Software Manual

WT-UM (A)

Winking Toad — The SEO Fixer

Operation

First Edition, September 2026, WT-UM (A)

All Rights Reserved, Copyright © 2026, Winking Toad.

The contents of this publication may be revised without prior notice.

PRECAUTIONS

Read this manual before creating an account, connecting a content-management system (CMS), or applying a fix to a live website.

• Keep this manual available for reference during setup and ongoing use.
• If you have a question this manual does not answer, use the contact form at winkingtoad.com.
• Winking Toad is not responsible for any loss resulting from use of the product in a manner not described in this manual, or from misuse of credentials, tokens, or applied fixes.
• Winking Toad is not responsible for the reliability of third-party plugins, themes, or integrations not provided by Winking Toad.
• Make it a habit to back up your website or export your platform's data before applying any fix. Live changes cannot always be reversed (see Chapter 4, "Fix History and Undo").

This manual identifies precautions at three severity levels, adapted from formal technical-documentation practice to the actual risks of using a hosted SaaS product — none of which involve physical injury. The levels below replace the traditional DANGER/WARNING/CAUTION/NOTICE hierarchy used for equipment manuals with one suited to software: irreversible or costly mistakes, avoidable but real mistakes, and best-practice notes.

Failure to observe a CAUTION or NOTICE in this manual can still lead to a poor outcome depending on how the product is used. Read every precaution in context, not only this summary.

Revision History

PREFACE

Thank you for using Winking Toad.

This manual explains how to operate Winking Toad: creating an account, running a crawl, reading and prioritizing issues, applying fixes, connecting a CMS, and using the research, reporting, and billing features.

Winking Toad does not guarantee search rankings. Search performance depends on many factors outside a technical audit, including content quality, competition, authority, user experience, and changes made by search engines.

For a quick, non-sequential lookup of what a single tab or setting does, see the companion reference at winkingtoad.com/docs instead of this manual.

Definitions of terms

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 — GENERAL INFORMATION ..................................................... 1-1   1.1 What Winking Toad Does   1.2 What You Need Before You Begin   1.3 Account Levels

CHAPTER 2 — GETTING STARTED ................................................................ 2-1   2.1 Creating and Verifying an Account   2.2 Running Your First Audit

CHAPTER 3 — THE MAIN SCREEN ................................................................ 3-1   3.1 Screen Layout and the Workspace Menu   3.2 Reading the Issues Tab   3.3 Using Fix Priorities

CHAPTER 4 — APPLYING FIXES .................................................................... 4-1   4.1 The Safe Workflow for Applying a Fix   4.2 Supported Direct-Fix Coverage   4.3 Fix History and Undo   4.4 Copy-Paste Fixes   4.5 AI-Generated Content   4.6 Shopify Redirects   4.7 IndexNow   4.8 Connecting a CMS

CHAPTER 5 — RESEARCH, REPORTING, AND PERFORMANCE TABS ..... 5-1   5.1 Crawl-Data Tabs   5.2 AI, GEO, and Compliance Tools   5.3 Growth Tools   5.4 Performance and Search Console

CHAPTER 6 — SAVED, SCHEDULED, AND COMPARED CRAWLS ........... 6-1   6.1 Saving and Loading a Crawl   6.2 Comparing Crawls   6.3 Scheduled Crawls

CHAPTER 7 — EXPORTING DATA .................................................................. 7-1

CHAPTER 8 — BILLING AND USAGE CREDITS ......................................... 8-1

CHAPTER 9 — MCP ACCESS .......................................................................... 9-1

CHAPTER 10 — CRAWLER SETTINGS ......................................................... 10-1

CHAPTER 11 — FREE SEO TOOLS ................................................................ 11-1

CHAPTER 12 — RECOMMENDED REMEDIATION SEQUENCE ............... 12-1

CHAPTER 13 — TROUBLESHOOTING .......................................................... 13-1

CHAPTER 14 — SECURITY AND RESPONSIBLE USE .............................. 14-1

CHAPTER 15 — GETTING HELP .................................................................... 15-1

APPENDIX A — QUICK-REFERENCE CHECKLIST ..................................... A-1

Note on figures: this manual is text-only and does not include embedded screenshots. For a visual walkthrough of the interface, sign in and use the in-app guide panel shown above each tab, or see winkingtoad.com/docs.

