Publish a Privacy Policy linked from every page in 5 steps and about 10 minutes

Publish a Privacy Policy, linked from the footer of every page of your WordPress website, in 5 steps and about 10 minutes. You install TermsFeed AutoTerms, fill in your website and company details, answer the Privacy Policy questionnaire, publish the page, and check the footer legal link as a visitor sees it.

Have these ready before you start.

  • An Administrator account on your WordPress website, which runs WordPress 5.0 or later on PHP 7.0 or later.
  • The legal name and address of the business that runs the site. A site that no registered business runs needs neither.
  • The country and state where the business is based.
  • A contact method for privacy questions, such as an email address or a contact page.

Step 1: Install and activate the plugin

Install the plugin from the WordPress plugin directory in your admin.

  1. Open Plugins > Add New Plugin in your WordPress admin.
  2. Search for "TermsFeed AutoTerms".
  3. Click the "Install Now" button, then the "Activate" button.

WordPress then shows a TermsFeed item in the admin menu. The plugin stores its default settings on the first admin screen you open after activation, which is the Plugins screen WordPress shows next. Install from a ZIP file or with WP-CLI, and check the requirements, with Install the TermsFeed AutoTerms Plugin on WordPress.

Step 2: Fill in the website and company details in General Settings

Open TermsFeed > Settings and fill in the 6 fields of the General tab that describe your WordPress website and your business. The questionnaire starts from these values.

Fill in the fields in this order.

  1. Check the "Website name" and "Website URL" values the plugin copied from the WordPress settings.
  2. Replace the Site Title that the plugin puts in "Company name" with the legal name of the business. Clear the field for a site that no registered business runs.
  3. Replace the Site Title in "Company address" with the full postal address, or clear it for a site that no registered business runs.
  4. Choose the "Country" of the business, and the "State" where the State field appears.
  5. Click the "Save Changes" button.

With "Company name" and "Company address" cleared, the questionnaire starts with "I'm an individual" selected. Read what each field changes in WordPress Legal Page Settings.

Step 3: Answer the Privacy Policy questionnaire and click "Create"

Start the Privacy Policy questionnaire from the Add Legal Page screen, and check the prefilled business details rather than retyping them.

  1. Open TermsFeed > Add Legal Page.
  2. Click the "Create" button in the Privacy Policy box.
  3. Answer the questions, tick each contact method you offer and fill in its detail, and click the "Create" button at the end of the form.

Between the business questions and the contact methods, the Privacy Policy questions ask what personal information you collect and whether your WordPress website uses analytics tools such as Google Analytics. Then the questionnaire offers wording for the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA). Only ticked and filled contact methods appear on the page. Look up every question and what each answer adds in Privacy Policy Questionnaire Answers.

The plugin writes the page once, in English, and does not keep a copy of your answers. Follow the full walkthrough of the questionnaire with Create a Privacy Policy in WordPress.

Step 4: Review the Privacy Policy draft and publish it

The plugin opens the new page in the classic editor as a draft, and the page stays hidden from visitors until you publish it. The page starts with a "Last updated" line, and your WordPress theme prints the title above it.

  1. Read the generated Privacy Policy in the editor.
  2. Check the company details, the analytics tools, and the contact section, and correct anything that does not match your WordPress website.
  3. Click the "Publish" button.

With the prefilled answers kept, the website name and the website URL print through shortcodes, like the "Last updated" date. The name and the URL follow later changes in Settings, and the date follows later saves. Learn how to change the rest of the text later in Edit and Publish WordPress Legal Pages.

Close every private window and open your WordPress website in a new one, which shows the page as a logged-out visitor sees it. Scroll to the bottom of any page and find the "Privacy Policy" link. The Links to Legal Pages kit is on after install, so every published legal page appears in the footer of every page without a setting to change.

Confirm the link and its markup.

  1. Click the link and confirm that the Privacy Policy opens at /termsfeed/privacy-policy/ on a site with pretty permalinks.
  2. Open Chrome DevTools, select the Elements tab, press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac), and search for class="wpautoterms-footer" to find the <div> that holds the link.

The link is missing when a cache serves pages stored before you published. Add ?nocache=1 to the address and reload: a link that appears then shows that the page cache is the cause. A cache or content delivery network (CDN) that ignores query strings serves the stored page at the ?nocache=1 address too. Clear the page cache of your caching plugin, and of your CDN, then reload the page. Style or reorder the footer legal links with Add Legal Links to the WordPress Footer.

What to set up after you publish your first Privacy Policy

Menus and widgets show the Privacy Policy only once you add it there. Add the Privacy Policy to a menu or a widget with Add Legal Pages to WordPress Menus.

Create a Terms and Conditions page or a Cookies Policy the same way, from TermsFeed > Add Legal Page. Add a consent banner and add Google Analytics as a vendor script, which waits for consent under the default GDPR preference, with Add a Cookie Banner to WordPress.