Frequently Asked Questions

Content Guard Pro is a specialized WordPress security plugin focused on detecting and quarantining **malicious content, spam links, and SEO injections stored in the WordPress database**. Unlike traditional security plugins centered on file integrity and WAFs, Content Guard Pro targets **database‑resident content**—posts, custom post types, and associated metadata—where attackers often hide spammy links, cloaked iframes, and obfuscated scripts. 

Wordfence and Sucuri are primarily File-Based Security and Firewall solutions. They excel at monitoring PHP files for malware signatures, blocking malicious traffic (WAF), and checking core file integrity.

Content Guard Pro is a Database and Content Integrity solution. It focuses on the data stored in your wp_options, wp_postmeta, and wp_posts tables. It detects infections like hidden redirects, SEO spam, and serialized code injections that are invisible to file-only scanners but are executed by the theme/plugins.

We are a specialized tool designed to work alongside these major solutions, filling a critical blind spot in your security stack. 

Yes, absolutely. Content Guard Pro is not a replacement for comprehensive security plugins like Wordfence or Sucuri. You need a file-based security plugin to:

• Block brute force attacks.
• Provide a Web Application Firewall (WAF).
• Monitor your core PHP and theme files for file-system malware.

Content Guard Pro handles the Database Content Integrity layer, giving you total coverage that no single plugin currently offers. 

Content Guard Pro is specifically engineered to detect threats hidden within the database, including:

• SEO Spam/Spamvertising: Hidden links to pharmaceutical, gambling, or fraudulent sites injected into postmeta, widget areas, or theme options.
• Hidden Redirects: Scripts or payloads (often obfuscated) in global settings or content fields that force visitors to malicious sites.
• Data-based Backdoors: Compromised code serialized into option values that can be used to re-infect the site or steal data.
• Gutenberg Block Injections: Malicious scripts hidden inside the JSON attributes of Gutenberg blocks. 

No. We designed Content Guard Pro to be extremely performant. Our scanning engine is optimized for database inspection and runs at a low priority on a configurable schedule. It does not sit in the critical path of page loading like a WAF, ensuring minimal impact on your frontend speed and user experience. 

Yes. Content Guard Pro is specifically designed to understand and scan complex data structures, including:

• Serialized PHP data used by many older plugins and custom fields.
• JSON-encoded data used by modern Page Builders (like Elementor and Beaver Builder) and the Gutenberg editor.

We inspect the content of these complex fields for malicious payloads, regardless of the builder used. 

Content Guard Pro has two components: a free Core plugin (available on WordPress.org) and an optional Pro add-on(purchased separately from our website).

Installing the free Core:

1. In your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New Plugin.
2. Search for “Content Guard Pro”.
3. Click Install Now, then Activate.
4. The Setup Wizard will guide you through initial configuration.

Adding the Pro add-on (if purchased):

1. Download the Pro add-on ZIP from your purchase confirmation email or your Lemon Squeezy customer portal.
2. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin.
3. Choose the downloaded ZIP file and click Install Now, then Activate.
4. Go to Content Guard Pro → Settings → License tab and paste your license key.

Important: The free Core plugin must remain active when using the Pro add-on. The Core is the scanning engine; the Pro add-on extends it with premium features. Think of it like WooCommerce and a WooCommerce extension — the extension needs the core to work.

Content Guard Pro is designed to run efficiently on standard WordPress hosting:

• WordPress: 6.1 or higher
• PHP: 8.0 or higher
• Database: MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.2+
• Memory: 64MB minimum (128MB recommended for large databases)
• Disk space: Negligible — the plugin works with your existing database

The duration of the first scan depends entirely on the size and complexity of your database:

• Small Sites (Under 500 total posts/options): Typically completes in under 5 minutes.
• Medium Sites (500 to 5,000 total posts/options): Usually takes between 5 to 15 minutes.
• Large Sites (Over 5,000 total posts/options, complex metadata): Can take 20 minutes or longer.

The initial scan is the longest. Subsequent scheduled scans are significantly faster as they primarily focus on new or modified database entries. 

For the free version: No. The free Core plugin works immediately after activation — no license key required. You get unlimited Quick Scans, full detection patterns, and on-save scanning out of the box.

For the Pro add-on: Yes. After purchasing a Pro plan, you’ll receive a license key via email. Paste it in Content Guard Pro → Settings → License tab to unlock Pro features like Standard Scans, scheduled daily scans, quarantine, and reputation checks.

Yes. We encourage testing on staging environments. The free Core plugin works on any number of sites. For the Pro add-on, your license allows activation on a set number of sites depending on your plan (Solo: 1 site, Agency: 5 or 25 sites). 

You’ll receive a download link in your purchase confirmation email immediately after payment. The Pro add-on is not available for public download on our website — it’s tied to your license.

No. The free Core plugin is the scanning engine — it handles all detection, scanning, and pattern matching. The Pro add-on extends it with premium features like scheduled scans, quarantine, and full database coverage. Both plugins must remain active for Pro features to work. If you accidentally deactivate the Core, the Pro add-on will display a notice guiding you to reactivate it.