CHAPTER 1 — GENERAL INFORMATION

1.1 What Winking Toad Does

Winking Toad crawls a website, identifies technical and on-page SEO problems, explains why they matter, and helps you decide what to fix first. For supported CMS platforms, selected fixes can be reviewed and applied from Winking Toad directly. For other sites, it provides copy-paste instructions and suggested changes.

Winking Toad is organized around three steps:

1. Find it — crawl the site and identify problems.
2. Fix it — review recommendations, then apply or copy the appropriate fixes.
3. Check it — crawl again and compare the results.

NOTICE: Winking Toad does not guarantee search rankings. Search performance depends on many factors outside a technical audit.

1.2 What You Need Before You Begin

You need:

• a current web browser;
• an email address for account verification;
• the public URL of the website you want to audit; and
• permission to crawl and, if applicable, modify that website.

For direct fixes, you also need suitable credentials for your CMS.

WARNING: Do not connect a store or site that you do not own or have permission to manage.

Recommended preparation before applying changes to a live website:

• take a current platform backup or export;
• confirm that you can restore the site;
• begin with a small number of low-risk changes;
• review every proposed value before applying it; and
• use Fix History so changes can be inspected or undone where supported.

1.3 Account Levels

The interface may internally display the free tier as guest and the paid tier as user. These are system labels, not a judgment of the account.

NOTICE: Plans, prices, allowances, and feature availability can change. The Billing screen in the application is the authoritative source for your account.

CHAPTER 2 — GETTING STARTED

2.1 Creating and Verifying an Account

1. Open winkingtoad.com.
2. Select Start free or Register.
3. Enter a username, email address, and password.
4. Submit the registration form.
5. Open the verification email and follow its link.
6. Return to Winking Toad and log in.

If the verification email does not appear, check the spam or promotions folder. If account verification or password access cannot be resolved, use the contact form on the Winking Toad home page.

2.2 Running Your First Audit

Step 1 — Enter the starting URL. In URL to Crawl, enter a complete URL, including https://, for example https://example.com. Normally, use the website's home page.

Step 2 — Start the crawl. Select Start. Winking Toad begins discovering and analyzing pages. You may use Stop to stop the active crawl, and Clear to remove the current results from the working screen.

NOTICE: Clearing the screen is not the same as deleting a previously saved crawl.

Step 3 — Allow the crawl to finish. Small sites may finish quickly. Large sites, slow servers, and JavaScript-rendered pages take longer.

CAUTION: Do not start several copies of the same crawl in different tabs. A free account may run one crawl at a time; a paid account may run up to three concurrently — an additional attempt is refused, not queued.

Step 4 — Save the crawl. After results are available, open Workspace and select Save crawl. A saved crawl can later be loaded, compared, archived, or used for reporting.

CHAPTER 3 — THE MAIN SCREEN

3.1 Screen Layout and the Workspace Menu

The screen is divided into four main areas:

1. Header — account, Billing, and Workspace actions.
2. Crawl controls — URL input, Start, Stop, and Clear.
3. Primary navigation — Issues, research tools, crawl data, and performance reports.
4. Filters and statistics — narrow the displayed URLs by location, response code, and other properties.

Open Workspace to access:

• Dashboard — saved crawls and account-level crawl information;
• Schedules — recurring weekly or monthly crawls;
• Settings — crawler, integrations, and account configuration;
• Billing & plan — subscription information;
• Export data — download crawl data on an eligible paid account;
• Save crawl / Load crawl — preserve or reopen a crawl; and
• Free Tools — open the separate collection of quick SEO utilities.

3.2 Reading the Issues Tab

The Issues tab is the main working area after a crawl. It shows findings as individual occurrences and summarizes the number of distinct problem types, warnings, and affected URLs.

Severity levels:

• Error — a comparatively serious problem that should normally be investigated first.
• Warning — an important improvement or possible problem requiring review.
• Info — a lower-priority observation or optimization opportunity.

CAUTION: Severity is guidance, not an automatic instruction to change the site. Always consider the purpose of the affected page.

