WordPress Activity Logging Options Explained

Shield's WordPress Activity Log is one of the most critical tools we have in our security plugin. It's being able to view and monitor events on our WordPress sites, as they happen. If we can see all the events around an incident, we can build a clear picture of exactly what has happened and make smarter, more informed decisions.

A full detailed log of each and every event that happens on a WordPress site is critical to knowing what threats the website is facing and if, and how, they’re being handled.

Option: Logging Level

Every single event in the Shield system has a logging “level” or “severity”. By default, Shield will switch on Warning & Notice events. If you’re seeing any issues and you’d like more information about what’s happening on a site, you can enable extra Info level as you require.

What logging levels your activity log is going to log depends on your settings under the main Security dashboard menu > click a small gear icon next to Activity Logs section > select WordPress Activity tab > Logging Level.

Access to Logging Level options
Access to Logging Level options.

Important: Only events with the levels selected will be logged.

Shield logs all security events to the database. This has always been the case and is unchanged. You can specify the logging levels when using the local database.

Under the main Tools menu > Docs > Event Details you can view all event details and their assigned levels.

Access to Event Details
Access to Event Details.

Option: Log Retention

You can use this option to automatically purge WordPress Activity Log entries that are older than the specified number of days. To do this:

  1. Go to Shield’s main menu.
  2. Click the small gear icon next to Activity Logs to open all options for this section.
  3. Select the WordPress Activity tab.
  4. Go to Log Retention.
Access to Log Retention option
Access to Log Retention option.

Events older than the number of days specified will be automatically cleaned from the database.

Important: This will default to 7 days for Shield free users. If you want to store more logs, you’ll need to upgrade to ShieldPRO. 

For more information about the WordPress Activity Log, read the blog article here.