WordProof - Hobby Plus Reviews

Do note that this no longer works with Rank Math and forces you to only use Yoast for SEO. I had no replies from multiple emails to the WordProof team and finally disabled my beloved Rank Math and forced myself to use Yoast instead as I decided timestamping the posts were more essential in the long run.

TLDR: If you write original content and want to use SEO, Wordproof is one way to get ready for the future. It is still a bet (because search engines are yet to recognize timestamps), yet it is a kind of safe bet because it makes all the sense in the world.

How it works:
Everytime you write content (blog post, page, etc) with Wordproof you can "take a picture in time" of it. Like when in the movies the bad guy takes a picture of the person they have kidnapped with the cover of the newspaper to show that he is still alive.

In this way, you could theoretically dispute that you are the original creator of such content, because you published it first. Now, I am not a lawyer so I don't know how real Wordproof would be as evidence in court, meaning I don't know if the court will lean on the side of the timestamp (what if I just start copying content from great sites and timestamp it before them, would that make it mine?). Also, because copyright infringement could take place in another country around the world, well, good luck with that.

What is certainly very interesting is the possibility to enhance your SEO by timestamping content. This is the gold we content creators can get from Wordproof (if not fully now, soon). And the potential here is so great that they now have Yoast SEO as investors and supporters of Wordproof (ironically I don't use Yoast, I'm Rank Math fan).

Here is what I loved:
- Blockchain technology to store your certificate.
- Once installed, it is a breeze to use in your website and to timestamp old posts and pages (we are on Wordpress).
- Overall, it is a brilliant and simple idea that has tons of potential in it.
- The potential of search engines sometime in the future recognizing timestamps and seeing my SEO scores improve.

Here is what I would change:
- Missing documentation. I struggle from minute one, where they asked me what blockchain technology to use. There are 3 options: EOS, Ethereum, and Telos. I had no idea what to chose or why, but I read somewhere that you have to choose wisely because once you chose it for your website, there is no way to change it. What pressure! They have a "Recommended!" tag on EOS (I have no idea why). And they have a message that Ethereum is "only for paying users" (I have no idea if we LTDs are paying users of Wordproof, or if the meant that somewhere else you get to pay for Ethereum, or maybe if you don't have the free version of Wordproof then you are considered paying user, etc).
- Non-rolling credits. Once the month is over, so are your timestamping credits. Use them or loose them.
- The setup did not honor my post-type selections. Had to redo it.
- I have no idea what happens after we reach the 25 monthly limit.

Disclaimer:
As part of the AppSumo Early Review program Beta, I received this deal for free in exchange for an honest review.

Let me start off by saying that we have been using the API access of Wordproof because our website does not use Wordpress or any other common CMS platform.

Wordproof is one of those product that only does one thing and does it right: it timestamps your content.

The good thing with the API use of this, is that we have total freedom on the content we want to timestamp and the format of it.

A couple of things to pay attention to:
- most of the content to get started is videos, so don't expect to find many tutorials in written form
- once you pick a blockchain (ethereum vs eos) you are stuck with it, so make the right choice :D
- wordpress integration seems very easy, api integration doesn't have great documentation but if you are a developer you'll find your way.

Overall, a great project deserving a great review.

Disclaimer:
As part of the AppSumo Early Review program Beta, I received this deal for free in exchange for an honest review.

Finally had some time to play around with Wordproof and so far this is a great piece of software. However, to be completely honest, I'm unsure to what extent "real protection" if any, Wordproof actually comes with in protecting original content.

Let's get the easy things out of the way -

1. The UX is easy, and from signing up to actually adding your first site (I used Wordpress) is a piece of cake. You get a site key which you add to the Wordpress plugin.
2. Timestamping the content is quite easy as well and you can select which content you want to time stamp
Note: You can edit the site that you want Wordproof to work with by editing the site directly on the Wordproof dashboard

The easy stuff above is that easy, now moving onto the meat of how I think Wordproof is supposed to work

The benefit of Wordproof is that you can timestamp the post of your original content on the blockchain of your choice, although they seem to favor EOS by default. You can post to Ethereum although it may be reserved to paying members.

The big question that I personally couldn't figure out even after using WordProof is the big old "so what??".
Timestamping the content is great and it works well right out of the box, but so what? Anyone can still technically "steal" your work, publish it as their own, and although Wordproof claims the search engines can determine if your content was the original, I didn't see any implementation of that or visibly shown on Dashboard or in other metrics. For example, if someone or someplace has very very similar content to what I originally posted, it would be cool to get alerted.

Again, I only worked within Wordproof for a few minutes now and it gets the job done as it stated it would time-stamp. The portion of my review that docks off 1 taco is the after-timestamp functionality.

Overall, I'm very very eager to see how this platform plays out. I think they got something truly special here, hoping to see this platform develop in the next year and perhaps include alerts for when content is similar beyond 90% same as to your original content.

Disclaimer:
As part of the AppSumo Early Review program Beta, I received this deal for free in exchange for an honest review.

The idea behind this software is good, but the results and price is a total waste of time and money.
not to mention dropping SEO rank in just a few days after implementing the software is another negative point.