> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rankforce.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Fix Rankforce Issues: Plugins, Agents, Scores & Access

> Step-by-step fixes for common Rankforce problems: plugin connection errors, optimizations not applying, score discrepancies, and account access issues.

Most issues with Rankforce fall into one of four categories: the CMS plugin not connecting correctly, approved changes not going live on your site, score or analytics data not updating as expected, or account access problems. Work through the relevant section below to resolve your issue — each accordion walks you through a specific fix step by step.

## Plugin connection issues

<Accordion title="WordPress plugin won't connect">
  If the Rankforce WordPress plugin is installed but your dashboard shows the site as disconnected, work through the following checks in order:

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Verify your API key">
      In your Rankforce dashboard, go to **Settings → API Keys** and confirm that you are copying the correct key for the site you're connecting. API keys are site-specific on the Growth and Scale plans — using a key from a different site will cause a connection failure.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Re-enter the API key in WordPress">
      In your WordPress admin, navigate to **Rankforce → Settings** and paste your API key into the API Key field. Click **Save**, then click **Test Connection**. A green status indicator confirms a successful link.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Check your WordPress and PHP versions">
      Rankforce requires **WordPress 5.0 or higher** and **PHP 7.4 or higher**. Go to **Dashboard → Updates** in WordPress to check your version. If you're running an older version, update WordPress and PHP before retrying.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Confirm the plugin is active">
      Go to **Plugins → Installed Plugins** in your WordPress admin and verify that the Rankforce plugin status shows **Active**. If it shows as inactive or deactivated, click **Activate** and then test the connection again.
    </Step>
  </Steps>

  <Warning>
    If your hosting provider uses a firewall or security plugin (such as Wordfence or Sucuri) that blocks outbound API requests, you may need to whitelist Rankforce's API domain. Contact your host or [Rankforce support](https://rankforce.co) for the specific domain to allow.
  </Warning>
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Framer plugin not authenticating">
  If the Rankforce Framer plugin isn't authenticating, the most common cause is a mismatch between the account email addresses used in Framer and Rankforce.

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Confirm your account emails match">
      The email address on your Framer account and your Rankforce account must be identical. Log in to both accounts and verify the email shown under account settings for each.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Re-authorize the plugin">
      In Framer, open your project, go to **Plugins**, find Rankforce, and click **Disconnect**. Wait a few seconds, then click **Connect** and complete the authorization flow again using your Rankforce credentials.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Check for pending authorization prompts">
      Sometimes the OAuth authorization window opens behind other tabs. Check your browser for any Rankforce authorization windows that are waiting for your approval and complete them.
    </Step>
  </Steps>

  <Note>
    If you recently changed your Rankforce account email, you'll need to update your Framer account email to match — or re-authorize using the new email — before the plugin will authenticate successfully.
  </Note>
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="&#x22;Connection error&#x22; shown in the dashboard">
  A **Connection error** status in the Rankforce dashboard means the platform cannot reach your site's plugin endpoint. This is usually caused by a network issue, a plugin conflict, or an accidental deactivation.

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Check your internet connection">
      Confirm that your browser has a stable internet connection and that you can load your WordPress or Framer site normally.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Check site uptime">
      Verify that your site itself is online and loading correctly. If your site is down or in maintenance mode, the Rankforce plugin cannot respond to API calls.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Deactivate conflicting plugins (WordPress)">
      On WordPress, temporarily deactivate other plugins one at a time and retest the connection after each deactivation to identify any conflict. Security and caching plugins are the most common sources of interference.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Reinstall the Rankforce plugin">
      If the above steps don't resolve the error, deactivate and delete the Rankforce plugin from your WordPress admin, then reinstall it fresh from **Plugins → Add New**. Re-enter your API key after reinstalling.
    </Step>
  </Steps>

  If the connection error persists after reinstalling, [contact Rankforce support](https://rankforce.co) with a screenshot of the error and your site URL.
</Accordion>

***

## Optimizations not applying

<Accordion title="Changes are stuck in the approval queue">
  If agent recommendations are accumulating in your queue but nothing is being applied, your site is most likely set to **Manual** trust level — which is the default for new sites and requires you to approve every change individually.

