Getting Started

Once the plugin is installed and active, attribution begins immediately. This guide walks you through your first recorded session, the dashboard layout, and the session log.

Your first attribution

Open your site in a new browser tab. If you arrived from a search engine, the session is classified as Organic search. If you typed the URL directly, it is Direct. If you followed a link from a social platform, it is Social media.

Go to WordPress Admin → Attribution. The session log at the bottom of the page shows the most recent sessions. Your visit should appear within a few seconds.

The dashboard

The free plugin's dashboard shows:

• 30-day summary cards - sessions count and trend, AI traffic sessions and share of total, and top channel
• A channel-share pie chart for the same period. Direct/Unknown is excluded by default, with a notice and a one-click toggle to show it
• Sessions log - filterable by date range, channel, and source domain, with CSV export
• Settings - retention period, self-referral domains, path exclusions, consent gate toggle, debug log toggle

Pro adds tagging, multi-channel trend charts with drill-down to source domains, and conversion tracking. It does not unlock anything described above; all of it is already in the free plugin.

Reading the session log

Each row in the session log shows:

• Channel - the classified channel (e.g. AI tools, Organic search)
• Source - the referring domain (e.g. chat.openai.com, google.com)
• Timestamp - when the visit was first recorded
• Pages - every page viewed during the visit, in order, with a First Touch indicator showing the entry page

Every page is credited back to the same original channel as the entry page. A visitor who arrives from a Google search and views three more pages still shows as Organic search for all four pages.

Channel priority

When multiple signals are present, the plugin applies this priority order:

1. UTM parameters - utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign
2. AI Referrer Taxonomy - checks the referrer against the built-in platform list
3. Standard referrer classification - maps known domains to channels
4. Direct - no referrer and no UTM parameters

Next steps

• Read Attribution Channels for definitions and detection logic for all nine channels
• Read AI Referrer Taxonomy for the full platform list
• If you have Pro, read Pro Features Guide

Common questions

Why isn't my session showing up in the log yet? +

The session log refreshes on page load, not in real time. Visit the Attribution dashboard again, or refresh the page, and your session should appear. If it still does not appear after a minute, check that the plugin is active and that no caching plugin is serving a stale copy of the admin page itself.

Can I see attribution data from before I installed the plugin? +

No. Attribution starts recording from the moment the plugin is activated. There is no way to retroactively classify sessions that occurred before activation, since the classification depends on the HTTP referrer header captured at the time of the original request.

Why does a session show as Direct when I know the visitor clicked a link? +

Some browsers, privacy extensions, and email clients strip the referrer header before the request reaches your server. If no referrer header and no UTM parameters are present, the session is correctly classified as Direct because the plugin has no signal to classify it otherwise.

Can I export or back up the session log? +

Yes. CSV export is included in the free plugin, no license key required. Go to Attribution → Sessions and use the export option, which respects your current date range and channel filters.

Do I need to configure anything before attribution starts working? +

No. Classification begins immediately on activation with default settings. Self-referral exclusion and path exclusions are pre-configured with sensible defaults; you only need to adjust Settings if you have a specific reason to.

CQIP is a methodology standard, not a technology stack. Implementations exist for static PHP sites, WordPress, page generators, and other document management systems. The platform is the implementation detail - the standard and the eight canonical block types are consistent across all implementations.