Work / SiteLens
South African WordPress site owners had no affordable, locally-aware audit tool that flagged POPIA non-compliance alongside the usual security, performance, SEO, and accessibility checks. The available tools were built for US or EU regulatory contexts. A South African small business checking GDPR compliance on a Johannesburg site is checking the wrong thing.
SiteLens is a WordPress plugin. It runs on the site it audits. No external service, no data leaving the server, no monthly SaaS subscription to access basic functionality.
"The POPIA wedge is what differentiates it. Every US-built competitor checks for GDPR. SiteLens checks for what applies here."
Product rationaleSecurity, performance, SEO, and accessibility. Each runs as a series of automated checks against the site's current state. Results are stored in a custom WordPress database table, so the history is preserved and degradations can be caught early. The audit runs on-site, not through a hosted service.
The checks are specific. Not "install an SSL certificate" (which every modern host does automatically) but things like mixed content warnings, unpatched plugin versions, Core Web Vitals failures, and structured data errors that would cost rankings.
POPIA compliance, advanced performance monitoring, and a link health audit are gated behind a license. The license server is a separate lightweight service. The Pro axes are not available in the free plugin at all, which avoids the pattern of teasing features without delivering them.
The POPIA axis checks for consent mechanisms, data retention notices, and the elements a SA Information Regulator audit would examine. It is not a legal opinion. It is a checklist of things that are objectively present or absent.
Pure WordPress plugin PHP, following the Plugin API conventions. REST API endpoints serve the dashboard interface, which is built in vanilla JS. Custom database schema with proper migration handling. No heavy framework dependency. The plugin can be activated, run an audit, and present results without touching anything outside its own tables.
SiteLens 0.1.0 is on staging. The wp.org submission pipeline is prepared. The POPIA axis is in review. The plugin will be listed on wp.org as a free plugin with optional Pro upgrade.
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