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Check your trust level setting">
      In your Rankforce dashboard, open the site in question and navigate to **Autopilot → Settings**. Review the current trust level. If it shows **Manual**, changes will queue indefinitely until you approve them.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Approve changes from the queue">
      Go to **Autopilot → Queue**, review the pending recommendations, and click **Approve** on the changes you want to apply. You can approve them one at a time or use **Bulk Approve** to accept multiple at once.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Optionally raise your trust level">
      If you'd prefer agents to apply low-risk changes automatically, switch to **Supervised** mode. This will auto-apply safe changes (like meta tag updates) and continue queuing higher-impact edits for your review. See the [Safe Autopilot guide](/concepts/safe-autopilot) for details on each trust level.
    </Step>
  </Steps>
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Approved changes are not live on the site">
  Approving a change in Rankforce queues it for publication, but the final step varies by platform.

  **For Framer sites:** Rankforce cannot publish your Framer site automatically. After approving changes in Rankforce, you must open your Framer project and click **Publish** to push those changes live. Until you publish in Framer, the optimizations exist in your draft but are not visible to search engines or visitors.

  **For WordPress sites:** Changes should apply automatically once approved, as long as the plugin is active. If approved changes are not showing up on your live WordPress site:

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Confirm the plugin is still active">
      Go to **Plugins → Installed Plugins** in your WordPress admin and verify the Rankforce plugin is showing as **Active**.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Check your caching layer">
      If your site uses a caching plugin (WP Rocket, W3 Total Cache, etc.) or a CDN (Cloudflare, etc.), clear your cache after approving changes. Cached pages will continue serving old content until the cache is purged.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Check your SEO plugin settings">
      If you're using Rank Math, Yoast, or AIOSEO, confirm that the plugin is not overriding the meta fields that Rankforce is writing to. Each SEO plugin has its own field priority settings.
    </Step>
  </Steps>
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Agent recommendations are not appearing">
  If the recommendations panel in your dashboard is empty and no new suggestions have appeared since your initial audit, the agents may be waiting for a trigger to re-evaluate your site.

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Trigger a manual re-audit">
      Open your site dashboard and click **Run Audit** (or **Re-Audit**) on the site overview page. This forces all three agents to re-crawl your content and generate fresh recommendations. Audit times vary from a few minutes to about an hour depending on site size.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Check your crawl schedule">
      Rankforce automatically schedules periodic re-audits, but the frequency depends on your plan. On the Starter plan, automatic re-audits occur less frequently. If you need up-to-date recommendations immediately, always use the manual re-audit option.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Verify your plugin connection">
      If the agents can't read your site's content, they can't generate recommendations. Check that the plugin connection is healthy (green status in your dashboard). If it shows an error, resolve the connection issue first using the steps in the **Plugin connection issues** section above.
    </Step>
  </Steps>
</Accordion>

***

## Scores & reporting

<Accordion title="SEO score is not changing after approvals">
  Your SEO score reflects the state of your site as last assessed by the agents. Applying changes does not immediately update the score — the agents need to re-crawl your pages and verify that the optimizations are correctly in place before recalculating.

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Allow time for automatic re-crawl">
      After approving and publishing changes, wait **24–48 hours** for the agents to automatically detect the updates and recalculate your score. This window also accounts for any caching layers on your site.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Trigger a manual re-audit">
      If you need an updated score sooner, open your site dashboard and click **Run Audit**. The agents will immediately re-evaluate all optimized pages and update your score once the audit completes.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Confirm changes are actually live">
      If your score isn't moving even after a manual re-audit, verify that the approved changes are truly live on your site. Check your published pages directly — view page source or use a browser's inspect tool — to confirm the optimized meta tags, headings, or schema markup are present.
    </Step>
  </Steps>

  <Info>
    SEO scores reflect on-page optimization quality, not live search rankings. Ranking changes in Google may take days to weeks after on-page improvements are indexed — the Rankforce score measures what you control directly.
  </Info>
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Google Search Console is not showing data">
  If your Google Search Console integration appears connected but is not displaying impression, click, or ranking data, there are two likely causes: an authorization issue, or GSC's own data delay.

