{keyword}/2019/wp-includes/wlwmanifest.xml May 2026

The wlwmanifest.xml file is a legitimate part of the WordPress core. Its purpose is to support , an older blog-publishing application from Microsoft.

If you are seeing this path in your site's analytics or a Google search (often with a date like /2019/ or a placeholder like {keyword} ), it is usually due to one of two things:

If you see {keyword} or strange dates in URLs that shouldn't exist, run a security scan using a plugin like Wordfence or Sucuri to ensure your site hasn't been compromised. If you are a Security Researcher/Student: {keyword}/2019/wp-includes/wlwmanifest.xml

It tells the Live Writer application how to communicate with your blog to upload posts and images. 2. Why is it in your search results?

This string is a classic "dork" (a search query used to find specific website architectures). Seeing this in logs is a great way to identify the early "reconnaissance" phase of an automated attack. The wlwmanifest

Automated bots crawl the web looking for this file. Because it is a "footprint" of a WordPress site, hackers use it to identify that your site runs on WordPress. They may then try to exploit known vulnerabilities associated with that specific version or year.

Most modern sites don't need Windows Live Writer. You can hide the link to this file from your site's (making it harder for bots to find) by adding this line to your theme's functions.php file: remove_action('wp_head', 'wlwmanifest_link'); Use code with caution. Copied to clipboard If you are a Security Researcher/Student: It tells

Since it's a core WordPress file, deleting it manually might cause errors or simply be replaced during the next update.