Changelog

Storefront Scan: product pages that do not open, and editing in the admin — 30 September 2026

A warning when product pages do not open. The check — free and full — asks for the headers of three product pages from different parts of the catalogue. When each one redirects to the same address — for example to the home page, because the store shows products only in a menu — the result says so above the lists, instead of leaving links that silently lead to the home page. Terms, section 2.
“Edit in admin” next to every item of the full scan. Each product or category name has a link to edit it in the store admin, also in the CSV file (a new, last column). It works once you are logged in, and also when the product page is switched off. Terms, section 13, Privacy.

Terms: longer access with offer codes — 30 September 2026

A group or partner code may give longer access than 30 days if its offer says so; a purchased code still gives 30 days. The end date of access is shown on the full-scan result page. Terms, section 13. The privacy policy says the same about how long a full-scan result lives. Privacy.

Storefront Scan: the full scan with a code — 30 September 2026

A full scan with a code. A code opens a check of up to 2,000 products, complete lists instead of five examples, image weights, a CSV export and a result kept for 30 days, compared with the previous full scan. You activate the code on a separate page; it is tied to the store only at the first successful scan. The free check works as before.
Terms: new section 13 — kinds of code, validity, activation, offers with a group code (places go by order of activation, not by chance), withdrawal and refunds. The “one check of a store per day” limit now counts separately for the free and the full check.
Privacy policy: what we record when a code is activated or sold (a transaction number — no buyer data), how long a full-scan result lives, a counter of visits through short addresses merchlint.com/o/… (no IP address) and failed checks in the journal. Privacy.

Privacy policy — 29 September 2026

New section: free catalogue audit. What happens to a plugin export if you send it to us for the free audit (offered on the Polish side of the site): who reads it, how long we keep it and what we don’t do with it. The plugin still makes no connections. Privacy.

0.3.3 — 25 September 2026

New display name: Merchlint – Catalog Audit for WooCommerce. Only the displayed name changed: same plugin, same directory address, same settings, same saved audits.
The identifier checks now say when your numbers are kept in another plugin’s field — EAN for WooCommerce, Germanized for WooCommerce, Trusted Shops Easy Integration, Google for WooCommerce, Customer Reviews for WooCommerce or Product Feed Manager for WooCommerce. The audit says how many products, names the field and says which check cannot see those numbers. Nothing is counted differently: no finding appears or disappears. How to move the numbers across.
The plugin no longer does anything at all when WooCommerce is not active. It says so in one sentence on the dashboard and touches nothing; activate WooCommerce and everything comes back.
Invisible characters in product codes now show in the evidence, as ⟨U+00A0⟩ and similar — on the screen and in the CSV export. Clean codes look exactly as before.
A check’s own page now shows what that check could not see, and “What this audit could NOT check” no longer says “these rules found nothing” about rules that ran.
The advice for missing sales data now points to a button that exists: Analytics → Settings → “Import historical data”.
WP-CLI: three commands now stop on bad input instead of guessing, and two outputs keep gaps apart from findings.
One request for a review, under the results — once per user, gone for good when you open it or choose “Don’t ask again”.

0.3.2 — 19 September 2026

On WooCommerce older than 9.2 the two identifier checks now say they did not run, instead of reporting numbers.
The evidence column no longer shows a Polish word on an English screen — an empty field now reads “(empty)”.
The duplicate-identifier check now says when it had nothing to compare, with the same reason as the missing-identifier check.
A finding on a variation now links straight to the tab where you fix it.

0.3.1 — 18 September 2026

Both duplicate checks now see codes stored on variations, not only on products. On a store with variable products the numbers can go up after this update.
The identifier check also reports a product that shares its number with its own variation. The SKU check does not — WooCommerce shows the parent’s SKU on a variation that has none, so for SKU that pair is how the platform behaves, not a fault.
Variations sitting in the trash no longer count — anywhere.
The three checks whose behaviour changed carry a new version number, so “Changes since the previous audit” can tell you when a movement comes from us rather than from your store.
Two additions to the identifier check’s knowledge page: what to do when the check is clean and the export file still shows no identifier, and why a number copied onto variations while a file is being built hides the gap rather than closing it.

0.3.0 — September 2026

Two new checks, both free and with no product cap: a product with no GTIN, UPC, EAN or ISBN, and two products sharing the same one. Shopping services use that identifier to match your offer to the same product sold elsewhere, so an empty or duplicated one is the usual reason an item quietly drops out of a feed. WooCommerce has had the field since 9.2 and nothing in the admin points at it.

The missing-identifier check stays quiet in shops that do not use identifiers at all — one sentence instead of a list of the whole catalogue. Handmade goods and services carry no barcode and need none.
On a variable product the identifier belongs on each variation, so such a product gives one finding with the evidence “6 variations without a GTIN”, not six rows.
Translations of one product are not reported as a duplicate, exactly as with SKU.
On WooCommerce older than 9.2 the check says so by name, rather than reporting every product.
After the update, “Changes since the previous audit” names the checks that are new. Two checks arriving at once means findings arriving at once, and the screen showed the movement without saying where it came from — so it read as if something had broken in your store overnight. A check that is new and found nothing stays out of the way.
Seventeen checks now, in six groups. Why products drop out of your feed walks through the requirements one at a time, with a query for each.

0.2.1 — 7 September 2026

New display name: Merchlint – Store Audit for WooCommerce. Same plugin, same address, same settings — the name now says what it does.
Every rule links to its own page here, explaining what the finding costs, how the rule decides, how to fix it, and when it is not worth fixing.
No change to what the audit checks or reports.

0.2.0 — 1 September 2026

First public release, on the WordPress.org plugin directory.

Fifteen checks, in five groups, with no product cap and no trial. Full list on the checklist page.

Findings ranked by the revenue behind them, read from the store’s own order data
Evidence on every finding — the field read, the value found, the threshold compared against
“Start here”: the three items with the largest amount at stake, above the full list
Deterministic results, with a screen showing what changed between two scans and why
Per-currency revenue figures; never summed across currencies
Permanent hiding of individual findings, surviving rescans and plugin updates
Dashboard widget with the last audit result
Nine WP-CLI commands: scan, status, cancel, findings, rule, export, hide, unhide, hidden
Streaming CSV export, with spreadsheet formula injection disarmed
Resumable scanning: 50,000 products in 91 seconds, surviving a killed PHP process
No account, no sign-up, no telemetry, no outbound connections of any kind

Reviewed and approved by the WordPress.org plugin team on 31 August 2026, six days after submission.

In progress

Merchlint for Shoper — the same audit engine on a second platform, as a hosted app. The rules, the evidence and the “no writes” rule are identical; what differs is where the data comes from.

What is next, without dates

Dates on a one-person project are guesses, so there are none here. The order, however, is decided:

Pro add-on — eleven further checks (variation pricing, frozen stock, expired coupons, duplicate descriptions, unreachable variations, plus Omnibus and GPSR data gaps for EU stores), scan history, scheduled scans, email reports, PDF export. It exists and works; it has no sales channel yet.
New checks every quarter, in both the free and paid versions. What gets built is largely decided by what people ask for — see contact.
A multi-store panel for agencies — only if agencies ask for it. See for agencies for why that condition is written down rather than assumed.

Where the authoritative list lives

The plugin’s own readme.txt in the WordPress.org directory is the canonical changelog; this page follows it. If the two ever disagree, the directory is right and this page has a bug — tell us.

Available now

Next, in this order