Description
Store Health Check looks at your WooCommerce store the way we do when a store owner asks us why their shop is slow, why orders stopped or why it keeps getting hacked. It gives the store a health score, lists what needs attention, says in plain words why it matters, and tells you how to fix it.
Everything is on one page under WooCommerce Store Health. There are no admin notices, no dashboard widgets and no upsell banners in the rest of your admin. The plugin is free, with no paid version and nothing locked.
Health score and trend
A score from 0 to 100 at the top of the page, with a one-line verdict. Urgent findings weigh most. Every check is kept (the last 30), so you can see the score and your home page’s server time move as you fix things. Click “1 urgent”, “Worth fixing”, “Good” or “Notes” to see only those findings, and “Copy report as text” to paste the whole report into an email to your developer.
A small box, “What this plugin did for you”, counts the fixes switched on, the rows cleaned out of the database, the Urgent problems it flagged, the problems that are fixed since you started, the emails it sent you and how long it has been watching.
What it checks
- Checkout and payments: no payment method switched on, or one left in test (sandbox) mode (Stripe, PayPal, WooPayments, Square and any gateway with a test mode setting), WooCommerce’s “coming soon” mode hiding the store, checkout without an account switched off, missing terms and privacy pages, and the checkout page itself as a visitor gets it (server time, PHP errors, https).
- Orders: the last 30 days against the 30 before, orders stuck in pending payment or failed, and the time since the last order compared with the store’s usual gap, so a checkout that quietly broke is noticed in days, not weeks.
- Order emails: how email leaves the site (a mail plugin, or plain PHP mail() that often lands in spam), failed email tasks in the last 7 days, and whether the new order and customer order emails are switched on.
- WordPress, WooCommerce and PHP: is your version current, behind, or no longer getting security fixes? PHP is judged against php.net’s support dates, which ship with the plugin.
- Plugin and theme updates that are waiting, and plugins that are installed but switched off.
- Closed or abandoned plugins, but only when you click the button that asks wordpress.org.
- Speed: settings loaded on every page (autoloaded options) and the biggest of them, persistent object cache (Redis or Memcached), scheduled tasks (WP-Cron) and WooCommerce background actions running late, scaling of huge photo uploads.
- Page cache: found from your home page’s answer and your plugins, and whether your stylesheets, scripts and images tell browsers to keep them.
- Catalogue: published products with no photo, a main photo over 1 MB, no price, no description at all, and out-of-stock products shown in the shop. Counted in the database, lists of 20, fine for stores with tens of thousands of products.
- Safety: HTTPS on both WordPress addresses, debug mode and PHP error messages shown to visitors, developer switches left on.
- Security basics: a user named “admin”, how many administrators, login protection, the code editor in the admin, XML-RPC, software versions shown in your pages, WordPress’s readme and licence files, and the public list of user names in the REST API.
- Database housekeeping: expired transients, old finished background actions, saved revisions, shopper sessions and your five biggest tables.
- Your home page as a visitor gets it: server time, PHP errors, WooCommerce cart fragments loading on every page, images that load before they are needed or have no size set, images over 300 KB, http files on an https page, and a debug.log anyone can download.
Each finding is marked Urgent, Worth fixing or Good, with the reason and the fix.
Fixes you can undo
These are a single click, because they are safe on any store and come back off with another click:
- Load WooCommerce cart fragments only on the cart and checkout pages. This removes an uncached request to your server on every page view.
- Load a large setting only when needed. WordPress stops reading it on every page and fetches it when a plugin asks for it. The setting and its value stay exactly as they are.
- Switch off XML-RPC logins and pingbacks.
- Remove the WordPress and WooCommerce version tag from your pages.
- Show the REST API list of user names only to logged-in users.
None of them edits a file, your theme or another plugin: each one is a WordPress filter or setting. Every fix you switch on is listed under “Fixes switched on here” with an Undo button, and deactivating the plugin undoes them all. Where the cure is a line in wp-config.php, the plugin tells you the line instead of writing it.
Two clean-ups
Expired transients and completed or cancelled background actions older than 30 days. The page shows how many first, they run only when you click, and they do only what WordPress and WooCommerce do themselves on schedule. Orders, products and customers are never touched. What was deleted is kept in the plugin’s own log.
Emails, off until you tick them
- “Check my store once a day and email me only when something is Urgent”: your site runs the checks itself once a day, at the hour you pick, and emails you only when an Urgent problem is new (or came back after being fixed). No news, no email.
- “Email me a summary every Monday”, at the hour you pick: the score, the Urgent items and what changed since last week.
Times are in your site’s own time zone (Settings General).
Both are plain text, sent by your own site to the address you choose (your admin email by default). Untick to stop.
Privacy
The plugin collects nothing and sends nothing about your store to anyone. The visitor checks are your site asking itself for its own pages. The emails go from your site to the address you set. See External services below for the one button that contacts wordpress.org.
Made by SwiftForge Web, a small team that upgrades, speeds up and looks after WooCommerce and PrestaShop stores.
