Google Referrer Checker
Google Referrer Checker is based on an idea and script from Russ Jones (@rjonesx) on SEOMoz.
Consider an alternative
Google Referrer Checker shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 15 years ago, and scores 30/100 on our health check.
- Small user base (10+ active installs)
- Very few reviews so far
- No update in 14 years
- Only tested up to WordPress 3.3 (latest is 7.1)
How does it stack up?
Side-by-side on installs, updates, ratings & support
Daily downloads
Download spikes usually follow a new release — each site that auto-updates counts as a download.
Rankings
Where Google Referrer Checker stands todayWordPress.org search rankings
Live position in the plugin search, top 100| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| >100 | |
| seo | >100 |
Version adoption
Share of active sites per release.
Rating breakdown
★★★★★★★★★★ 5 from 1 reviews
About Google Referrer Checker
From the official readme · v0.3.1Description
Google Referrer Checker is based on an idea and script from Russ Jones (@rjonesx) on SEOMoz.
Here is how he describes it:
We often joke that “Google knows everything.” While we can lament the loss of privacy and liberty, there is one thing that I do want Google to know about – my links. I want them to know about as many links pointing to my site as possible. Unfortunately, Google misses out on a good portion of the web. Well, what if you could find links that Google hasn’t necessarily found, and then make sure that Google does index them and count them?
If you were go into your Google Analytics right now and export all of the pages that have sent visitors to your site since your website’s inception, what percentage of them do you think will have been indexed by Google? 90%, 95%, 99%? Sure, it will probably vary from site to site, especially given how many different sites out there have sent traffic to you, but there are likely to be a handful that Google never got around to crawling. Our goal with this first set-it and forget-it tactic is to find the pages that refer traffic to your site on-the-fly and make sure if they have a link, that Google knows about it.
Ideally, our automated the script would:
- Record every referrer from other sites.
- Spider that site to see if it actually has a real, followed link.
- Check to see if Google had cached that referring page with the followed link.
- Coax Google to reindex that page if it had not yet found the link.
- Continue to check to see if Google had cached the referring page.
This is actually quite easy to accomplish programmatically. The first three steps are done every day by tools regularly used by SEOs. The only difficult part is finding a way to encourage Google to visit the referring pages it has not yet indexed. We can solve this by simply having a widget on the page that displays those referrers, essentially an “As Seen On” bulleted list of pages that had linked to your site, but had not yet been indexed.
This plugin does just that. And adds a simple widget that will display the unindexed links.
You can see it in action on one of our site.
For any more questions, please go to Gunner Technology’s post: Google Referrer Checker: A WordPress Plugin and leave a comment.
Requires WordPress 3.0 and PHP 5.
Installation
- Upload the files to the
/wp-content/plugins/google-referrer-checker/directory - Activate the “Google Referrer” plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
Changelog
0.1
- Initial release
0.2
- Adds Gunner Technology as a contributor
- Adds short description to readme
Screenshots
For developers
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Best Google Referrer Checker alternatives
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FAQ
Google Referrer Checker: quick answers
Straight answers, pulled from live WordPress.org data.
Live data from WordPress.org · checked Oct 5, 2026
Is Google Referrer Checker free?
Yes. Google Referrer Checker is free to download and use from the official WordPress.org plugin directory.
Is Google Referrer Checker safe to use in 2026?
Google Referrer Checker shows warning signs in 2026 — compare the alternatives below before installing. It runs on 10+ sites, is rated 5/5 and was last updated 15 years ago, and scores 30/100 on our health check.
How many websites use Google Referrer Checker?
Google Referrer Checker is active on 10+ WordPress websites and has been downloaded 3,439 times since it launched in January 2012. It was downloaded 46 times in the last 30 days.
Does Google Referrer Checker work with WordPress 7.1?
Google Referrer Checker is officially tested up to WordPress 3.3.2, while the latest release is 7.1.2. It may still work, but try it on a staging site first.
When was Google Referrer Checker last updated?
The latest version, 0.3.1, was released on February 22, 2012 (15 years ago).
Who makes Google Referrer Checker?
Google Referrer Checker is developed and maintained by codyswann.
What are the best alternatives to Google Referrer Checker?
The most popular alternatives to Google Referrer Checker are Site Kit by Google (5M+ installs), Google for WooCommerce (800K+ installs) and GA Google Analytics (400K+ installs).
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