Set up the plugin: requirements, settings and Xags

After you install and connect the Xagio plugin, check the Dashboard for server problems, set the site-wide switches on Xagio Settings, and pick your default lookup locations. This guide also covers exporting your settings and how the plugin shows your Xags balance and costs.

Before you start

You need a WordPress user with the Administrator role.
To connect the plugin to your account, follow Install and connect the Xagio plugin.

Open the Dashboard

The Dashboard is the first screen of the Xagio plugin. It shows whether the site is connected to your Xagio account, links you to the panel, and warns you when your server is missing something Xagio needs.

In WordPress, go to Xagio > Dashboard.

What you see depends on the connection:

Not connected: the Connect with Xagio Cloud for Free box, with an email field and the Connect for Free Now button.
Connected: Your Account is Connected, your account email and an Access Dashboard button that opens the Xagio panel.

When connected, the Dashboard also shows the “Getting Started” Interactive Roadmaps (New Affiliate, Existing Affiliate, New Local, Existing Local), resource cards such as Xagio Store, Earn Rewards, Live Support and Contact Support, and the Latest Updates notes for your plugin version.

Check the server requirements

When your server is missing something, the Dashboard shows a panel titled Your server does not meet all requirements to run Xagio properly! with one row per problem. If every requirement is met, the panel does not appear.

Check	Minimum
PHP version	7.0
`post_max_size`	8 MB
`upload_max_filesize`	2 MB
`max_execution_time`	15 seconds, or 0 (no limit)
`max_input_vars`	500
`memory_limit`	64 MB, or -1 (no limit)
PHP extensions	OpenSSL, cURL, ZipArchive, DOMDocument
WordPress functions	`wp_remote_get` and `wp_remote_post` available
Permalinks	Post name or a custom structure (not Plain)
Syntax highlighting	turned on in your WordPress user profile

The messages you can see are:

PHP Version is too low
PHP Post Max Size is too low
PHP Max Upload Size is too low
PHP Time Limit is too low
PHP Max Input Vars is too low
PHP Memory Limit is too low
OpenSSL not installed, cURL not installed, ZipArchive not installed, DOMDocument not installed
WP Remote Get not found, WP Remote Post not found
WordPress Permalinks not set to Post name or Custom
Syntax Highlighting is disabled, please check Profile Settings

Fix an issue with one click

Two issues have a Fix This Issue button:

Next to WordPress Permalinks not set to Post name or Custom, select Fix This Issue. Xagio sets your permalinks to /%postname%/ and reloads the page.
Next to Syntax Highlighting is disabled, please check Profile Settings, select Fix This Issue. Xagio turns syntax highlighting back on for your WordPress user and reloads the page.

Fix the other issues

The PHP limits and extensions are server settings. Xagio cannot change them. Their rows show a Visit Help Docs button. Ask your host to raise the limit or install the extension, or change it in your hosting control panel. You can confirm the current values on the System Status tab.

General settings

The General tab of Xagio Settings holds three site-wide switches: file uploads, the category base in URLs, and reCAPTCHA v3 protection. The same tab also has Export & Import (see Export and import settings).

In WordPress, go to Xagio > Xagio Settings.
Open the General tab.

Each switch saves as soon as you change it.

Setting	What it does
Disable File Uploads	Blocks file uploads through WordPress. Anyone who tries to upload gets the message “File uploads are disabled by Xagio due to security reasons. To enable them again, please head over to Xagio Settings and turn off “Disable File Uploads”.” This includes you, so turn it off before you add media.
Remove Category Base	Removes `/category/` from category URLs, so `example.com/category/news/` becomes `example.com/news/`.
reCAPTCHA V3 Protection	Adds Google reCAPTCHA v3 to the WordPress login form and to post comment forms. Needs a reCAPTCHA Site Key and a reCAPTCHA Secret Key.

Set up reCAPTCHA v3

Create a reCAPTCHA v3 key pair for your domain in the Google reCAPTCHA admin console. The help icon next to reCAPTCHA V3 Protection links there.
In Xagio > Xagio Settings > General, paste the keys into reCAPTCHA Site Key and reCAPTCHA Secret Key.
Turn on reCAPTCHA V3 Protection.
Log out and log in again to check the login form still works.

reCAPTCHA only runs when the switch is on and both keys are filled in. It checks comments on single posts where comments are open. Comment forms from other plugins that do not send a reCAPTCHA token are let through.

Location settings

Keyword data and rankings change by country and language. The Location tab sets the defaults the plugin uses every time it looks up data, so you don’t have to pick them on each request. You can change any default at any time. The plugin must be connected to your Xagio account: the lookups these defaults feed all run through your account.

In WordPress, go to Xagio > Xagio Settings.
Open the Location tab.

Each field saves as soon as you change it.

Keyword Settings: sets the default Language and Country for keyword data: Volume, CPC, inTitle and inURL. Choose – All Languages – or WorldWide to look up data without a language or country filter.
Rank Tracker: sets the default Search Engine, Country and Location (city) for tracking keyword rankings. Pick the country first; the Location list then loads cities for that country. These values are also saved to your Xagio account.
Audit: sets the default Location for website audits. The list shows each supported country with its language code, for example United States (en) or Canada (en).
AI Wizard: sets the default Search Engine and Location the AI Wizard uses when it looks up competitors for your seed keyword.

Export and import settings

Export & Import saves your global SEO settings and each page’s On-Page SEO data to a .psexp file. Use it to back up your SEO setup before big changes, or to copy the same global settings to another site.