External services
This plugin does not contact any outside service on its own. The visitor checks ask your own site for its own pages, and the optional emails are sent by your own site to the address you set.
wordpress.org Plugin Directory API. When you click “Ask wordpress.org about my plugins”, the plugin asks api.wordpress.org about each installed plugin by its folder name (the same request WordPress makes when you search for or update a plugin), to find plugins that are closed or no longer updated. Nothing else is sent. It only happens when you click. wordpress.org privacy policy.
swiftforgeweb.com. The “Test my store speed” and “Ask SwiftForge Web for a free store audit” links open swiftforgeweb.com in a new tab with your store address filled in and tags that say the visit came from this plugin. The small SwiftForge logo next to the page title links to swiftforgeweb.com the same way (the logo image ships inside the plugin). Nothing is sent unless you click a link. SwiftForge privacy policy.
Screenshots
Installation
- In your admin go to Plugins Add New, search for “SwiftForge Web Store Health Check”, and click Install, then Activate.
- Open WooCommerce Store Health. Without WooCommerce, it is under Tools Store Health.
- Read the Urgent items first.
FAQ
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Does it slow my store down?
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No. The checks only run when you open the plugin’s page (or once a day / once a week if you ticked an email). On the front end the plugin does nothing at all unless you switched on one of its fixes, and those remove work.
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How is the health score worked out?
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It starts at 100 and every finding takes points off: 12 for Urgent, 4 for Worth fixing, 1 for a small update. Notes and Good findings cost nothing. It is a quick way to see whether things get better, not a grade of your business.
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Will it email me every day?
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No. Both emails are off until you tick them. With the daily check on, you get an email only when an Urgent problem is new since the previous day’s check. Worth fixing items never send an email. The weekly summary comes on Mondays only if you tick it.
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It says a payment method is in test mode, but it works.
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Test (sandbox) mode accepts test cards and shows a normal “order received” page, but no money moves. Open the payment method in WooCommerce Settings Payments and look for a “test mode”, “sandbox” or “environment” setting.
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Are the clean-ups safe?
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They delete only expired transients (data that has already run out, which plugins recreate when they need it) and completed or cancelled background actions older than 30 days, which WooCommerce’s Action Scheduler deletes on its own schedule anyway. They never touch orders, products or customers. The page shows the numbers before you click.
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Why does it not delete revisions or switch off the code editor for me?
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Revisions are your content history, and the code editor is switched off with a line in wp-config.php. The plugin never edits files and never deletes content, so it explains how instead.
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Does it change anything in my store?
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Only when you click a button that starts with “Fix:” or “Clean up:”. Each fix has an Undo button; clean-ups delete only expired or finished data. It never edits wp-config.php, your theme or other plugins. Deactivating the plugin undoes every fix and stops the emails.
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Is the cart fragments fix safe?
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The cart and checkout work exactly as before. The one thing to look at: if your theme shows a cart count in the header, add a product and check that the count still updates. If it does not, click Undo.
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Why does it say my PHP version is end of life?
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php.net gives every PHP version a date after which it gets no more security fixes. The plugin ships with those dates. Most hosts let you switch PHP in their control panel; check that your plugins and theme support the newer version first.
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The home page check failed.
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Your server could not load its own home page, usually because a firewall or security plugin blocks it. WordPress needs that for scheduled tasks too, so it is worth asking your host to allow it.
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Does it work without WooCommerce?
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Yes. The WooCommerce checks are skipped and the page moves to Tools Store Health.
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Can someone fix all this for me?
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That is what we do at SwiftForge Web. The free speed test on our site shows how long shoppers wait on a phone, and we will look at your store for free if you ask.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“SwiftForge Web Store Health Check for WooCommerce” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “SwiftForge Web Store Health Check for WooCommerce” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.1.2
- The “Want someone to fix this for you?” box is first in the sidebar.
1.1.1
- Filter the report: Show all, Urgent, Worth fixing, Good, Notes (the counts in the score box are the buttons).
- “Copy report as text” puts the whole report on the clipboard, ready to paste to your developer.
- “What this plugin did for you”: fixes on, rows cleaned up, Urgent problems flagged, problems fixed since you started, emails sent, days watching.
- Pick the hour of the daily check and of the Monday summary (site time).
- The maker is now named SwiftForge Web everywhere.
1.1.0
- Store health score (0 to 100) with a one-line verdict, and the trend of your last 30 checks.
- Checkout and payments: no payment method, payment methods left in test or sandbox mode, coming soon mode, checkout without an account, terms and privacy pages, and the checkout page as a visitor gets it.
- Orders: last 30 days against the 30 before, orders stuck in pending payment or failed, time since the last order against the usual gap.
- Order emails: how email leaves the site, failed email tasks, new order and customer order emails switched on.
- Catalogue: products with no photo, a photo over 1 MB, no price, no description, out-of-stock products shown.
- Security basics: “admin” user, number of administrators, login protection, code editor, XML-RPC, version tag, readme and licence files, public list of user names. Three new one-click fixes you can undo: XML-RPC off, version tag removed, user list for logged-in users only.
- Page cache and browser caching of files.
- Database housekeeping with two one-click clean-ups (expired transients, finished background actions older than 30 days), shown with numbers first and kept in a log.
- Optional daily check that emails you only when something Urgent is new, and an optional weekly summary. Both off by default.
- The page shows whether WordPress installs updates to this plugin by itself, with WordPress’s own switch.
1.0.0
- First release.