Description

Scientific AI Keyword Explorer helps WordPress users research keywords, search intent, questions, comparisons, topic clusters, content opportunities and AI-search/AEO opportunities.

The WordPress.org edition uses the WordPress 7.0+ AI Client. The site owner chooses and configures an AI provider centrally in WordPress under Settings > Connectors. Scientific AI does not receive or store AI provider credentials.

Included in this edition:
* Manual SEO + AEO keyword research with no daily research quota
* Related keyword ideas
* Questions, comparisons and prepositions
* AI prompt ideas
* Topic clusters and content opportunities
* Recommended article brief
* AEO direct-answer opportunities, entities and schema suggestions
* Manual SEO/AEO WordPress article drafts generated in the background to avoid browser/proxy timeouts
* FAQ schema option
* Yoast focus keyphrase, SEO title and meta description automation
* Relevant internal-link suggestions
* Optional AI featured image generation when the configured provider supports images

Keyword Explorer Pro is a separate add-on sold outside WordPress.org. It adds live SEO data integrations, bulk analysis, automatic publishing and scheduled content workflows.

External services

This plugin uses the WordPress AI Client to generate keyword research, article drafts and optional featured images.

AI requests are only made after an authorised WordPress user starts keyword research, creates an article draft, or requests a featured image. WordPress routes those requests to the AI provider configured by the site owner in Settings > Connectors.

Depending on the feature used, the information sent to the configured provider can include the keyword or topic, selected language and location, proposed article title, requested article length, and an image-generation prompt. Scientific AI does not receive those prompts or provider API credentials and does not use an external Scientific AI service for AI generation.

The terms and privacy policy that apply depend on the provider configured by the site owner. If OpenAI is configured as the provider, see:
* OpenAI Services Agreement (API/business use): https://openai.com/policies/services-agreement/
* OpenAI Service Terms (including API terms): https://openai.com/policies/service-terms/
* OpenAI Privacy Policy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy/

For any other configured AI provider, that provider’s own terms and privacy policy apply.

Source code and development

All PHP, JavaScript and CSS shipped with this plugin are the original human-readable source files. The plugin does not use npm, webpack, minification, transpilation or another build process for its distributed assets. In particular, assets/admin.js is maintained and distributed directly as readable source code; no separate generated JavaScript bundle is used.

Installation

Install and activate Scientific AI Keyword Explorer.
In WordPress, open Settings > Connectors and configure a compatible AI provider.
Open Scientific AI > Keyword Explorer.
Enter a keyword or topic and start your research.

WordPress 7.0 or later is required because the plugin uses the WordPress AI Client included in core.

FAQ

Does this plugin require an OpenAI API key?: Not directly. The plugin uses the WordPress AI Client. Configure a compatible AI provider under Settings > Connectors. If you choose OpenAI there, WordPress manages that provider connection centrally.
Does the free WordPress.org edition stop working after a quota?: No. Manual keyword research and manual draft creation are not disabled by a daily or monthly plugin quota. Your configured AI provider may apply its own usage limits or charges.
Does the plugin publish articles automatically?: No. The WordPress.org edition creates manual drafts. Scheduled and automatic publishing workflows are available in the separate Pro add-on.
Does Scientific AI receive my AI prompts or API credentials?: No. AI requests are routed by the WordPress AI Client to the provider configured on your site.

Reviews

There are no reviews for this plugin.

Contributors & Developers

“Scientific AI Keyword Explorer” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

scientificai

Translate “Scientific AI Keyword Explorer” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

1.3.3

Completed the WordPress.org prefix review by applying the unique scieaike prefix to plugin-owned admin page slugs and links.
Performed an additional repository preflight and source-code documentation review.

1.3.2

Updated all plugin-owned WordPress declarations and stored-data keys to use the unique SCIEAIKE/scieaike prefix.
Reformatted the admin JavaScript as human-readable source and documented that no build or minification step is used.

1.3.1

Removed the slow post-meta duplicate lookup flagged by Plugin Check; duplicate protection now uses expiring transients plus the existing atomic creation lock.
Claims the newly inserted draft immediately so retries reuse it even if later background setup is interrupted.
Removed a previously reported query-filter override from the duplicate lookup.
Corrected the WordPress.org readme header to Tested up to: 7.1.

1.3.0

Prevent duplicate drafts across browser/proxy retries with request/fingerprint transients plus an atomic creation lock.
Keep FAQ JSON-LD out of post content; render visible FAQs and matching schema separately.
Reduce AI token ceilings and research payload size to lower provider usage costs.
Add a lower-cost 800-word draft option and make 1,200 words the default.
Cache identical keyword research for 12 hours to avoid repeat AI charges during testing.
Improve article/image progress messaging while background generation finishes.