Useful controls:

• Select All Issues, Errors, Warnings, or Info to filter by severity.
• Use Ready-made filters for common investigations, such as broken internal links or indexable pages without descriptions.
• Select Group similar issues to combine repeated occurrences into a single issue type with its affected pages.
• Open an issue's evidence to see the data supporting the finding.
• Read the suggested fix before making a change.

NOTICE: One issue type can affect many pages. "Issue types" counts distinct categories, while "occurrences" or "affected URLs" counts the individual pages or assets involved. Both figures can be correct at the same time.

3.3 Using Fix Priorities

The Fix Priorities tab answers "where should I start?" It groups related findings and ranks them using technical severity and how widely they affect the crawled site. If Google Search Console is connected, search-performance context may also help distinguish problems on pages that receive real impressions or clicks.

CAUTION: The ranking does not measure every business factor. It does not know a page's conversion rate, the real effort a change requires, whether a page is strategically important, or whether an intentional design choice should remain unchanged. Use the list as a starting sequence, then apply your own judgment.

CHAPTER 4 — APPLYING FIXES

4.1 The Safe Workflow for Applying a Fix

Open Issues → Apply & history to see the available remediation tools.

For any direct website change:

1. Connect the correct CMS account in Settings.
2. Test the connection.
3. Open the applicable Review … Fixes tool.
4. Confirm that each row refers to the intended live page or product.
5. Compare the current and proposed values.
6. Edit the proposed value where necessary.
7. Select only the rows you approve.
8. Apply a small batch first.
9. Check the changed pages on the live website.
10. Re-crawl the site to verify the result.

WARNING: Do not use Select All until you have reviewed both the proposed values and a representative sample of the affected pages. Every connected-CMS fix writes to the live site immediately — there is no draft or preview step.

4.2 Supported Direct-Fix Coverage

NOTICE: Coverage is deliberately limited. Theme templates, arbitrary code changes, and every possible issue type are not automatically modified.

4.3 Fix History and Undo

Each supported CMS has a Fix History view. Use it to inspect applied changes and select Undo where that change type supports reversal.

CAUTION: Undo is a convenience, not a substitute for your own backup. It may fail if the connected CMS credentials have changed, the page or product was deleted, another person edited the same field afterward, or the platform no longer permits the original operation.

4.4 Copy-Paste Fixes

Use Copy-Paste Fixes when the site is not on a supported platform, or when a finding cannot be applied directly. Some entries contain ready-to-use HTML or text. Others are guidance only and require you to write a page-specific value.

NOTICE: A proposed fix that appears blank is not an error — Winking Toad deliberately avoids inventing certain page-specific values (materials, dimensions, claims) without enough information to state them accurately. Write an appropriate value manually, use a reviewed AI draft where one is available, or edit the page directly in the CMS.

4.5 AI-Generated Content

AI Rewrite and AI alt-text drafting produce proposals, not final facts. Check every draft for factual accuracy, product specifications and claims, spelling and brand voice, duplication or awkward phrasing, legal or regulated claims, and relevance to the actual image or page.

WARNING: Provider-backed drafts deduct usage credits per draft. Check the displayed price or confirmation before running a batch.

4.6 Shopify Redirects

Auto-Create Redirects proposes destinations only when a sufficiently confident match is available.

CAUTION: Check that the suggested destination has the same user intent before applying it. A technically valid redirect to an irrelevant page is still a poor user experience.

4.7 IndexNow

Submit to IndexNow notifies participating search engines that selected URLs have changed. The required key file must be reachable on the crawled domain. Submission requests re-crawling; it does not guarantee immediate crawling, indexing, or ranking.

4.8 Connecting a CMS

Open Workspace → Settings, then choose the relevant platform tab.

Shopify — enter the shop domain and either the Client ID and Client Secret for the installed app, or a supported Admin API access token. Use Test Connection, then save. Give the app only the permissions needed for the fixes you intend to use.

WordPress — enter the WordPress site URL, username, and an Application Password created in WordPress. Meta-description editing depends on the fields exposed by the site and supported SEO plugins such as Yoast or Rank Math.

Webflow — enter the Webflow Site ID and API token. Direct fixes currently target static Page SEO fields, not CMS Collection items.

BigCommerce — enter the Store Hash and a store-level API access token with the required product permissions.

