SEO-first, GEO-optimised community Q&A for WordPress. Every question gets its own URL, full QAPage JSON-LD schema, Open Graph tags, BreadcrumbList, and Speakable markup — out of the box, zero configuration required.
🔗 Live demo: wbuild.dev/questions/ 📦 WordPress.org: wanswers-seo-first-qa 🌐 Plugin site: wbuild.dev/wanswers/
wAnswers turns any WordPress site into a structured community Q&A platform. Think self-hosted Stack Overflow or Quora — but built for SEO and AI search from the ground up, not bolted on afterward.
Every question is a WordPress post with its own canonical URL. Every page ships with the structured data Google and AI engines need to surface your content in rich results, People Also Ask boxes, and AI Overviews.
Questions list with topic filters, search, and sort tabs.
Answers, voting, accepted answer highlight, and threaded replies.
Badges, lifetime stats, 12-month activity chart, and recent questions.
Top contributors shown beside the question feed.
Complete settings page: homepage mode, archive content, leaderboard, SEO/schema, email notifications, rate limiting, weekly digest, and tools.
Most Q&A plugins render everything via shortcode on a single page — one URL, no per-question structured data, invisible to crawlers. wAnswers works the opposite way.
| Traditional Q&A Plugins | wAnswers | |
|---|---|---|
| URLs | One page for all questions | Every question gets /questions/my-question/ |
| Schema | None or basic | Full QAPage JSON-LD per question |
| Crawlability | JS-dependent feeds | Server-rendered HTML |
| AI citation signals | None | Speakable, Person, Organization, dateModified |
| Duplicate content | Unmanaged | Canonical tags + noindex controls |
AI search engines like Perplexity, ChatGPT Browse, and Google AI Overviews favour:
- Clear Q&A structure (
Question/Answerschema) - Explicit authorship (
Personentities) - Date signals (
dateCreated,dateModified) - Topic tagging (
about→Thingentities) - Speakable content markers
wAnswers implements all of these out of the box.
- Ask questions with title and optional body text
- Categorise by topic (custom taxonomy with AJAX filter)
- Answer questions inline, no page reload
- Accept an answer (question author or admin)
- Threaded replies on answers, one level deep
- Sort by Newest, Top Voted, Most Answered, Unanswered
- Live search within the feed
- Load-more pagination
- Upvote and downvote questions and answers
- Lifetime vote tracking persists across leaderboard resets
- Historical vote backfill for pre-existing users
- 4 tabs: Top Score, Most Questions, Most Answers, Most Accepted
- 5 position options: none, above, below, sidebar left, sidebar right
- Optional sticky sidebar, configurable max users (3 to 50)
- Transient-cached, busted on every interaction
- Unique URLs:
/questions/author/username/ - Gravatar with letter-initial fallback
- Lifetime score, coloured up/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 filtered archive
- Notifications on new answer and new reply
- Weekly digest via WP-Cron (configurable day)
- Token-based one-click unsubscribe
- Admin "Send Digest Now" for testing
- Homepage Mode: serve Q&A at
/with automatic 301 from/questions/ - Custom heading, subtitle, SEO title, and meta description
- Rate limiting per user (questions, answers, votes)
- Question moderation mode
- Noindex shortcode pages to prevent duplicate content
- Footer credit toggle (off by default, freely removable)
| Schema Signal | Applied On |
|---|---|
QAPage JSON-LD |
Every single question page |
Question + Answer + acceptedAnswer |
Per-question with author, dates, vote count |
BreadcrumbList |
Single, archive, and taxonomy pages |
CollectionPage |
Archive and topic taxonomy pages |
Organization |
Sitewide brand entity for AI citation |
WebSite + SearchAction |
Sitewide Sitelinks Searchbox eligibility |
Speakable |
Single question pages, AI and voice signal |
| Open Graph + Twitter Card | Every single question page |
Canonical <link> |
Every page type, no ambiguity |
dateModified |
Updated on every edit, answer, and reply |
Microdata (itemscope/itemprop) |
Question cards in the feed |
From WordPress Admin:
- Plugins → Add New → Search "wAnswers"
- Install and Activate
- Visit Questions → Settings
- Go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes (once, to flush rewrite rules)
Manual:
- Download from wordpress.org/plugins/wanswers-seo-first-qa
- Unzip into
/wp-content/plugins/ - Activate from Plugins screen
[wanswers_qa] Embed the Q&A feed on any page
[wanswers_leaderboard] Embed a standalone leaderboard
[wanswers_leaderboard limit="5"] Show top 5 per tab (default 10)
wanswers/
├── wanswers.php Plugin entry, constants, hooks
├── README.md GitHub readme
├── readme.txt WordPress.org readme
├── uninstall.php Clean uninstall (drops tables, deletes options)
├── assets/
│ ├── css/wanswers.css All styles, no external dependencies
│ ├── css/admin.css Settings page styles
│ └── js/wanswers.js Vanilla JS, no jQuery
├── includes/
│ ├── class-admin.php Settings page, sanitizers
│ ├── class-ajax.php AJAX handlers, rate limiting
│ ├── class-badges.php Badge system, activity chart
│ ├── class-database.php Custom DB tables, vote recording, migration
│ ├── class-digest.php Weekly digest, WP-Cron
│ ├── class-email.php Notifications, token unsubscribe
│ ├── class-leaderboard.php Leaderboard stats, caching
│ ├── class-post-types.php CPT, taxonomy, rewrite rules, routing
│ ├── class-schema.php All JSON-LD, OG, Twitter Card, Speakable
│ └── class-shortcode.php [wanswers_qa] shortcode, card rendering
└── templates/
├── archive-wanswers_question.php /questions/
├── author-wanswers_question.php /questions/author/{username}/
└── single-wanswers_question.php /questions/{slug}/
wAnswers uses the Gravatar service to display user profile images on member profile pages. An MD5 hash of the user's email address is included in image URLs requested from Gravatar.
- Service provider: Automattic Inc.
- Terms of Service: https://automattic.com/tos/
- Privacy Policy: https://automattic.com/privacy/
- Full prefix rename: all internal names now use
wanswers_/WANSWERS_ - Text domain set to
wanswers-seo-first-qato match WordPress.org slug - Automatic data migration from pre-3.0 installs (tables, post types, meta keys, options)
- Removed custom CSS field per WordPress.org guidelines
- Gravatar external service documented in readme
- All output now uses
wp_kses_post()and core escaping functions wp_json_encode()calls simplified- Missing
handle_delete_replyAJAX handler added - Admin footer branding block removed
- Added "Disable built-in schema" toggle for compatibility with RankMath, Yoast
- Settings link on Plugins page
- Self-contained CSS prevents theme style bleed (Divi, Extra, Disputo tested)
wp_safe_redirectandgmdatefor security and timezone safety
- Settings page visual refresh, branded section headings
- Topic badges in user profiles now link to filtered archive
- Footer credit toggle, freely removable
- Homepage Mode: serve Q&A at
/with automatic 301 redirect - Explicit canonical tag on archive template
- User profiles at
/questions/author/{username}/ - 10 badges, 4 tiers, SVG activity chart, Gravatar
- Leaderboard position, sticky sidebar, max users setting
- Load-more answer pagination
- Weekly digest, threaded replies, leaderboard, rate limiting, moderation
- Initial release
Issues and pull requests welcome at github.com/wbuilddev/wanswers.
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