=== Yoast SEO ===
Contributors: yoast, joostdevalk, tacoverdo, omarreiss, atimmer, jipmoors
Donate link: https://yoa.st/1up
License: GPLv3
License URI: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
Tags: SEO, XML sitemap, Content analysis, Readability
Requires at least: 5.2
Tested up to: 5.3.2
Stable tag: 12.9.1
Requires PHP: 5.6.20

Improve your WordPress SEO: Write better content and have a fully optimized WordPress site using the Yoast SEO plugin.

== Description ==

### Yoast SEO: the #1 WordPress SEO plugin

Since 2008 Yoast SEO has helped millions of websites worldwide to rank higher in search engines. This WordPress SEO plugin helps you with your search engine optimization. Are you not entirely convinced? Yoast SEO is the favorite WordPress SEO plugin of millions of users worldwide!

As Yoast’s mission is **SEO for Everyone**, the plugin’s users range from the bakery around the corner to some of the most popular sites on the planet.

#### DON’T LET YOUR COMPETITORS WIN
Do you know who your competitors are in your niche? There’s a reason why they are your competitors: they do what you do. And they might even do it better right now. That does not mean you can't win from them, but it does mean you need all the help to get on top and stay on top! Yoast SEO is here to help you out as we’ve helped millions of people worldwide with their WordPress SEO efforts.

#### TAKING CARE OF YOUR WORDPRESS SEO
Yoast SEO does everything in its power to please both visitors and search engine spiders. A dedicated team of developers, testers, architects and SEO experts work daily to improve the plugin with every release. Yoast SEO offers:

* Title and meta description templating for better branding and consistent snippets in the search results.
* A state-of-the-art Schema implementation helps search engines make sense of your site and increases the chance on those coveted rich results.
* The most advanced XML Sitemaps functionality at the push of a button.
* Full control over your site's breadcrumbs.
* Automatically set canonical URLs to avoid duplicate content.
* **[Premium]** support for our [Yoast SEO Premium](https://yoa.st/1v8) users.
* **[Premium]** the ability to expand Yoast SEO with the [News SEO](https://yoa.st/1uv), [Video SEO](https://yoa.st/1uw), [Local SEO](https://yoa.st/1uu) and [WooCommerce SEO](https://yoa.st/3rh) extensions.

#### WRITE KILLER CONTENT WITH YOAST SEO
We know content is king, that's why Yoast SEO is famous for its readability analysis and its SEO analysis. Yoast SEO gives you:

* The SEO analysis: an invaluable tool to write SEO-friendly texts with the right (focus) keywords in mind.
* The readability analysis: make sure that you are writing easy-to-digest, engaging content for both visitors and search engines.
* Our snippet preview that shows you how your post or page will look in the search results. Even on mobile! 
* An **FAQ** and **HowTo** block for the WordPress editor so search engines know when you are serving a FAQ page or HowTo guides.
* **[Premium]** Social previews to show you how your content will be shown on Twitter and Facebook.
* **[Premium]** The Insights tool that shows you what your text focuses on. This way you can keep your article in line with your keyphrases.
* **[Premium]** The ability to optimize your article for synonyms and related keyphrases.
* **[Premium]** We now recognize different word forms of your keyphrase, like singular and plurals, but also different tenses of verbs (just in English for now). It helps you improve your text in a more natural way.
* **[Premium]** Automatic internal linking suggestions: write your article and automatically get suggested posts to link to! 

#### KEEP YOUR SITE IN PERFECT SHAPE

Whether you are a **business owner** or **blogger**, a **content creator**, a **developer** or an **SEO expert**: Yoast SEO helps you keep your website in perfect shape. Yoast SEO:

* Tunes the engine of your website so you can focus on creating great content.
* Gives you cornerstone content and internal linking features to help you rank for the right keywords with the right pages.
* Helps you manage your team's WordPress SEO efforts: with our SEO roles you can give colleagues access to specific sections of the Yoast SEO plugin.
* Has a bulk editor so you can make large-scale edits to the titles and meta descriptions of your website.
* Translates your content to structured data where possible to help search engines understand your website.
* **[Premium]** Gives you social previews to manage the way your page is shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
* **[Premium]** Has a full redirect manager to keep your site healthy by easily redirecting deleted pages and changed URLs.

### Premium support

The Yoast team aims to provide regular support for the Yoast SEO plugin on the WordPress.org forums. But please understand that we do prioritize our premium support. This one-on-one email support is available to people who [bought Yoast SEO Premium](https://yoa.st/1v8).

Did you know that the [Yoast SEO Premium](https://yoa.st/1v8) also has several extra features: 

* It gives you the option to have **synonyms and related keyphrases**.
* A **redirect manager** that f.i. helps you prevent 404 Page Not Found errors.
* **Internal linking** suggestions while you write.
* Write more natural with our automatic **recognition of word forms**
* **Cornerstone content checks** to point search engines to your main pages.

