Zinn® Footprint
Hide that a site runs WordPress, and keep SEO crawlers out
Zinn® Footprint strips the WordPress fingerprint, closes common attack surfaces and denies backlink crawlers at the server, while Google, Bing and every other search engine are never blocked. It comes with our Footprint-Free hosting.
Built for speed and SEO. Zinn® Footprint adds -0.2 kB and 0 third-party requests to a page. Measured, not claimed. See the numbers →
Included with Zinn® hosting: Zinn® Footprint comes installed and activated on every WordPress site we host on our own servers. See WordPress hosting
Built for speed and SEO
Page speed affects where Google ranks a page and how many visitors stay on it. So instead of telling you Zinn® Footprint is light, we installed it on a clean WordPress test site and measured what it adds to a page.
- -0.2 kBadded to the page: everything a visitor's browser downloads
- 0requests to other companies' servers
- 100 → 100Lighthouse performance score on phones, without the plugin → with it
- 91 → 91Lighthouse SEO score, without the plugin → with it
Measured on 2026-10-01: Zinn Footprint 1.6.0 on a clean WordPress test site, using Lighthouse's test for phones, run 5 times and taking the middle result. Page weight counts everything a visitor's browser downloads within 15 seconds, including after a scroll. Every result, and how we measured it
Why people choose Zinn® Footprint
A smaller fingerprint
The generator tag, version numbers, discovery links and the X-Powered-By header are removed, each as its own switch.
Competitors cannot map your links
Ahrefs, Majestic, Semrush, Moz and other backlink crawlers get a 403 at the server, before PHP runs.
Search engines always get in
The server rule tests for search engines first, so a wrong setting can never block Googlebot, Bingbot or any other search engine.
What Zinn® Footprint does
Zinn® Footprint is part of the Footprint-Free deploy footprint. It removes the tell-tale signals that reveal a site runs WordPress and which version, and it denies SEO and backlink crawlers so competitors' tools cannot map the site's outbound link graph. Search engines are never blocked, so the site stays fully indexable.
Why it matters
A network of sites has one weakness that has nothing to do with hosting: it is discoverable. Backlink crawlers exist to map which sites link to which, and a site that answers them hands over the whole graph. Blocking them by hand is where this usually goes wrong — a robots.txt rule is advisory, a plugin-level block is bypassed by anything that ignores PHP, and one careless rule blocks Googlebot and costs the site its rankings. This does it in three layers, with the search-engine test evaluated first so a mis-set toggle cannot deny a search engine.
What is in it
Everything Zinn® Footprint does, listed from the plugin itself, so this page changes when the plugin does.
Hide WordPress
- No generator tagThe WordPress version meta tag is removed from the page head and feeds.
- No version in asset addressesThe ?ver= query is removed only where it equals the core version, so your own cache-busting stays.
- No discovery linksRSD, Windows Live Writer, shortlink and REST and oEmbed discovery links are removed.
Harden
- XML-RPC off, unless you need itSwitched off automatically, and left on only while Jetpack or VaultPress needs it.
- Generic login errorsOne message for a wrong username or password, so the login page does not confirm which accounts exist.
- No X-Powered-By headerThe header that names PHP and its version is removed where PHP allows.
Crawler blocking
- SEO crawlers denied at the serverA server rule returns 403 to backlink crawlers, WordPress itself is the backstop, and robots.txt asks the polite ones to stay away.
- Search engines never blockedGooglebot, Bingbot, YandexBot, Baiduspider, Applebot and the rest are always let through.
What you are downloading
The facts about the file, the requirements and how to install it.
- Version
- 1.6.7
- Minimum WordPress
- WordPress 6.6
- Minimum PHP
- PHP 7.4
- Tested up to
- WordPress 7.1
- Licence
- GNU General Public License, version 2 or later
- Written by
- Neil Lock — CEO, Zinn Digital® Ltd
What Zinn® Footprint needs
WordPress 6.6 or later and PHP 7.4 or later. Server-level blocking needs Apache or LiteSpeed with .htaccess honoured; without it the application-level backstop still applies.
How you get Zinn® Footprint
Not a download. Zinn® Footprint ships as part of the Footprint-Free hosting line and is installed, configured and kept current for you on every site on that line. It is the line's differentiator and is not distributed separately.
Questions about Zinn® Footprint
Can I download Zinn® Footprint?
No. It is part of our Footprint-Free hosting line and is installed, configured and kept current for you on every site on that line.
Will this break my site?
Each measure is its own switch, so anything a theme or plugin depends on can be turned back on. XML-RPC stays on automatically while Jetpack or VaultPress needs it.
Does it hide that the site is WordPress completely?
It removes the common signals. A determined person can still find other clues, so it reduces the fingerprint rather than promising invisibility.
Does blocking crawlers hurt my rankings?
No. Only backlink and SEO-tool crawlers are denied. Search engines are tested for first and are always let through.
Updates
On a site we host, these plugins are configured to update themselves: they check with us and WordPress installs the new version for you, with the download verified against its published checksum first. On a WordPress we do not host, there is nothing to configure and nothing phones home — come back to this page when you want the newest version, or watch the plugin's GitHub releases.
Need an older version?
Customers can download the newest release of each of the two previous major versions of every plugin in the Zinn Digital® app. It is there for a site that cannot run the current version yet — one still on an older WordPress or PHP — and for rolling back an update that caused a problem. When you can, install the current version.
Get Zinn® Footprint working on a real site
Zinn® Footprint comes installed and activated on every WordPress site we host on our own servers, and we keep it up to date for you. It also runs on any other WordPress site.