noCell Traffic Anomaly Detector

Description

Anomaly Detector watches your site’s traffic and tells you when it behaves unexpectedly, such as a sudden drop in page views, a spike from an unknown referrer, or a shift in the mobile / desktop mix.

The plugin collects a small set of aggregate metrics on your site and sends them to the Anomaly Detector service, where they are analysed. You receive an email when an anomaly is detected. Paid plans add hourly detection and Slack / Discord notifications.

What the plugin collects

  • Page views
  • Unique visitors (daily and hourly, based on a first-party cookie)
  • Referrer host names (external sites only)
  • Device type (mobile / desktop)

The plugin does not record IP addresses, user agents, page URLs or any personal data. Only aggregated counts leave your site.

How it works

  1. A small script (assets/track.js) is loaded on your public pages and sends a beacon to your own site for each page view. This also works behind full-page caches and CDNs.
  2. The plugin keeps daily and hourly counters in the WordPress options table.
  3. Once a day and once an hour, WP-Cron sends the completed counters to the Anomaly Detector API and deletes them locally.
  4. The service runs the anomaly detection and notifies you.

Notification channels, detection history and monthly usage are managed in the Anomaly Detector dashboard, which you connect to from the plugin settings page.

External services

This plugin relies on the Anomaly Detector service, a third-party hosted service operated by the plugin author. It cannot work without it.

The plugin communicates with the following endpoints:

  • https://anomaly-detector.eng-974.workers.dev (API) – receives the aggregated metrics listed above, once a day and once an hour, and serves plan information and the connection handshake. Requests are authenticated with a per-site API key.
  • https://anomaly-detector-console.eng-974.workers.dev (dashboard) – the site administrator is redirected here when connecting the plugin. The site URL and site name are passed in the URL so the service can register the site.

No data is sent until the site administrator explicitly connects the plugin from the settings page. Disconnecting stops all transmission.

Terms of service: https://anomaly-detector-console.eng-974.workers.dev/terms
Privacy policy: https://anomaly-detector-console.eng-974.workers.dev/privacy

Cookies

To count unique visitors the plugin sets two first-party cookies on your visitors’ browsers: webanomaly_seen_<date> (expires after one day) and webanomaly_seen_<date>T<hour> (expires after one hour). They contain the value 1 only and are not used to identify visitors. Depending on your jurisdiction you may need to disclose them in your cookie policy.

Installation

  1. Upload the no-cell-traffic-anomaly-detector folder to /wp-content/plugins/, or install it from the WordPress plugin directory.
  2. Activate the plugin through the Plugins menu.
  3. Go to Settings Anomaly Detector and click Connect to Anomaly Detector.
  4. Sign in to (or create) your Anomaly Detector account and approve the connection. You are sent back to WordPress with the connection configured.
  5. Add notification recipients in the dashboard. The first detection runs after enough data has been collected.

FAQ

Does the plugin slow down my site?

No. The tracking script is a few lines of JavaScript loaded after the page content, and it sends one small request per page view. Counters are stored without autoload so they are not loaded on every request.

Does it work with caching plugins or a CDN?

Yes. Page views are counted by a script that runs in the visitor’s browser, so cached pages are counted too.

What happens to my data when I deactivate or delete the plugin?

Deactivating stops the scheduled transmissions. Deleting the plugin removes all of its options, including the connection settings and any counters that have not been sent yet. Data already sent to the service stays in your Anomaly Detector account until you delete the site there.

Is a paid plan required?

No. The free plan includes weekly detection with email notification. Paid plans add hourly detection and Slack / Discord notifications.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“noCell Traffic Anomaly Detector” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Changelog

0.8.0

  • Prepared the plugin for the WordPress plugin directory: readme, license, uninstall routine, activation / deactivation hooks.
  • All internal function, constant and hook names now use the webanomaly_ prefix. Scheduled events are migrated automatically on update.
  • User interface strings are now translatable.

0.7.0

  • Notification settings moved to the Anomaly Detector dashboard.