How to change the title separator in Yoast SEO

How to change the title separator in Yoast SEO

In this article, we will explain where and how you can change the title separator symbol in Yoast SEO. This separator symbol will show up automatically wherever you have used the snippet variable %%sep%%. Log in to your WordPress website. When you’re logged in, you will be in your ‘Dashboard’. Click on ‘SEO’. On the left side of your screen, you will see your admin menu. Click on the ‘SEO’ tab in that menu. Click on ‘Search Appearance’. The ‘SEO’ settings will now expand providing additional options. Click on the ‘Search Appearance’ tab. Click on the ‘General’ tab. You are now in the Search Appearance settings of Yoast SEO. You will see several tabs at the top. Click on the first tab, which is called ‘General’. Select the separator symbol you prefer below the ‘Title Separator’. Click the symbol you would like to use. The symbols are all shown in the size they’ll appear in the search results. Click ‘Save changes’. Don’t forget to save your changes.

Why can’t I choose my own separator?

While we have considered adding an input field to have you choose your own separator, we’ve decided against this. We’ve tested a fair few separators, including ones that used to be popular like ~, ♥ and ✓and we’ve found that Google doesn’t show these in the search results anymore. The set we’re letting you choose from has been tested and works in the search results at this point.

If you truly want to add your own separator, you can use the wpseo_separator_options filter, which receives an array to which you can simply add your own option.

Does [Plugin XYZ] Work With WPML?

Does [Plugin XYZ] Work With WPML?

We work closely with The WordPress Multilingual Plugin team to ensure our plugins are compatible.

TIP: Check out this guide on Using Yoast SEO with WPML.

How to edit .htaccess through Yoast SEO?

How to edit .htaccess through Yoast SEO?

Table of Contents

Using WordPress Admin
Using Server / FTP
Troubleshooting

Edit In WordPress Dashboard

If the .htaccess file is not writable or your WordPress install has disabled file editing, the following steps may fail. Optionally, you can edit at the server level.

Log in to your WordPress website. When you’re logged in, you will be in your ‘Dashboard’. Click on ‘SEO’. On the left-hand side, you will see a menu. In that menu, click on ‘SEO’. Click on ‘Tools’.  The ‘SEO’ settings will expand providing you additional options. Click on ‘Tools’. Click on ‘File Editor’. This menu will not appear if your WordPress install has disabled file editing. Please enable file editing or edit the file through FTP. Make the changes to your file. Save your changes.

Create or Edit On Your Server

Use your favorite text editor and create a text file.Save the empty file with the name .htaccess.Upload the file to your server root.

Now you should be able to edit the newly created file from our plugin using the steps above. If not, you can always edit the .htaccess file directly on your server using FTP or a server file manager.

Please contact your webhost for assistance if you have trouble uploading or editing files on your server.

Troubleshooting

If the issue you experience is not listed below, please see your support options.

Why do I see the error “.htaccess file is not writable”? Your server permissions prevent writing to the file. Please contact your webhost to change the permissions on the .htaccess file. Why is the ‘File Editor’ menu missing? Your WordPress install has disabled file editing. Please enable file editing or edit the file on the server.

How to remove the categories prefix

How to remove the categories prefix

Every time you create a category in WordPress, you create an archive page for that category. By default, WordPress adds a category base of /category/ to the URLs of all category archive pages.

Example URL with the /category/ prefix. 

Categories help you structure your site. But, to create an ultimate site structure, you need a sustainable strategy. Yoast SEO Premium can help you there! It comes with an internal linking feature, as well as content filters. With those tools, you can keep your content structured, findable, and up-to-date.

Example URL with the /category/ prefix removed. 

Read: The perfect WordPress SEO permalink structure and learn how to optimize your permalinks.

How to remove the category prefix with Yoast SEO

In Yoast SEO you can remove the category prefix from the category archive URL.Note: This feature can cause unexpected URL behavior and is not recommended in most cases. Log in to your WordPress website. When you’re logged in, you will be in your ‘Dashboard’. Click on ‘SEO’. On the left-hand side, you will see a menu. In that menu, click on ‘SEO’. Click on ‘Search Appearance’. The ‘SEO’ settings will expand providing you additional options. Click on ‘Search Appearance’. Click on the ‘Taxonomies’ tab. Toggle the ‘Category URLs’ switch. To include the category prefix, toggle the switch to ‘Keep’.To exclude the category prefix, toggle the switch to ‘Remove’. Save your changes.

How to remove Yoast SEO from the admin bar

How to remove Yoast SEO from the admin bar

The Yoast SEO admin bar menu contains useful links to third-party tools for analyzing pages and makes it easy to see if you have new notifications. After receiving feedback from multiple users who wanted to disable this feature, Yoast SEO 3.6 added a toggle switch to enable or disable this feature. Log in to your WordPress website. When you’re logged in, you will be in your ‘Dashboard’. Click on ‘SEO’. On the left-hand side, you will see a menu. In that menu, click on ‘SEO’. Click on ‘General’. The ‘SEO’ settings will expand providing you additional options. Click on ‘General’. Click on the ‘Features’ tab.  Toggle the ‘Admin bar menu’ switch. To show the admin bar menu, toggle the switch to ‘On’.To hide the admin bar menu, toggle the switch to ‘Off’. Click ‘Save Changes’.