The [Yoast SEO Premium plugin](https://yoa.st/1v8) is well worth your investment!

#### Our addons to further improve your WordPress SEO
You should also check out these other products by Yoast:

* **[Yoast Local SEO](https://yoa.st/1uu)** to optimize all website that serve a local audience, like certain small businesses, or businesses with multiple locations.
* **[Yoast Video SEO](https://yoa.st/1uw)** to make sure Google understands what you video is about, thus increasing your chances to rank in video results.
* **[Yoast News SEO](https://yoa.st/1uv)** for websites that are in Google News and what to optimize all news articles for the best indexation and ranking.
* **[WooCommerce SEO](https://yoa.st/3rh)** for all online shops that want to perform better in search engines and on social platforms.

They work with the FREE version of Yoast SEO already, and these premium extensions of course come with support too.

Oh, and don't forget: our **[Yoast Academy](https://yoa.st/3ri)** is for all the business owners, bloggers and everyone else who wants to learn more about optimizing websites, improving their WordPress SEO and taking their online content to the next level.

### Bug reports

Bug reports for Yoast SEO are welcomed in our WordPress SEO [repository on GitHub](https://github.com/Yoast/wordpress-seo). Please note that GitHub is not a support forum, and that issues that aren’t properly qualified as bugs will be closed.

### Further Reading

For more info on search engine optimization and WordPress SEO in specific, check out the following:

* The [Yoast SEO Plugin](https://yoa.st/1v8) official homepage.
* The [Yoast SEO Knowledgebase](https://yoa.st/1va).
* [WordPress SEO - The definitive Guide by Yoast](https://yoa.st/1v6).
* Other [WordPress Plugins](https://yoa.st/1v9) by the same team.
* Follow Yoast on [Facebook](https://facebook.com/yoast), [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/yoast/) & [Twitter](https://twitter.com/yoast).

== Installation ==
Starting with Yoast SEO consists of just two steps: installing and setting up the plugin. Yoast SEO is designed to work with your site’s specific needs, so don’t forget to go through the Yoast SEO configuration wizard as explained in the ‘after activation’ step!

### INSTALL YOAST SEO FROM WITHIN WORDPRESS

1. Visit the plugins page within your dashboard and select ‘Add New’;
1. Search for ‘Yoast SEO’;
1. Activate Yoast SEO from your Plugins page;
1. Go to ‘after activation’ below.

### INSTALL YOAST SEO MANUALLY

1. Upload the ‘wordpress-seo’ folder to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory;
1. Activate the Yoast SEO plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress;
1. Go to ‘after activation’ below.

### AFTER ACTIVATION

1. You should see (a notice to start) the Yoast SEO configuration wizard;
1. Go through the configuration wizard and set up the plugin for your site;
1. You’re done!

== Frequently Asked Questions ==

= How do the XML Sitemaps in the Yoast SEO plugin work? =

Having an XML sitemap can be beneficial for SEO, as Google can retrieve essential pages of a website very fast, even if the internal linking of a site isn’t flawless.
The sitemap index and individual sitemaps are updated automatically as you add or remove content and will include the post types you want search engines to index. Post Types marked as noindex will not appear in the sitemap. [Learn more about XML Sitemaps](https://yoa.st/3qt).

= How can I add my website to Google Search Console? =

It is straightforward to add your website to Google Search Console. 
1. Create a Google Search Console account and login into your account.
1. Click ‘Add a property’ under the search drop-down.
1. Enter your website URL in the box and click ‘Continue’.
1. Click the arrow next to ‘HTML tag’ to expand the option.
1. Copy the meta tag.
1. Log in to your WordPress website.
1. Click on ‘SEO’ in the dashboard.
1. Click on ‘General’.
1. Click on the ‘Webmaster Tools’ tab.
1. Paste the code in the Google field and click ‘Save Changes’.
1. Go back to Google Search Console and click ‘Verify’.

If you want more details steps, please visit [our article on our knowledge base](https://yoa.st/3qu).

= How do I implement Yoast SEO breadcrumbs? =

The steps below are a temporary solution as manual edits made to theme files may be overwritten with future theme updates. Please contact the theme developer for a permanent solution. We’ve written an article about the [importance of breadcrumbs for SEO](https://yoa.st/3qv). 

To implement the [breadcrumbs]https://yoa.st/3qw) function in Yoast SEO, you will have to edit your theme. We recommend that prior to any editing of the theme files, a backup is taken. Your host provider can help you take a backup.
Copy the following code into your theme where you want the breadcrumbs to be. If you are not sure, you will need to experiment with placement:

```
<?php
*if* ( function_exists(‘yoast_breadcrumb’) ) {
  yoast_breadcrumb( ‘<p id=“breadcrumbs”>’,’</p>’ );
}
?>
```

Common places where you could place your breadcrumbs are inside your `single.php` and/or `page.php` file just above the page’s title. Another option that makes it really easy in some themes is by just pasting the code in `header.php`at the very end.

