WhoKnew™ FAQ

WhoKnew™ is a suite of WordPress and WooCommerce plugins designed to help stores and sites grow faster, sell more, and stay protected. Our tools tackle the real problems that quietly kill otherwise great stores — from the cold start problem to scraper bots to missed revenue trends. Every plugin we ship solves something we’ve faced ourselves.

Our current plugin suite includes:

WhoKnew Views™ — Tracks and displays product view counts to build social proof and urgency on WooCommerce stores. Includes WhoKnew the Future™ AI forecasting in Pro.
WhoKnew Shield™ — Protects WordPress sites with military-grade contact obfuscation, Scraper Trap™ honeypots, and access to the WhoKnew Intelligence™ community threat network in Pro.

More plugins are in development. Follow along at whoknew.io to be first to know when the next one drops.

Social proof — such as displaying product view counts — builds customer trust by showing that others are interested in your products. It creates a sense of urgency and popularity, which can increase conversions significantly. It’s a powerful tool for stores competing in crowded markets, especially those just getting started.

Installing any WhoKnew™ plugin is simple:

Download the plugin from whoknew.io, WooCommerce Marketplace, CodeCanyon, or WordPress.org.
In your WordPress dashboard, go to Plugins > Add New, and click Upload Plugin.
Upload the plugin ZIP file and click Install Now.
Activate the plugin.
Configure settings via the WhoKnew™ menu in your dashboard. Check our Knowledge Base for step-by-step guides for each plugin.

All WhoKnew™ plugins require:

PHP 7.3 or higher
WordPress 5.6 or higher

WhoKnew Views™ additionally requires WooCommerce 7.1 or higher, as it integrates directly with your product pages. WhoKnew Shield™ works on any WordPress site — WooCommerce is not required. All plugins are tested up to the latest versions of WordPress and WooCommerce.

Yes. After installation, each plugin can be configured in minutes via the WhoKnew™ menu in your WordPress dashboard. No coding is required for basic setup. Pro plans unlock advanced options like custom styling, per-product presets, and threat network settings — all manageable from the same dashboard interface.

WhoKnew Views™ Free includes:
Accurate real-time view counting on single product pages
Basic styling and positioning options
Customizable view window and display text
Mobile-responsive design
Community support

WhoKnew Shield™ Free includes:
Basic contact obfuscation for email addresses, phone numbers, and more
Basic scraper detection
Community support

WhoKnew Views™ Pro unlocks number padding, smart algorithmic variations, WhoKnew the Future™ AI forecasting, advanced styling, per-product presets, and ticketed support.

WhoKnew Shield™ Pro unlocks military-grade dual-layer encryption, Scraper Trap™ honeypots, access to the WhoKnew Intelligence™ community blocklist of nearly 15 million hostile IPs, and ticketed support.

Both plugins offer Pro, Growth, and Agency plans with increasing site licenses and support priority.

They solve different problems at different stages of an attack — and both are worth running.

Most automated attacks follow a three-stage sequence: reconnaissance (scraping the site), mapping (cataloging vulnerabilities), then attack (SQL injection, brute force login, etc.). Shield operates at stage one. The moment a bot ignores robots.txt and begins its reconnaissance crawl, it triggers a honeypot and gets blocked. It never reaches stage two or three.

Wordfence operates at stage three. Its firewall is designed to intercept known attack signatures and block malicious requests — for attacks that reach it. On a site running Shield, very few automated threats make it that far.

We ran both simultaneously on the same site for 30+ days. Shield recorded 224+ threats caught directly, plus 267 additional blocks via the WhoKnew Intelligence™ collaborative network — 491+ total. Wordfence recorded zero — not because Wordfence failed, but because Shield had already stopped those threats upstream before Wordfence ever saw them.

Wordfence remains valuable for what Shield doesn’t cover: targeted human attacks that don’t behave like automated scrapers, file integrity monitoring, and known CVE-based exploit signatures. Run both. They’re sequential layers of the same defense, not alternatives to each other.

Both — and the two are more connected than they appear.

The encryption and auto-detection features protect your contact information specifically. But Scraper Trap™ and WhoKnew Intelligence™ operate at the site security level. Any bot that triggers a honeypot is blocked from your entire site — not just from contact pages. And the 15 million IPs in the Intelligence™ blocklist represent verified hostile actors of all kinds, not only scrapers targeting contact data.

The broader security benefit comes from timing. Automated attacks — whether they’re after contact data, plugin vulnerabilities, or login credentials — all start with a reconnaissance crawl. Shield catches them during that crawl, before they’ve mapped the site and before they’ve identified what to target. That’s an upstream security layer that benefits the whole site, regardless of what the bot was originally looking for.

Firewalls like Wordfence are designed to intercept attacks in progress — malicious requests, known exploit signatures, brute force attempts. They’re watching for stage three of the attack chain.

Shield catches threats at stage one: the reconnaissance crawl. Bots that scrape contact information, map your site structure, fingerprint your plugins, and catalog your admin URLs — all before attempting any attack — are invisible to a firewall because they haven’t done anything a firewall recognizes as an attack yet. They’re just crawling.

The practical result: your firewall dashboard stays quiet not because nothing is coming, but because Shield stopped it upstream. In 30+ days of running both on the same site, Shield caught 224+ threats directly via Scraper Trap™, plus an additional 267 blocks from the WhoKnew Intelligence™ collaborative network — 491+ total threats intercepted. Wordfence never recorded a single entry for any of them.