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Check GSC authorization">
      Go to **Settings → Integrations → Google Search Console** in your Rankforce dashboard. Confirm the integration shows as **Connected** with your correct Google account. If it shows an error or expired token, click **Reconnect** and complete the Google OAuth flow again.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Verify property ownership">
      Make sure the Google account you authorized owns or has access to the GSC property for your site. If multiple Google accounts are associated with your site, confirm you connected the correct one.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Account for GSC data delay">
      Google Search Console data is not real-time. GSC typically has a **48–72 hour delay** before new impression and click data appears. If you only recently connected GSC, wait a few days before expecting data to populate.
    </Step>
  </Steps>

  <Note>
    GSC does not provide historical data before you connect a property — only data from the point of connection forward will be available in Rankforce.
  </Note>
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="Analytics data is missing or not updating">
  If your Google Analytics (GA4) data is absent or stale in Rankforce, follow these steps to restore the integration:

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Re-authorize GA4">
      Go to **Settings → Integrations → Google Analytics** in your Rankforce dashboard. Click **Reconnect** and complete the Google OAuth authorization again. This refreshes the access token and resolves the most common cause of missing data.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Confirm your GA4 property ID">
      After re-authorizing, verify that the correct GA4 property ID is selected for your site. If your Google account has access to multiple GA4 properties, it's possible the wrong property is linked. The property ID is visible in your Google Analytics admin under **Property Settings**.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Check GA4 data stream configuration">
      In your Google Analytics admin, confirm that a data stream is configured for your website domain and that the GA4 tracking code (or Google Tag Manager tag) is present and firing correctly on your live site.
    </Step>
  </Steps>

  <Tip>
    Use Google's [Tag Assistant](https://tagassistant.google.com) to verify that your GA4 tag is firing correctly on your site before re-checking Rankforce analytics.
  </Tip>
</Accordion>

***

## Account issues

<Accordion title="I forgot my password">
  To reset your Rankforce password, visit the forgot-password page and follow the prompts:

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Go to the forgot-password page">
      Visit [rankforce.co/forgot-password](https://rankforce.co/forgot-password).
    </Step>

    <Step title="Enter your account email">
      Enter the email address associated with your Rankforce account and submit the form.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Check your inbox">
      Check your inbox for a password reset email. If it doesn't arrive within a few minutes, check your spam or junk folder.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Set a new password">
      Click the link in the email and follow the prompts to set a new password.
    </Step>
  </Steps>

  Once reset, log in at [rankforce.co](https://rankforce.co) with your new credentials. If you no longer have access to the email address on your account, [contact Rankforce support](https://rankforce.co) for account recovery assistance.
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="I can't access my team workspace">
  Workspace access in Rankforce is role-based. If you can log in to Rankforce but cannot see a workspace you expect to have access to, your role may not have been assigned or may have been changed.

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Check with your workspace Owner">
      Contact the person who owns the workspace and ask them to verify your role assignment. In Rankforce, the workspace Owner can view and manage team members under **Settings → Team**.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Accept any pending invitation">
      If you were recently invited to a workspace, check your email inbox for an invitation link from Rankforce. Workspace invitations expire after 7 days. If yours has expired, ask the Owner to resend the invitation.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Verify you're logged in with the right account">
      Confirm that the email address you used to log in matches the address the workspace Owner used when inviting you. Logging in with a different email will not show the workspace even if an invitation was sent.
    </Step>
  </Steps>

  <Warning>
    Only workspace Owners can reassign roles or transfer ownership. If the original Owner has left your organization, [contact Rankforce support](https://rankforce.co) for help with ownership transfer.
  </Warning>
</Accordion>

<Accordion title="My API key is not working">
  An API key that was previously working may stop functioning if it has been regenerated, if you're using a key from the wrong site, or if the key was copied with extra whitespace.

  <Steps>
    <Step title="Regenerate your API key">
      In your Rankforce dashboard, go to **Settings → API Keys**, find the key for the affected site, and click **Regenerate**. This immediately invalidates the old key and creates a new one.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Copy the new key carefully">
      Click the copy icon next to the new key to copy it exactly. Avoid manually selecting and copying, as it's easy to include a leading or trailing space that will cause authentication to fail.
    </Step>

    <Step title="Update the key in your plugin">
      In your WordPress admin, go to **Rankforce → Settings** and replace the old API key with the new one. Click **Save**, then click **Test Connection** to confirm it works. For Framer, disconnect and reconnect the plugin using your updated Rankforce credentials.
    </Step>
  </Steps>

  <Note>
    Regenerating an API key immediately disconnects any plugin instances using the old key. If you have the same site's plugin installed in a staging or development environment, update the key there as well.
  </Note>
</Accordion>