In most non-WooTheme themes, this code snippet should not be added to your `functions.php` file. 
Alternatively, you can manually add the breadcrumb shortcode to individual posts or pages: `[wpseo_breadcrumb]`

If you need more details or a step by step guide, read our [Implementation guide for Yoast SEO breadcrumbs](https://yoa.st/3qx).

= How do I noindex URLS? =

Yoast SEO provides multiple options for setting a URL or group of URLs to noindex. [Read more about how to do this in this guide](https://yoa.st/3qy/).

= Google shows the wrong description, how do I fix this? =

If you’ve crafted nice meta descriptions for your blog posts, nothing is more annoying than Google showing another description for your site completely in the search result snippet. 

Possible causes could be:
1. wrong description in code
2. Google cache is outdated
3. Search term manipulation
4. Google ignored the meta description

You can [read more here on how to solve the issue with the wrong description](https://yoa.st/3qz).

= How often is Yoast SEO updated? =

Yoast SEO is updated every two weeks. If you want to know why, please read [this post on why we release every two weeks](https://yoa.st/3q-)!

= How do I get support? =

As our free plugin is used by millions of people worldwide, we cannot offer you all one on one support. If you have trouble with the Yoast SEO for WordPress plugin, you can get help on the support forums here at [wordpress.org](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordpress-seo/) or by checking out or knowledge base at [kb.yoast.com](https://yoa.st/3r1). 

The plugins you buy at Yoast are called ‘premium plugins’ (even if Premium isn’t in its name) and include a complete year of free updates and premium support. This means you can contact our support team if you have any questions about that plugin.

[Read more on how to get support](https://yoa.st/3r2)

= I have a different question than listed here =

Your question has most likely been answered on our knowledge base: [kb.yoast.com](https://yoa.st/1va).

== Screenshots ==

1. The Yoast SEO plugin general meta box. You'll see this on edit post pages, for posts, pages and custom post types.
2. Example of the SEO analysis functionality.
3. Example of the readability analysis functionality.
4. Overview of site-wide SEO problems and possible improvements.
5. Control over which features you want to use.
6. Easily import SEO data from other SEO plugins like All In One SEO pack, HeadSpace2 SEO and wpSEO.de.

== Changelog ==

= 12.9.1 =
Release Date: January 21st, 2020

Bugfixes:

* Fixes a bug where a notification would be shown that Gutenberg was outdated when the latest version of Gutenberg was already installed.

= 12.9 =
Release Date: January 21st, 2020

Today, we’re releasing Yoast SEO 12.9. In this release, you’ll find a number of bug fixes and enhancements. Among other things, you’ll find a renamed snippet preview with clearer settings. Find out what else is new in [our 12.9 release post](https://yoa.st/release-12-9)!

Other:

* Renames the 'Snippet preview' to 'Google preview'.
* Replaces the Google preview mode switcher toggle with radio buttons.

= 12.8.1 =
Release Date: January 15th, 2020

Bugfixes:

* Fixes a bug where the Yoast SEO metabox would not be shown on custom post types and taxonomies when the settings of our plugin were never saved before.
* Fixes a bug where the default titles for custom post types and taxonomies were not shown in the Search Appearance settings when the settings of our plugin were never saved before.

= 12.8 =
Release Date: January 7th, 2020

Welcome to another year of helping you achieve your goals with your site! Today, it’s time for the first in a long line of releases planned for 2020: Yoast SEO 12.8. In this release, you’ll find a number of bug fixes and performance enhancements. Find out more about this release in [our 12.8 release post](https://yoa.st/release-12-8)!

Bugfixes:

* Fixes a bug where clicking the notification center buttons would result in an incorrect icon and a misplaced focus style for the dismiss and restore buttons.
* Fixes a bug where `create` and `update` actions would be done twice on multisite environments in combination with MultilingualPress.
* Fixes a bug where an empty page title would cause the breadcrumbs schema to set a wrong url.
* Fixes a bug where author archives for authors without post would show up in the search results, even though the "Show archives for authors without posts in search results?" option was enabled.
* Fixes a bug where the styling was missing from admin error notices in WordPress 5.3.
* Fixes a bug where the results of the images alt attribute SEO assessment in the Classic Editor were incorrect when the image did not have an alt attribute but did have a title attribute.

Enhancements:

* Optimizes the options retrieval processes. Props to [Alex Bouma](https://alex.bouma.dev/) for his testing and suggestions.
* Adds the possibility to declare an identifier when integrating with the Schema output.

Other:

* Fixes the documentation in the Schema HowTo file. Props to [timvaniersel](https://github.com/timvaniersel).
* Fixes the documentation in the Breadcrumbs file. Props to [alfiosalanitri](https://github.com/alfiosalanitri).
* Moves the paginated comments notice from the dashboard to WordPress' Site Health screen.

= Earlier versions =
For the changelog of earlier versions, please refer to [the changelog on yoast.com](https://yoa.st/yoast-seo-changelog).