I didn’t change the content, yet my SEO score changed

I didn’t change the content, yet my SEO score changed

In Yoast SEO 10.0 we recalibrated the SEO analysis. This changed several assessments which may now give a slightly different SEO score for the same content. You can read all about the recalibrated analysis here: https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-10-0/.

Keep in mind that the SEO score will only be recalculated when the post or page is updated, with or without changing anything.

Want to get the most out of Yoast SEO and the features our new releases offer?

Get Yoast SEO Premium »Only $89 USD / per year (ex VAT)

Yoast SEO Premium also comes with a multiple keyword functionality and premium support so be sure to check out all features of Yoast SEO Premium.

I don’t see the internal link count columns

I don’t see the internal link count columns

To make sure all the links in your texts are counted, we need to analyze all your texts and check for internal links. This check is automatically ran every time you edit a post or page. Instead of having to manually open every post or page, we offer an option to bulk check all content that has not been checked. This is helpful when you first install the plugin or if you’ve made bulk changes like importing content.

Bulk Analyze Internal LinksSupported LanguagesError: The Yoast Link Statistics Feature Is Currently Disabled

NOTE: If you are on a multisite you will need to go to each subsite and follow the steps below for each one to count the internal links.

How To Bulk Analyze Your Content For Internal Links In Yoast SEO

Log in to your WordPress website. When you’re logged in, you will be in your ‘Dashboard’. Click on ‘SEO’. On the left-hand side, you will see a menu. In that menu, click on ‘SEO’. Click on ‘Tools’. The ‘SEO’ settings will expand providing you with additional options. Click on ‘Tools’. Click on the “Start SEO data optimization” button

Supported Languages

You may not see the internal count or the button to analyze the text because you are using a language that is not supported by this feature. This guide explains more about which languages are supported with which features: Features Per Language.

Error: The Yoast Link Statistics Feature Is Currently Disabled

In order for the feature to work correctly, it needs to create two database tables. Some may see an error message: Error: The Yoast Link Statistics feature is currently disabled in the SEO-Tools section while others may not see the button to click on.

We suggest contacting your host provider and verifying that the two tables exist. This guide explains more: The Yoast Link Statistics Feature Is Currently Disabled.

I don’t see the Yoast internal linking meta box

I don’t see the Yoast internal linking meta box

Requirements

REST API Required
Languages
Custom Post Types

Problems?

Blinking Yoast Logo
Analyze Content Button Remains
Wrong Internal Links
Site-wide Analyze Content Fails

REST API Required

The Yoast internal linking meta box was introduced in Yoast SEO for WordPress Premium 4.0 and requires WordPress 4.7 or higher which includes native support for the REST API. You can check your current WordPress version by clicking on the WordPress logo in the top-left corner of your WordPress installation.

Language

The link suggestions in the internal linking meta box are available for all languages.

Custom post types

Custom Post Types created by both plugins and themes are expected to be supported. After a short period of time, the link suggestions meta box is expected to show up when content is added. If the internal linking box fails to show up please contact support through the appropriate channel here.

How to noindex individual author pages

How to noindex individual author pages

You can let search engines know you want to keep your individual author pages out of the search results. To do this, you can ‘noindex’ your individual author pages in the WordPress settings. Let’s explore how to go about this.

If you don’t want author archive pages on your site at all, you can also choose to disable the author archive pages on your site.

Related articles

How do I noindex URLs?Why noindex a page or nofollow a link?How to keep your page out of the search resultsHow to noindex an entire site

To noindex individual author pages, follow these steps: Log in to your WordPress website. When you’re logged in, you will be in your ‘Dashboard’. Click on ‘Users’. On the left-hand site, you will see a menu. In that menu, click on ‘Users’. Go to ‘All Users’ Select the right user to edit in the Users overview. On the profile editing page, check ‘Do not allow search engines to show this author’s archives in search results’ in the Yoast SEO settings. Once you get on the profile editing page, scroll down and find the Yoast SEO settings. There, you check the box for ‘Do not allow search engines to show this author’s archives in search results.’ This will tell Google not to index that author page.

How to select a primary category

How to select a primary category

To help visitors find their way on your site, you can use breadcrumbs. They are the clickable links you usually see on the top of the page. They can easily be implemented using the Yoast SEO breadcrumbs block. Now, why are they important for the primary category?

Depending on the structure of your site, some of your posts may belong to several categories. So what happens to the breadcrumbs if you have a post that belongs to three categories? It can get messy. But we have a solution. In Yoast SEO, you can select a primary category. In that way, we make sure that your permalinks and breadcrumbs remain clean, which is good for SEO.

An impeccable site structure makes your content easy to find. Yoast SEO Premium contains several features that help you structure your site. By giving your website a structure boost, you get benefits for your SEO, your visitors, and search engines!

You need to implement breadcrumbs to your site for them to work. After you have implemented them, you can also edit the breadcrumbs pathway to include the primary category.

How to select a primary category

With Yoast SEO, you can easily select the primary category when you are editing a post.  Go to the Categories setting in the sidebar of the post editing screen. Click on the dropdown menu under Select the primary category. The menu expands. Select the primary category from the menu.

How to disable the primary category feature from Yoast SEO 

In some cases, you might want to disable the primary category feature. We have added a filter and written a short guide on how to use it.