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How can I get support?

Need help with one of the Yoast SEO products? There are multiple ways of getting support, depending on whether you』re a free or Premium user. In this article, we』ll walk you through the options.

ES: Si el español es tu idioma preferido, tenemos buenas noticias para ti: ¡nuestro equipo de soporte ahora está listo para ayudarte en español!

EN: If Spanish is your preferred language, we have great news for you: our Support team is now ready to help you out in Spanish! If you prefer English, you』re still very wellcome to send us your questions in English.

Table of contentsFree support forumsHelp centerPremium personal supportPreferred ways of contacting our Premium support team:EmailBeacon in MyYoastBeacon in Yoast SEOPremium personal support exceptionsTroubleshooting Premium support

Free support forums

All our free plugins have their own support forums at WordPress.org. These forums are looked after by very enthusiastic and knowledgeable users of that plugin. How do you find the free support forum you need? Open the WordPress plugin repository and log into your account. Search for the specific Yoast plugin you are using. Click on the plugin to view the details page. Click on 『Support』 In the 『Search this forum』, type a keyword or two about the issue you』re experiencing. Read topics that are similar to your issue to see if the topic has been resolved previously. If your issue remains after reading past topics, please create a new topic by repeating steps 1-4, scroll to the bottom and fill out the new topic form.

For quick access, you can find the free support forums here:

Yoast SEOClicky by YoastAll Free Yoast Plugins

For quicker responses, please include as much detail as possible including but not limited to a link to the site in question, a description of the issue, the expected outcome, any errors you received, steps to recreate the issue, and, if possible, screenshots.

Help center

The Yoast help center is the place where you can find plenty of explanatory articles and guides. It is a help center that is maintained on a daily basis, to help you solve the most common questions.

You can search the help center by using the search field in the top-right.

Premium personal support

The Yoast plugins you buy 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 send us an email or use the beacon at any time with questions about the setup and basic use of your purchased plugin. There are a few exceptions listed below.

Get Yoast SEO PremiumIf you want to get personal support right away, simply purchase our premium plugin via the link below:Yes, I』d like to purchase the Yoast SEO Premium plugin and get personal support!

Great customer service from @yoast. Fully recommend. #seo #yoast— Edward Beaman (@esjbeaman) March 19, 2020

Preferred ways of contacting our Premium support team:

1. Email2. Beacon in My Yoast3. Beacon in Yoast SEO4. Troubleshooting Premium Support

Email

You can send us an email by replying back to the purchase receipt email you may have received. If you did not receive it, you can send us an email: [email protected]

Beacon in MyYoast

We offer a Help Beacon in your MyYoast account. Clicking the Beacon (a purple help button) in the bottom-right of a page opens a search to quickly find if we already have an answer to the question you have.

If you don』t see any solution to your questions, you can use the 『Ask』 button at the top of the help beacon to securely send your question to our support team. Please, know that the 『Ask』 button only appears after you searched for the answer yourself.

If you did not make a My Yoast account please use this guide: MyYoast quickstart guide.

Beacon in Yoast SEO

Using the 『Help Beacon』 of every plugin settings page inside your WordPress dashboard.

1. Go to any page within the Yoast plugin settings and see the questionmark button at the bottom right corner.

2. Click on it and you will get the option to search for answers to your questions. If, after searching, you did not find the answer you are looking for you can use the 『Ask』 button

3. Clicking the 『Ask』 button will show a form that you can use to securely send your question to our support team.

Premium personal support exceptions

Please note that Premium personal support does not mean we』ll set up your plugin for you, but it does mean that we』ll help you with all your questions about the setup and basic use of the plugin you purchased.

If you have an addition to the Yoast SEO plugin, for instance, the Local SEO plugin, we will not support the Yoast SEO plugin itself unless it』s necessary for the Local SEO plugin to work. To get support on the Yoast SEO plugin itself, you』d need the Premium version of Yoast SEO.

Troubleshooting Premium support

If the Need Help option is not showing, please ensure all plugins and themes are updated and look for Javascript errors.

Can I change my recurring payment details?