1.2.9

Final pre-submission hardening: escaped quotation marks in dynamic admin HTML so AI-generated titles and keywords cannot break data attributes.
Updated the tested WordPress version to 7.1.1.

1.2.8

Sanitized all AJAX keyword, language, location, title and request ID inputs directly at the WordPress request boundary so Plugin Check can verify the sanitization path.
Keeps the existing length limits and language allow-list after direct WordPress sanitization.

1.2.7

Final WordPress.org preflight cleanup: removed all remaining references to the previously flagged long-running execution helper so Plugin Check has nothing to match.
Background article generation continues to use WordPress native scheduled events.

1.2.6

Reworked long article generation to use WordPress’s native WP-Cron background runner, avoiding long browser/FastCGI requests while keeping automatic retry checks.
Added atomic server-side duplicate-draft protection and fully idempotent request IDs.
Hardened stalled article and image-job recovery and added worker locks to prevent duplicate AI work.
Made progress polling recover automatically from temporary admin-AJAX/network failures.
A failed optional featured image no longer makes a successfully created article look failed.
Added media capability enforcement, generated-image MIME validation, size limits and failed-upload cleanup.
Made JSON/article field handling more defensive against malformed provider responses.
Prevented Free admin CSS/JavaScript from loading on Keyword Explorer Pro screens when both plugins are active.
Clears pending Keyword Explorer background events when the plugin is deactivated.
Shortened synchronous keyword-research timeout to fail cleanly before common reverse-proxy 504 limits.

1.2.5

Prevents duplicate drafts when a browser request is retried after a timeout by using an idempotent article request ID.
On PHP-FPM, returns the draft response before the long AI generation starts, preventing user-facing 504 Gateway Time-out errors.
Added visible percentage progress for draft creation and background article generation.
Increased the article output token allowance to prevent max_output_tokens failures on 1,200-1,800 word drafts.
Improved status handling so a successfully created article is not reported as failed because of later optional processing.

1.2.4

Improved manual article draft generation with a resilient background worker that does not depend only on WP-Cron.
Added automatic recovery for stalled article jobs.
Drafts now contain a temporary generation message until the AI article body is ready.

1.2.2

Creates the WordPress draft immediately and generates long AI articles in a background WP-Cron job, avoiding browser and reverse-proxy timeouts during 1,200-1,800 word drafts.
Added live draft-generation status polling with clear success/failure messages and direct access to the draft.
Added detailed AJAX/network error reporting instead of the generic “Something went wrong” message.
Added exception-safe AI generation and a longer timeout only for the background article worker.
Featured-image generation remains a separate background job after article content is complete.
Keeps WordPress AI Client, nonce/capability checks and WordPress.org-compatible provider handling.

1.2.1

Increased the scoped WordPress HTTP timeout for AI Client text requests to 90 seconds and image requests to 120 seconds to reduce cURL error 28 timeouts.
Added a clear timeout-specific error message and AI capability check.
Removed the post__not_in query parameter flagged by Plugin Check; the current post is now excluded in PHP.
Keeps AI calls routed through the WordPress AI Client and configured provider.

1.2.0

Prepared the plugin for WordPress.org review and WordPress 7.0+.
Migrated text and image generation to the WordPress AI Client instead of direct provider API calls.
Removed daily and monthly plugin usage quotas from the WordPress.org edition.
Removed the unauthenticated background AJAX image worker and now uses WordPress Cron for featured-image jobs.
Added external-service disclosure, installation guidance and WordPress Connectors setup instructions.
Added the required Tested up to header and cleaned readme tags.
Kept the WordPress.org text domain and package slug aligned as scientific-ai-keyword-explorer.
Preserves existing Keyword Explorer settings during updates.

1.1.1

Refreshed the Keyword Explorer dashboard with a modern visual overview, workflow guide and feature cards.
Added AI provider setup guidance.
Updated the Keyword Explorer Pro link to the correct product page.
Updated Plugin URI to the dedicated Free product page.

1.1.0

Rebuilt Free on the newer Keyword Explorer codebase.
Added richer SEO + AEO research output.
Added topic clusters, prepositions and AEO opportunities.
Added SEO/AEO article drafts with category choice and FAQ schema.
Added automatic Yoast metadata and internal-link optimisation.
Added optional AI featured image generation.
Preserves existing settings during updates.