.

[wanswers_leaderboard limit=”5″] – Show top 5 users per tab (default is 10).

No External Dependencies

The plugin JavaScript is vanilla JS with no jQuery requirement. Styles are self-contained with no external CDN requests. Everything runs on your server.

External services

Gravatar

This plugin uses the Gravatar service to display user profile images on member profile pages. When a user visits a member profile page, the plugin requests an avatar image from Gravatar based on the member’s email address (hashed with MD5).

Data sent: an MD5 hash of the user’s email address, included in the image URL.
When: each time a member profile page is loaded.
Service provider: Automattic Inc.
Terms of Service: https://automattic.com/tos/
Privacy Policy: https://automattic.com/privacy/

Screenshots

The Q&A feed – questions list with topic filters, search, and sort tabs
Single question page with answers, voting, and accepted answer
User profile with badges, stats, activity chart, and recent questions
Leaderboard sidebar showing top contributors
Admin settings page

Installation

Download the plugin zip file.
Go to Plugins > Add New > Upload Plugin in your WordPress admin.
Upload the zip file and click Install Now.
Click Activate Plugin.
Go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes. This flushes rewrite rules and is required once after first installation.
Visit Questions > Settings to configure the plugin.

Manual Installation

Unzip the plugin folder into /wp-content/plugins/wanswers/
Activate the plugin from the Plugins screen.
Go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes.

After Activation

Your Q&A feed is live at yoursite.com/questions/
Individual questions are served at yoursite.com/questions/question-title/
User profiles are served at yoursite.com/questions/author/username/
Add topics at Questions > Q&A Topics
Customise the archive page heading and description at Questions > Settings

FAQ

Does it work with any theme?: Yes. The plugin uses its own page templates that call get_header() and get_footer() from your active theme. All styles are self-contained. You can override any template by placing a copy in your theme root folder – for example yourtheme/single-wanswers_question.php.
Will it conflict with Yoast SEO or RankMath?: No. If either plugin is active, their title and meta description tags take precedence on Q&A pages. The plugin’s JSON-LD schema blocks output independently and do not conflict with SEO plugin schema output.
How do I prevent duplicate content if I use both /questions/ and a shortcode page?: Enable “Noindex shortcode pages” in Questions > Settings. This adds a noindex meta tag to any page containing the [wanswers_qa] shortcode so only the CPT archive at /questions/ is indexed. Alternatively, enable Homepage Mode – your Q&A then has only one canonical URL at your site root.
What is Homepage Mode?: Homepage Mode serves the Q&A feed directly at your site root (yoursite.com/) instead of at yoursite.com/questions/. To use it, go to Settings > Reading and set “Your homepage displays” to “Your latest posts”, then enable Homepage Mode in Questions > Settings. The /questions/ archive issues a 301 redirect to / automatically. Individual question pages at /questions/slug/ are unaffected.
Can users edit their questions and answers?: Yes, within a 1-hour window after posting. After that window, only administrators and editors can edit content. The time limit is enforced server-side.
How does email delivery work?: Notifications are sent via wp_mail() using your site’s configured mail settings. For reliable delivery it is recommended to use a transactional email plugin such as WP Mail SMTP, Postmark for WordPress, or SendGrid.
Is jQuery required?: No. The plugin JavaScript is written in vanilla JS with no jQuery dependency.
Does it create custom database tables?: Yes. Two tables are created on activation: one for vote records and one for email subscriptions. Both are prefixed with your WordPress table prefix. Data is removed if you uninstall the plugin via the Plugins screen.
Can I remove the “Powered by wAnswers” credit?: Yes, absolutely. Go to Questions > Settings > Footer Credit and uncheck the option. The credit is shown by default but is entirely optional and not required.
Does it work with WordPress Multisite?: The plugin has not been tested on Multisite installations and is not officially supported in that environment.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“wAnswers – SEO-First Q&A” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

McNallen

Translate “wAnswers – SEO-First Q&A” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

