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WordPress Integration

Publish articles directly from RivalRank to your WordPress site.

How it works

When you connect WordPress, RivalRank can publish finished articles straight to your site with one click — or automatically when auto-publish is on. Hero images are uploaded to your WordPress media library and set as the featured image. Existing posts are updated in-place if you re-publish.

Prerequisites

  • A self-hosted WordPress site (wordpress.org) or any host that supports the WordPress REST API
  • The REST API must be publicly accessible — most hosts enable this by default
  • An Application Password (not your login password) — see below

Step 1 — Generate an Application Password

Application Passwords are built into WordPress 5.6+. They let external tools publish on your behalf without sharing your main login credentials.

  1. Log in to your WordPress admin panel
  2. Go to Users → Profile (or Users → Edit User for another account)
  3. Scroll to the Application Passwords section near the bottom
  4. Enter a name (e.g. RivalRank) and click Add New Application Password
  5. Copy the password shown — it won't be displayed again

If you don't see the Application Passwords section, your host may have disabled it. You can enable it by adding define('WP_APPLICATION_PASSWORDS_ENABLED', true); to wp-config.php, or by installing a plugin that provides equivalent functionality.

Step 2 — Connect in RivalRank

  1. Open Dashboard → Integrations
  2. Click Connect WordPress in the WordPress card
  3. Enter your WordPress site URL (e.g. https://yoursite.com) — include the protocol, no trailing slash
  4. Enter your WordPress username (the login username, not your email)
  5. Enter the Application Password you generated in Step 1
  6. Click Test & Save — RivalRank will verify the credentials before saving

Publishing articles

Once connected, you have two options:

  • Manual publish — open any article in the editor and click Publish. You can choose to publish live or save as a WordPress draft.
  • Auto-publish — enable Auto-publish in Settings and RivalRank will push articles to WordPress as soon as they finish generating.

The publish status shows in your articles list. Once live, the article URL links directly to your WordPress post.

What gets published

  • Title — used as the WordPress post title
  • Content — full article HTML, with design tokens converted to inline values for theme compatibility
  • Slug — the URL slug RivalRank assigned (e.g. best-alternatives-to-competitor-x)
  • Excerpt — auto-generated from the first ~55 words
  • Featured image — uploaded to your media library from the generated hero image, if one exists

Troubleshooting

Connection test fails

Make sure the site URL is correct and the WordPress REST API is accessible at /wp-json/wp/v2/. Some security plugins block REST API access for non-logged-in users — temporarily disable them to test, then add an exception for the REST API.

401 Unauthorized

Double-check the username (it's the login username shown under Users, not the display name or email) and that the Application Password was copied correctly without extra spaces.

Posts publish with broken styles

RivalRank automatically converts its CSS variables to standard colors when publishing to WordPress. If you see unstyled content, check whether your theme is stripping inline styles. The article content is plain semantic HTML with inline style attributes for pill elements — most themes render this fine.

Featured image not appearing

The image upload requires your WordPress site to accept cross-origin media uploads. Check that your server allows POST requests to /wp-json/wp/v2/media. If blocked, the article publishes without a featured image and a warning is logged.

Need help?

Reach out at hello@rivalrankai.com and include your WordPress site URL and the error message you see.