Export your settings

In WordPress, go to Xagio > Xagio Settings.
Open the General tab.
Under Export & Import, select Export Options.

Your browser downloads a file named Xagio_Export_Settings_<date>.psexp.

What the file contains

Global settings from SEO Settings and Xagio Settings, including:

The title separator, Force enable Xagio SEO, HTML footprint, WordPress canonical and sub-page indexing switches
Post type, taxonomy and homepage title and description templates
Open Graph defaults (Facebook and Twitter title, description and image)
Global Header, Body and Footer scripts
Webmaster scripts: Google and Bing verification, Google Analytics, GA4, Google Tag Manager, Pinterest and Yandex
Force Homepage Schemas, Render Pretty Schemas and the reCAPTCHA switch

Per-page On-Page SEO, for every page and post: SEO title, description, URL and target keyword; Facebook and Twitter fields; robots and canonical settings; the on/off state of each On-Page SEO section; and Personal Notes.

The file does not include your reCAPTCHA keys, schemas, sitemaps settings, robots.txt rules, redirects, Project Planner data or anything from other Xagio screens.

Import settings

In WordPress, go to Xagio > Xagio Settings > General.
Under Export & Import, select Import Options.
Pick a .psexp file.

The import starts as soon as you pick the file. When it finishes you see “Successfully imported settings. Refreshing page in 3 sec…” and the page reloads.

Xags in the plugin

Paid actions in the plugin spend Xags from your Xagio account, the same balance you use in the panel. The plugin shows your balance and the cost before you run anything, so you always confirm a charge first. The plugin must be connected to your Xagio account: without a connection, paid screens show TRY A XAGIO PLAN instead of a balance. To learn how xRenew and xBanks work, read How Xags work.

Where your balance shows

Project Planner, Niche Hunter and Agent X show two counters in the header:

the xRenew counter (“These are your current XAGS (xRenew)”)
the xBank counter (“These are your current XAGS (xBank)”)

Next to them is Buy XAGS (PURCHASE XAGS in Agent X), which opens the Xagio store. On the Xagio AI Free plan, you also see See Xagio Premium Features.

The front-end AI Assistant shows the same two counters in its panel.

Where costs show before you run

Where	What you see
Project Planner and Niche Hunter data actions (volume and CPC, competition, track rankings, audit, AI Wizard, Niche Hunter search)	A confirm window with the cost before the action runs. Niche Hunter also shows how it splits between xRenew and xBanks.
AI actions in the editor (AI content, AI schema)	Requesting AI Input, with Average XAGS cost for this is and Your remaining XAGS are
Agent X	“This will consume N xBanks/xRenew. Are you sure?” before the build starts
Front-end AI Assistant	The cost of the selected edit next to Additional Prompt, in xR

The plugin spends xRenew first, then xBanks.

What it costs

Prices come from your Xagio account at run time, so the plugin always shows the current price. The main plugin prices are:

Niche Hunter search: 1.5 Xags per hunt
Site audit: 1 Xag per audit, charged only when ranking data comes back
AI Wizard: 1 Xag per run
Search volume and CPC: 0.03 Xags per keyword (also when refreshing existing values)
Competition (inTitle/inURL): 0.02 Xags per keyword
Add a keyword to Rank Tracker: 0.03 Xags per keyword, per search engine
AI content, AI schema, AI clustering and the AI Assistant: 0.02 Xags per 1,000 tokens, multiplied by the prompt’s price factor. The average price shows before you run it.
Agent X: competition plus the AI prompt prices for each page. The total shows before you run it.

Template installs use template credits, not Xags. See the full list at Xag costs.

When your balance is too low

The plugin stops before it charges you. Messages differ by screen:

Project Planner: “You do not have enough XAGS to perform this operation. You can either upgrade your account or buy some XAGS at the Xagio store”
Agent X: “You do not have enough XAGS to perform this operation!”
On-Page SEO AI: “You do not have enough AI Credits, please top up and try again!”
AI Assistant: “You do not have enough XAGs to process this action!”

Buy xBanks from Buy XAGS, or wait for your next xRenew top-up. See Buy xBanks.

When AI asks you to upgrade

AI works on every plan. If your Xag balance (xRenew plus xBanks) is 0, AI actions open Upgrade your Account (“You’ll need to upgrade your account in order to use AI features!”) with an Upgrade Now! button. Add Xags and try again. See Buy xBanks.

Troubleshooting

“ERROR: reCAPTCHA verification failed, please try again.” Google scored the request as likely spam (a score under 0.5) or the keys are wrong. Check that you created v3 keys (not v2) for this exact domain, and that the site key and secret key are not swapped. If you are locked out of wp-admin, deactivate the Xagio plugin by renaming its folder over FTP or your file manager, then fix the keys.
Uploads fail with “File uploads are disabled by Xagio…” Turn off Disable File Uploads.
“Something went wrong.” (Location tab) The plugin could not save the Rank Tracker default to your account. Check that the site is connected, then try again. If it keeps failing, run Fix Common Issues. See Fix a site that shows as disconnected.
The Location list is empty. Pick a Country first and wait for the cities to load.
“File does not contain right extension!” The file is not a .psexp file. Export again and upload the file without renaming it.
“File that you uploaded is corrupted.” The file is not valid, or it is missing the settings or the per-page section. Export again from the source site.
“File is not sent!” or “Error on upload, please contact support.” The upload did not reach the server. Check that Disable File Uploads is off on the General tab and that the file is under your server’s upload size limit.