2.9.3

Admin settings CSS moved to enqueued stylesheet (no more inline style block)
All admin POST handlers properly sanitized with sanitize_text_field and wp_unslash
All user-facing strings wrapped in translation functions for i18n
Replaced deprecated current_time(‘timestamp’) with time() throughout
Template output escaping improvements
Credit link updated to include noreferrer on external links

2.9.2

Added “Disable built-in schema” toggle in SEO settings for compatibility with RankMath, Yoast, and other SEO plugins.
Added Settings link on the Plugins page.
Plugin name updated for WordPress.org compliance (removed restricted terms).
Replaced date() with gmdate() for timezone-safe date handling.
Replaced wp_redirect with wp_safe_redirect.
Removed unused Domain Path header.
Demo links updated to wbuild.dev/questions/.
GitHub links updated to new wbuilddev organization.
Author updated to wBuild.dev.

2.9.1

Fixed theme compatibility: all CSS colour and typography variables are now self-contained – no longer inherited from an external stylesheet. Plugin now renders correctly on Divi, Extra, Disputo and other themes that previously caused text, button colour, or font bleed-through issues.
Added defensive CSS resets on all buttons and inputs so Divi/Extra global button styles cannot override plugin elements.

2.9.0

Plugin rebranded to wAnswers – SEO-First Q&A.
All public-facing references updated to wAnswers branding.
Plugin homepage and author URL updated to wbuild.dev.

2.8.2

Bugfix: Topic badges in user profiles now correctly link to the tag-filtered archive page. Fixed an anchor-inside-anchor HTML invalidity using a CSS overlay and JavaScript delegation pattern so the row click and the tag link click are fully independent.

2.8.1

Settings page visual refresh with branded section headings, orange save button, and styled footer credit card.
Removed the search icon character from the main Q&A feed search box.

2.8.0

Code audit: fixed undefined variable errors in the schema class ($is_tax and $is_homepage).
Replaced all hardcoded /register/ URLs with wp_registration_url() for full portability.
Generic default archive title and subtitle – no site-specific copy baked in.
Settings page footer with live demo and GitHub links.
Footer credit toggle added to Settings – checked by default, freely removable.

2.7.1

Bugfix: Profile pages had no horizontal padding on mobile screens.
Bugfix: Lifetime vote counts showed 0 for users who existed before vote tracking was added – now lazily backfilled from the votes table on first profile visit.
Bugfix: Leaderboard position setting was ignored on profile pages – now respects all five position options.

2.7.0

Homepage Mode: serve the Q&A feed at the site root with automatic 301 redirect from /questions/.
Explicit canonical link tag output on the archive template.
Rewrite rules are flushed automatically when homepage mode is toggled.

2.6.1

Profile question titles now wrap correctly on mobile instead of being clipped.
Hero stats: Total Questions links to the feed anchor; Unanswered activates the unanswered filter tab.

2.6.0

New setting: leaderboard max users (3 to 50).
New setting: sidebar sticky toggle.
Leaderboard now appears on profile pages with full position awareness.
Expanded profile stats: lifetime score, coloured upvote and downvote counts.
Topic badge fix: clicking a tag on a question card now activates the AJAX topic filter instead of navigating away.
Load-more pagination added for answers on single question pages.

2.5.1

Bugfix: Edit forms were visible on page load due to a CSS specificity conflict.
Bugfix: Leaderboard profile links were using the wrong URL format.

2.5.0

User profile pages at /questions/author/username/.
10 badges across 4 tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, Diamond.
SVG 12-month activity chart on profiles.
Gravatar support with letter-initial fallback.

2.4.0

Rate limiting for questions, answers, and votes with configurable window.
Question moderation mode – hold new questions for admin approval.

2.3.0

Leaderboard with four tabs and configurable position.

2.2.0

Threaded replies on answers – one level deep.

2.1.0

Weekly digest email via WP-Cron with configurable day and manual send.

2.0.0

Email notifications for new answers and replies with token-based unsubscribe.

1.0.0

Initial release: questions, answers, voting, topics, archive template, QAPage schema.