Magento — enter the store URL and Integration access token. Coverage currently covers product meta-title and meta-description fields.

Credential safety:

• Use a dedicated app, token, or application password where possible.
• Grant the minimum necessary permissions.
• Revoke credentials that are no longer used.

WARNING: Never send a credential through ordinary email or paste it into a support message. Disconnect or replace credentials immediately if you suspect exposure.

CHAPTER 5 — RESEARCH, REPORTING, AND PERFORMANCE TABS

5.1 Crawl-Data Tabs

Overview — the broad crawl inventory: URL, status, content, and SEO fields.

Internal — URLs belonging to the crawled site: status codes, titles, descriptions, indexability, and other page properties.

External — discovered destinations outside the crawled site.

NOTICE: An external link appearing here is not automatically harmful; investigate failures, unexpected destinations, and suspicious domains.

Links — link relationships, useful for locating where a broken destination is linked from.

Response-code filters: 2xx (successful), 3xx (redirects), 4xx (client errors, including missing pages), 5xx (server errors).

5.2 AI, GEO, and Compliance Tools

AI Visibility — checks whether a brand or domain appears in an AI-generated answer for a supplied topic or query. Results are a snapshot; AI answers can vary by provider, prompt, location, and time. Provider-backed checks use credits, and work without any crawl having been run.

AI Citation Readiness — scores crawled pages for structural and content signals that may make them easier for AI systems to cite. This is a readiness assessment, not proof that a provider will cite the page.

GEO Report — combines relevant crawl and AI-oriented findings into one report. Treat recommendations as editorial and technical guidance, not guaranteed placement in AI answers.

Compliance Scanner — highlights detectable compliance-related page signals.

NOTICE: The Compliance Scanner is not legal advice and cannot establish that a business or website fully complies with a law or industry requirement.

5.3 Growth Tools

Internal Linker — suggests internal linking opportunities based on crawled content. Review whether the source and destination are genuinely relevant before adding a link.

Keyword Opportunities — extracts possible search topics from the crawl itself, at no cost.

Keyword Research — real keyword metrics for a selected country/language from an external provider. Works without a crawl; uses credits per lookup.

Domain Overview — an external-provider snapshot of estimated traffic and rankings for a domain, your own or a competitor's. Not a live crawl; the traffic values are estimates. Works without a crawl; uses credits.

Backlinks — a sample of known links to a domain from an external provider.

CAUTION: No backlink index sees every link. Judge links by context and relevance rather than treating one metric as proof of quality or spam. Works without a crawl; uses credits per lookup.

Log Analyzer — uploads and analyzes supported web-server logs.

WARNING: Server logs can contain IP addresses, URLs, and other operational data. Upload only data you are authorized to process, and minimize personal information where possible.

5.4 Performance and Search Console

PageSpeed — runs performance checks using Google's PageSpeed service. Results can vary between tests because of network, server, and laboratory conditions. Requires "Enable PageSpeed Analysis" turned on in Settings before the crawl runs.

Connecting Google Search Console:

1. Open Workspace → Settings → Search Console.
2. Select Connect Google Search Console.
3. Sign in to the Google account that has access to the desired property.
4. Approve the requested read-only permission.
5. Return to Winking Toad and choose the property that matches the site you crawl.
6. Save the setting.

NOTICE: Newly verified Search Console properties may take several days before useful data appears. Winking Toad only receives read-only access — it cannot edit the website through Search Console.

Search Performance — shows available Search Console metrics for relevant URLs and queries. Search Console numbers can be delayed, sampled, or privacy-filtered by Google.

CHAPTER 6 — SAVED, SCHEDULED, AND COMPARED CRAWLS

6.1 Saving and Loading a Crawl

Use Workspace → Save crawl after an important run. Use Load crawl or the Dashboard to restore a saved audit.

6.2 Comparing Crawls

Comparing two saved crawls helps identify new issues, resolved issues, status-code changes, and changes in the size or composition of the site.

NOTICE: Use comparable crawl settings and starting URLs for a meaningful comparison.

6.3 Scheduled Crawls

1. Open Workspace → Schedules.
2. Enter the website URL.
3. Choose Weekly or Monthly.
4. Create the schedule.
5. Enable or disable email summaries as required.