“Database-first” defines the core philosophy of Content Guard Pro. It means that while traditional security focuses on the file system (PHP files, themes, plugins), we prioritize the database as the primary source of hidden malicious content. Our scanner first inspects, analyzes, and decodes the complex, serialized, and JSON-encoded data within the wp_options, wp_postmeta, and wp_posts tables for malicious payloads before any traditional file check is performed. This approach targets the specific blind spot where SEO spam and database-resident malware hide. 

Pro plans include automatic daily scheduled scans, which is sufficient for most sites. The daily scan checks for new or modified content since the last scan, minimizing the detection window.

For additional coverage, real-time on-save scanning (included in Pro) checks content every time a post is saved or published. You can also run manual scans at any time — the free version supports unlimited manual Quick Scans.

The combination of daily scheduled scans plus real-time on-save scanning provides continuous protection without the resource overhead of more frequent full scans.

Confidence scores are a proprietary metric used by Content Guard Pro to help you prioritize threats. When our engine identifies a suspicious pattern (e.g., hidden links, obfuscated characters, or unexpected base64_decode functions in post content), it assigns a score from 1 to 100%.

• High Confidence (85%+): Indicates a pattern that strongly matches known malicious SEO spam or backdoor injections. These findings usually require immediate attention.
• Medium Confidence (50-84%): Indicates unusual encoding or a highly obfuscated structure that is common in malware but could potentially be legitimate code from a plugin.
• Low Confidence (Below 50%): May flag complex, but likely benign, serialized data from a page builder.

This score allows you to quickly differentiate a serious threat from benign complex content. 

Avoiding false positives is critical, given that page builders and complex plugins often store legitimate data in serialized or JSON formats that can resemble malicious code. We employ several techniques:

1. “Gutenberg-Aware” Contextual Analysis: We understand the structure of complex data (like Elementor JSON or serialized arrays) and only flag patterns that break the expected structure or contain executable code where only data should exist.
2. Whitelisting: We maintain an internal database of known, safe patterns and keys used by popular plugins and themes.
3. User-Defined Exceptions: You have the ability to review a flagged item and manually whitelist the specific database key or entry if you confirm it is legitimate, training the scanner not to flag it again. 

Yes, for advanced users. Content Guard Pro allows you to define and manage your own custom scanning rules through the settings panel. You can:

• Add custom string signatures: Search for specific text or URLs associated with an ongoing attack targeting your site.
• Define regular expressions (RegEx): Create complex patterns to hunt for highly customized obfuscated code unique to your environment.
• Exclude specific keys: Tell the scanner to completely ignore known, trusted, but complex database keys (option_name or meta_key). 

“Gutenberg-aware” means Content Guard Pro specifically understands the modern WordPress block editor’s structure. When Gutenberg saves a post, it embeds configuration data as JSON within HTML comments (e.g., “).

Our scanner:

1. Parses these HTML comments.
2. Decodes the JSON data hidden inside the block attributes.
3. Inspects the individual attributes (like className, anchor, or custom fields) for hidden malicious scripts or encoded payloads. 

The difference between Quarantine and Ignore lies in their intended action and final impact on your content. Quarantine is a security action that neutralizes threats without modifying your database content. When you quarantine a finding, Content Guard Pro strips dangerous elements (scripts, iframes, malicious links) when the page is rendered — but the original database content stays untouched. This means you can review the threat, un-quarantine if it’s a false positive, or manually edit the content when you’re ready. No data is deleted or overwritten.

Conversely, Ignore is a configuration action used to handle false positives. When you choose to ignore a finding, the content is not modified or cleaned; the entire entry is simply added to a whitelist, instructing the scanner to leave that specific, complex, and known-safe database item untouched in all future scans. 

Quarantine neutralizes threats on render — meaning when WordPress displays the content to visitors, Content Guard Pro intercepts and strips dangerous elements like <script> tags, <iframe> embeds, and malicious links. The original content in your database is preserved exactly as-is.

This non-destructive approach means: your data is never modified without your explicit action, you can un-quarantine at any time with one click, and if the flagged content turns out to be legitimate, no harm is done. When you’re ready to permanently fix the content, use the “Edit” option to open the post and make changes yourself.

No. Quarantine works at the render layer, not the database layer. Your stored content is never modified. Content Guard Pro simply filters out dangerous elements (scripts, iframes, spam links) when the page is displayed to visitors. The surrounding legitimate content — your post text, page builder layouts, shortcodes — renders normally. If you un-quarantine an item, the original content displays exactly as before.

When Content Guard Pro flags an issue, you have three options:

1. Quarantine — Neutralizes the threat on render without modifying your database. Best for confirmed threats you want to neutralize immediately. (Pro only)
2. Edit — Opens the post or page in the WordPress editor so you can manually remove or fix the problematic content. Available in both free and Pro.
3. Ignore — Marks the finding as a false positive so it won’t appear in future scans. Use this for legitimate content that triggers a detection pattern.

For high-confidence Critical findings, quarantine is the fastest response. For lower-confidence items, review the finding details first and decide whether to edit or ignore.

