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How WordPress Sync Works in ContentMK - ContentMK

A technical look at how ContentMK connects to WordPress sites, handles two-way synchronization, and manages conflicts between local and remote content.

ContentMK Team February 4, 2026 3 min read
wordpress features

WordPress sync is one of the most-requested features in ContentMK, and for good reason. If your content lives in WordPress, you need your management tool to actually talk to it. Here’s how the connection works under the hood.

Connecting to Your Site

ContentMK uses the WordPress REST API to communicate with your site. You’ll authenticate using WordPress Application Passwords — a built-in feature since WordPress 5.6. No third-party plugins required, no API keys to manage through a separate service. You generate an application password in your WordPress user profile, paste it into ContentMK, and you’re connected.

The initial connection runs a quick handshake to verify permissions and detect which plugins you have installed. This matters because ContentMK can pull SEO metadata from popular plugins like Yoast or Rank Math if they’re present.

What Gets Synced

Once connected, ContentMK pulls in your articles, tags, categories, and SEO data. It’s not just titles and URLs — you get the full content body, publication dates, author information, featured images, and any SEO fields exposed by your plugins.

New articles published in WordPress show up in ContentMK automatically. Edits made on either side get detected and flagged. It’s genuine two-way sync, not a one-time import.

Rate Limiting and Performance

We don’t hammer your server. ContentMK enforces a built-in rate limit: a 300-millisecond pause after every 10 API requests. For most sites, this means an initial sync of 500 articles takes a few minutes, and ongoing syncs are nearly instant since they only pull changes.

Your site stays fast. Your hosting provider stays happy.

Conflict Detection

This is where things get interesting. What happens when someone edits an article in WordPress while you’re updating the same piece in ContentMK?

ContentMK uses a modified-since comparison to detect conflicts. Every sync checks the last-modified timestamp on both sides. If only one side changed, the newer version wins. If both sides changed since the last sync, ContentMK flags it as a conflict and lets you decide.

Sync States

Every article in your inventory has a sync status:

  • Synced — Both sides match. Nothing to do.
  • Local Ahead — You’ve made changes in ContentMK that haven’t been pushed to WordPress yet.
  • WP Ahead — Someone updated the article in WordPress since your last sync.
  • Conflict — Both sides changed. You’ll need to review and pick a resolution.

These states are visible at a glance in your content inventory, so you always know where things stand.

The Changelog

Every sync action gets recorded in a timeline — what changed, when, and in which direction. If something looks off, you can trace back through the changelog to see exactly what happened. It’s version history for your entire content operation.

What If You Don’t Use WordPress?

ContentMK isn’t WordPress-only. For sites running on other platforms, you can use manual CSV import to bring in your content inventory. You won’t get the automatic two-way sync, but you’ll still get health scores, duplicate detection, and everything else ContentMK offers.

WordPress sync just makes the whole process hands-free. Connect once, and your content inventory stays current without you thinking about it.