The website must remain publicly reachable when the scheduled job runs. A schedule can be paused, resumed, or deleted from the same screen.

CHAPTER 7 — EXPORTING DATA

NOTICE: Exports require an active paid subscription. The free tier can view every result on-screen but cannot take data out of the app.

Export all selected crawl data:

1. Open Workspace → Settings → Export.
2. Choose the default format.
3. Select the fields to include.
4. Save the settings.
5. Open Workspace → Export data.

Available formats: CSV, Excel (.xlsx), JSON, and XML.

Download only the issues — in the Issues tab, select Download Issues. The Excel report can include a summary sheet and an All Issues sheet; other formats provide the equivalent data in their native structure.

CAUTION: Spreadsheet applications may transform dates, long numbers, or URLs when opening CSV files. Use Excel format when preserving structured presentation matters.

CHAPTER 8 — BILLING AND USAGE CREDITS

Open Billing in the header or Workspace → Billing & plan.

The current subscription is ₹1,499/month, one plan, monthly only. CMS direct-apply fixes are included and unmetered with an active subscription. Actions that call a paid AI or external-data provider — AI Visibility checks, keyword research, domain overviews, backlink lookups, and selected AI content or alt-text drafts — draw from the account's included monthly usage-credit balance, granted automatically on each successful subscription payment.

WARNING: The account's displayed balance and the confirmation shown for an action are the authoritative figures. Do not run a large AI-drafting batch without checking its per-item cost.

If an external provider request fails partway through, the credit reserved for it is refunded automatically. If a charge appears without a usable result, contact support with the approximate time and feature name.

NOTICE: Subscription cancellation or expiry removes paid-only access, including exports and MCP, on the account's very next request — not only at the end of the billing period. Previously generated crawl data remains subject to the product's storage and retention rules.

CHAPTER 9 — MCP ACCESS

MCP access is for active paid accounts. It allows a compatible client, such as Claude Code or Cursor, to query Winking Toad crawl reports directly.

1. Open Workspace → Settings → MCP Access.
2. Generate an API key and give it a recognizable label.
3. Copy the displayed endpoint and configuration example into the compatible client.
4. Store the API key like a password.
5. Revoke the key from Winking Toad when it is no longer needed.

WARNING: An MCP key stops working immediately if the account's subscription lapses — checked on every request, not only when the key was created. Never put a key in a public repository, screenshot, or support ticket.

CHAPTER 10 — CRAWLER SETTINGS

Open Workspace → Settings to configure the crawler.

Crawler — crawl depth, limits, delays, and discovery behavior. Higher limits can substantially increase crawl time and load on both Winking Toad and the target site.

Requests — user agent, request timeout, proxy, and robots.txt behavior.

WARNING: Respect the target site's policies. Do not use these options to bypass access controls on a site you are not authorized to crawl in that way.

Filters — inclusion and exclusion patterns to avoid irrelevant sections such as account pages, faceted-navigation combinations, or file downloads.

CAUTION: Test new patterns carefully; an overly broad exclusion can hide important pages.

JavaScript — enable rendering when important content or links appear only after client-side scripts run.

NOTICE: Rendering is slower and more resource-intensive than ordinary HTTP crawling. Start without it unless the site requires it.

Issue Exclusion — suppresses known, intentional findings using scoped URL patterns. Ships with sensible defaults for WordPress admin paths.

NOTICE: Exclusion hides the matching finding; it does not repair the underlying page.

Advanced — settings reserved for the Winking Toad operator account, not part of any customer plan.

Reset to Defaults — restores standard settings. Review CMS connections and any site-specific filters afterward.

CHAPTER 11 — FREE SEO TOOLS

The public Free Tools area provides quick checks that do not require a full-site crawl: SEO Page Checker, Robots.txt and AI Bot Checker, Redirect Chain Checker, SERP Simulator, Domain Age Checker, Backlink Checker, Spam Score Checker, Broken Link Checker, and AI Visibility Checker.

These are useful for checking one page, one domain, or one specific question. Use the main application when you need a complete crawl, issue grouping, history, prioritization, or a remediation workflow.

NOTICE: Free tools may have daily or provider-imposed limits. A tool result is diagnostic evidence, not an automatic instruction to disavow a domain, alter robots.txt, or remove content.