Yes — WhoKnew Views™ and WhoKnew Shield™ are designed to complement each other. Views™ builds trust and drives conversions while Shield™ protects your site and contacts from the bots and scrapers that undermine that trust. Both can be active on the same site simultaneously with no conflicts.

Yes. WhoKnew Views™ tracks product views in real time on WooCommerce single product pages using cookie-based tracking to ensure accurate counts. It remains accurate even for users who reject cookies, with options to set a view window and prevent duplicate counting from the same user until a customizable time has elapsed.

Each plugin has its own pricing. WhoKnew Views™ plans:

Free: Core features and community support.
Pro: $14/month or $79/year (1 site).
Growth: $27/month or $149/year (3 sites).
Agency: $67/month or $399/year (10 sites).

WhoKnew Shield™ has its own plan pricing — visit the Shield™ page for current rates. Annual plans save over 50% compared to monthly billing across all plugins.

You can choose between 1-month or 1-year terms at checkout. Monthly plans renew every month, while annual plans renew yearly and offer significant savings. Payments are processed via whoknew.io, WooCommerce Marketplace, or CodeCanyon.

We offer a 14-day money-back guarantee for initial purchases. If any plugin isn’t suitable, you can cancel within 14 days of your initial purchase for a full refund. For upgrades, you can downgrade within 14 days of the upgrade. Refunds apply only to initial terms, not renewals. Free trial licenses are not subject to refund as no payment is collected. Submit a refund request via our Customer Portal or support ticket.

Free Users: Access community support through the WordPress.org forums and our Knowledge Base.
Pro, Growth, and Agency Users: Receive priority ticketed support via our Customer Portal or email at 057f65fe@ad32fa99.com. A valid license key and purchase platform details are required for support requests.
Trial Users: Community support and the contact page are available. Ticketed support requires upgrading to a paid plan.

If something isn’t working as expected:

Ensure the plugin is activated and fully configured in its settings menu.
Clear your site’s cache and test in an incognito window.
Check your theme compatibility — some themes may require minor CSS adjustments.
Review our Knowledge Base for known issues and solutions.
If the issue persists, open a support ticket with your license key and a description of the problem.

WhoKnew Views™ uses cookie-based tracking to prevent duplicate counts. If counts aren’t updating as expected:

Check the view window setting in the plugin settings.
Ensure cookies aren’t being blocked by your browser or a privacy plugin.
Clear your browser cache and test in an incognito window.
If using Pro number padding or algorithmic variations, verify your settings align with your goals.
Open a ticket if the issue persists.

Shield™ uses multiple layers of protection including obfuscation, Scraper Trap™ honeypots, and the WhoKnew Intelligence™ blocklist. If a threat is getting through:

Ensure WhoKnew Intelligence™ is enabled in your Shield™ Pro settings.
Check that Scraper Trap™ is active and configured correctly.
Some highly sophisticated bots may evade initial detection — once trapped, they are added to the network and blocked site-wide going forward.
Open a support ticket if you need help reviewing your configuration.

WhoKnew Views™ collects minimal data to function — including IP addresses and hashed browser fingerprints for tracking product views, stored in cookies. WhoKnew Shield™ Pro with WhoKnew Intelligence™ enabled automatically contributes anonymized hostile IP addresses detected on your site to the shared threat network. No visitor personal data beyond flagged IP addresses is collected or shared. For full details, see our Privacy Policy.

We use cookies for required functionality (e.g., login sessions), analytics (e.g., tracking usage to improve our plugins), and functional purposes (e.g., remembering comment form details). Learn more in our Cookie Notice.

Yes, you can manage cookie settings via your browser’s preferences. See our Cookie Notice for instructions on controlling cookies in browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. Note that blocking cookies may limit some website features.

Number padding is a WhoKnew Views™ Pro feature that allows you to set a baseline view count for products. For example, you can set a minimum of 50 views, so a product with 10 actual views displays as “60 Views.” This helps new stores appear more established and encourages purchases by reducing the cold start problem.

Algorithmic variations is a WhoKnew Views™ Pro feature that simulates dynamic activity by adjusting view counts based on smart presets. You can configure the plugin to increase counts gradually over time or vary them per product, creating a realistic sense of ongoing interest and urgency.

WhoKnew the Future™ is included in WhoKnew Views™ Pro. It analyzes your product view history using Meta’s Prophet algorithm to predict future trends — detecting seasonality, identifying rising products, and flagging declining ones up to 90 days in advance. Confidence improves with data history, with full seasonality detection available after 2+ years of clean data.

WhoKnew Intelligence™ is included in WhoKnew Shield™ Pro. It connects your site to a community-verified network of nearly 15 million hostile IPs — threats caught by any WhoKnew Shield™ site are automatically blocked on yours before they arrive. By enabling WhoKnew Intelligence™, your site also contributes anonymized hostile IPs it detects back to the network, strengthening protection for every site in the community.

Scraper Trap™ is a WhoKnew Shield™ Pro feature that sets invisible honeypot links on your site — visible in the page source to bots, completely hidden from human visitors. The moment a scraper triggers one, its IP is blocked from your entire site automatically.

The reason this matters: automated attacks follow a predictable sequence. First, the bot scrapes your entire site during reconnaissance — harvesting contacts, mapping plugin versions, identifying admin URLs, ignoring robots.txt. Then it plans its attack. Then it executes. Scraper Trap™ catches bots during that first reconnaissance stage, before they finish mapping the site and before they attempt anything. Their IP is blocked before they ever reach the attack phase.

Caught IPs are also contributed anonymously to the WhoKnew Intelligence™ network to protect other Shield Pro sites automatically.