This guide applies to Free 1.1.0. See the installation and legacy upgrade guide.
Before publishing a country rule, check both the allowed and blocked experience. The current WPLocation Free plugin returns a WordPress 404 response for a blocked singular page or post.
Blocked page or post
When a visitor’s detected country does not satisfy an active rule, the page or post is treated as unavailable and returns a 404. The appearance of that response is controlled by your active WordPress theme’s 404 template. Test the URL after saving a rule and purging caches.
Unknown visitor country
If the local country database is missing, unreadable, or cannot identify the visitor IP, WPLocation treats the country as unknown. Content with an active country rule is hidden. Shortcode and visibility-block content is also hidden in that case. Open WPLocation → Diagnostics to check the database and detected country.
Custom forbid-message setting
An older WPLocation guide referred to a “Forbid Message” setting. That setting is not present in the current Free settings screen. To improve the message on a blocked singular URL, edit your theme’s general 404 presentation; this affects other missing URLs too. Do not present the absence of a message as proof that a visitor was allowed.
Cache and security checks
Shared page or CDN caches may serve the wrong variant unless configured for location-aware behavior. Purge and test them after any rule change. IP geolocation can be inaccurate and is not a security boundary for private files or confidential information.
Contact WPLocation with your software versions and the result you expected. Keep keys and customer data private.