CHAPTER 12 — RECOMMENDED REMEDIATION SEQUENCE

For most sites, this is a sensible order:

1. Confirm that important pages are crawlable and indexable.
2. Repair broken internal links and unintended server errors.
3. Correct redirect chains, loops, and obviously wrong canonical signals.
4. Fix missing or seriously defective titles and descriptions on important pages.
5. Improve site-wide template problems.
6. Improve internal linking to important buried pages.
7. Add useful image alt text where it serves accessibility and meaning.
8. Review duplicate or thin content.
9. Address performance and secondary enhancements.
10. Re-crawl, compare, and monitor.

CAUTION: Business importance should override a purely mechanical order. A small problem on the main revenue page may deserve attention before a widespread low-value observation.

CHAPTER 13 — TROUBLESHOOTING

The crawl will not start. Confirm the URL begins with http:// or https://; check that the site is publicly reachable; stop any crawl already running under the account; reduce restrictive include/exclude filters; check whether the account's page or concurrency limit has been reached.

The crawl finds fewer pages than expected. Confirm pages are linked from the starting area or listed in a discoverable sitemap; check robots.txt, nofollow links, and authentication barriers; inspect crawl-depth and URL-pattern settings; enable JavaScript rendering if links are produced only by scripts; check for canonicalization or redirect behavior leading to another host.

The crawl is slow. Disable JavaScript rendering unless necessary; lower the maximum URL count while testing; review request delays and timeouts; check whether the target site itself is slow or rate-limiting requests.

A CMS connection test fails. Verify the exact site/store identifier; re-enter the token, secret, or Application Password; check that the credential has the required permission scopes; confirm a firewall or security plugin is not blocking the API; generate a new credential if the previous one expired or was revoked.

A proposed fix is blank. See 4.4 — this is deliberate, not a defect.

Search Console shows no data. Confirm the correct property is selected; check that the Google account has access to that property; newly verified properties may need several days to collect data; a new or low-traffic site may have no reportable data yet.

Export is blocked. Exports require an active paid subscription — confirm the subscription under Billing. The account's plan status refreshes automatically within about a minute of a change; if it still looks wrong after that, reload the page before contacting support.

A credit-backed action fails. Read the displayed error before retrying; confirm the current balance; avoid repeatedly clicking the action while a request is processing; record the time, feature, and visible error if support is required.

Results changed between crawls. Websites and external services change continuously. Compare the same starting URL and similar settings — PageSpeed, backlinks, keyword data, and AI answers can vary independently of site edits.

CHAPTER 14 — SECURITY AND RESPONSIBLE USE

• Crawl only websites you are authorized to inspect.
• Do not use the service to evade access controls or overload another site.
• Treat CMS credentials, API tokens, and MCP keys as secrets.
• Review third-party and AI-generated recommendations before acting.
• Minimize personal or confidential data uploaded in logs or content.
• Keep independent backups before making live changes.
• Remove integrations that are no longer required.

CHAPTER 15 — GETTING HELP

Use the contact form on winkingtoad.com and include:

• your account email address;
• the affected feature;
• the approximate time of the problem;
• the starting URL, if it is not confidential;
• the exact error message; and
• a screenshot with passwords, tokens, and personal data removed.

WARNING: Never include a CMS secret, API token, Google authorization token, or MCP key in a support message.

APPENDIX A — QUICK-REFERENCE CHECKLIST

Audit

• [ ] Enter the canonical https:// URL.
• [ ] Review crawl settings and filters.
• [ ] Start and complete the crawl.
• [ ] Save the crawl.
• [ ] Review Errors, then Warnings and Info.
• [ ] Use Fix Priorities as a starting sequence.

Fix

• [ ] Back up the website or export platform data.
• [ ] Test the correct CMS connection.
• [ ] Review current and proposed values.
• [ ] Apply a small batch.
• [ ] Inspect the live pages.
• [ ] Use Fix History if reversal is necessary.

Verify

• [ ] Re-crawl using comparable settings.
• [ ] Compare with the earlier saved crawl.
• [ ] Confirm that the intended issue disappeared.
• [ ] Check that no new issue was introduced.
• [ ] Schedule ongoing monitoring if appropriate.