If you determine that a flagged item is legitimate (a false positive):

1. Review the finding in the dashboard.
2. Select the “Ignore & Whitelist” option.

This tells Content Guard Pro that the specific database key and/or content pattern is safe for this particular entry. The item will be removed from future scan results, and it will help train the scanner to improve accuracy for your site. 

Yes. Since quarantine is non-destructive (it filters on render, not in the database), un-quarantining is a one-click action — the original content immediately renders normally again.

For content you’ve manually edited, WordPress Revisions are your safety net. Content Guard Pro leverages the built-in revision system, so you can always revert a post to a previous version if a manual edit went wrong.

Yes! We want you to feel confident in your purchase. We offer a 14-day, no-questions-asked money-back guarantee on all new subscriptions. If Content Guard Pro isn’t the right fit for your workflow, simply contact our support team within 14 days of your initial purchase for a full refund. Please note that this guarantee applies to initial purchases and does not cover subscription renewals.

Our licensing is based on the number of active production websites you need to protect. We offer tiers (e.g., Solo Guard – 1 Site, Agency (5-25 Sites), Unlimited Sites) that correspond to the number of sites where you can activate your license key.

• Activation: Once you purchase a license, you receive a key that is used to activate the plugin on your WordPress installation. This process registers the domain URL with our system and grants access to updates and support.
• Staging/Development: We generally allow one non-public testing or staging site per production license at no extra charge (e.g., dev.yoursite.com). 

Yes. We understand that websites change, and clients come and go. You can easily manage and transfer your license keys through your Content Guard Pro Account Portal.

1. Log in to your account portal on our website.
2. Find the site you no longer need the license on and click “Deactivate” or “Remove.”
3. The license slot is immediately freed up.
4. You can then activate the license key on your new site.

This process ensures your license count always reflects your current active projects. 

All active licenses include priority technical support directly from our expert team. This covers:

• Plugin Installation and Setup Assistance.
• Troubleshooting any bugs or conflicts with themes/other plugins.
• Guidance on interpreting scan results and confidence scores.
• Remediation Advice for unique or complex database findings.

Support is generally provided via a dedicated ticket system or email and is available during business hours, with a commitment to fast response times. 

Yes. An active license guarantees you access to all plugin updates for the duration of your subscription. Updates include:

• New Features: Enhancements to the scanning engine and user interface.
• Compatibility Patches: Updates to ensure smooth operation with the latest versions of WordPress, PHP, and major page builders.
• Threat Intelligence: Critical, daily updates to our proprietary database of new malware signatures and obfuscation techniques.

We recommend always running the latest version to ensure maximum protection. 

All data associated with Content Guard Pro is stored locally within your existing WordPress database:

• Configuration: Plugin settings and license key are stored as standard entries in the wp_options table.
• Scan Results & Logs: Detailed scan findings and history are stored in a few dedicated, custom tables (e.g., wp_cgp_findings) created by the plugin.
• Quarantined Data: The original, malicious content that was removed is securely backed up and stored in a separate, non-executable table (e.g., wp_cgp_quarantine_log) within the database for safe restoration. No data is sent externally unless you configure webhooks or integrate with our cloud service for advanced threat intelligence (optional). 

Yes, Content Guard Pro works perfectly on standard shared hosting environments. The plugin is designed to be resource-efficient, particularly with its scanning engine, which operates at a low priority. Since it focuses on database queries rather than intensive file operations, it is lightweight and generally adheres to the resource limits imposed by shared hosting providers. 

Content Guard Pro is fully compatible with WordPress Multisite.

• Network Activation: The plugin can be installed and network-activated to be available across all sub-sites.
• Scanning: Our licensing supports network-wide installation, and the scanner is capable of inspecting the site-specific tables (wp_X_options, wp_X_postmeta, etc.) for each site within the network, ensuring complete coverage across your entire multisite installation. 

Yes, Content Guard Pro includes a robust REST API. This API allows developers and administrators to programmatically interact with the scanner, providing powerful integration capabilities. You can use the API to:

• Trigger On-Demand Scans (e.g., immediately after a deployment or major content update).
• Retrieve Detailed Scan Reports (JSON format).
• Manage Whitelist/Ignore Rules. 

Webhooks provide a way for Content Guard Pro to notify external services or applications about important events in real-time.

• Function: When a significant event occurs (e.g., a High-Confidence Threat is Detected or A Scan is Completed), the plugin automatically sends an HTTP POST request to a specified URL.
• Integration: This allows for seamless integration with external systems like Slack, custom incident response platforms, or external monitoring tools, ensuring you get immediate alerts without having to manually check the WordPress dashboard. 

Absolutely. Integration is a core feature of Content Guard Pro, made possible primarily through our REST API and Webhooks.

• API: You can poll the API endpoints from your external monitoring system (e.g., Prometheus, Datadog) to pull detailed status and threat counts.
• Webhooks: Configure a webhook to push critical alerts directly to your ticketing system (e.g., Jira, Zendesk) or operational dashboards, making Content Guard Pro a native part of your overall security and incident response workflow.