At the moment, it』s not possible to change your recurring payment details. The only way to change your credit card or PayPal account at the moment is by renewing your subscription early within MyYoast. Please know that when you renew your subscription before it ends, it will just extend your current subscription expiration date.

Error: We』re unable to save the file .redirects

The Yoast SEO Premium plugin is not allowed to write to the custom redirect file located at /wp-content/uploads/wpseo-redirects/.redirects

Please make sure that the path and file are writeable by checking it over FTP. If the .redirects file is only writeable to the owner and you still get that error, you might need to change permissions on the file.

If you don』t know how to change permissions, please contact your web host for assistance.

I』ve translated strings, but the plugin is still in English!

When you』ve translated strings on translationspress.com, they first need to be validated by any validator for your language.  

So please have some patience. Once validated, it will be pushed as a translation update to your WordPress site configured in that language.

Please noteIf your language is at 50% or less, it will not yet be included in the plugin.

Sites Manager in MyYoast

If you need to download and install the plugin please refer to our MyYoast QuickStart Guide.

Add site and Connect Subscription
Change site URL
Remove site
Switching Between Sites

Yoast SEO and Yoast SEO Premium contain different code and thus upgrading from the free plugin requires installing Yoast SEO Premium as an addon to the free version. Our installation guide will walk you through the upgrade process.

Add a Site in MyYoast and Connect Subscription

Log in to MyYoast. If you already placed an order, you use the email address used during checkout (you might need to reset your password first). Click on 『ADD SITE』. Fill out the URL of your site like the example shows, select the platform your website is running on, and click 『Add』. If you are unsure which URL should be added, you can check by going to your sites』 backend and checking the Site Address (URL) in Settings -> General.  Your site will be added in your overview. You click the arrow at the end (or the manage button at the end) to manage your site. You can toggle plugins on or off as shown below. Your settings are saved automatically. If you bought the Plugin subscription, which includes all Premium plugins, you only have to enable the 「Plugin subscription」 toggle to activate all your Yoast Premium plugins at once. 

Switching Between Sites

If you only have 1 subscription and want to use it on different sites such as a staging, development or a production site you will need to purchase enough copies of Yoast to cover all the sites OR you can switch among them using this guide: Single Site Subscriptions: Switching From Development Server To Live Server

Change the site』s URL in MyYoast

If you are adding or removing the www from your site URL, you do not need to change the URL in MyYoast.

If you are switching from http to https or vice versa, you do not need to change the URL in MyYoast.

For all other URL modifications, please remove the outdated site, add the new site and re-enable the product subscriptions.

Remove a site in MyYoast

Log in to MyYoast. If you already placed an order, you must use the email address used during checkout (you might need to reset your password first).Your site will be listed in the overview. You click the arrow at the end (or the manage button at the end) to manage your site.To disconnect a specific plugin, you can toggle the plugin to off as shown below. Your settings are saved automatically.If you want to disconnect all plugins and remove the site from the overview, you can scroll further down and click on the Disconnect this site. It will unfold and you can confirm you want to disconnect your site by clicking the red DISCONNECT button.

5. If you want to then add a new site and connect the subscription please use this guide here: Add New Site and Connect Subscription.

How to install Yoast SEO Premium

Thank you for purchasing Yoast SEO Premium! In this article, we』ll explain how to install the Yoast SEO Premium plugin. If you want to install the free Yoast SEO plugin, please check out our installation guide for the free Yoast SEO plugin.

You can install Yoast SEO Premium in two ways:

automatically, after you purchase the plugin; manually, via MyYoast.

Let』s take a look at each of these installation flows step by step.

Table of contentsHow to automatically install Yoast SEO PremiumHow to manually install Yoast SEO PremiumStep 1: Download the Premium pluginMy download is a folder, not a .zip fileStep 2: Install Yoast SEO PremiumHow to install Yoast SEO PremiumInstall through ComposerStep 3: Connect your subscription

How to automatically install Yoast SEO Premium

Before we explain how the automatic installation flow works, it is good to know that only Yoast SEO Premium can be installed using this installation flow. You can access the installation flow in two ways: right after you purchase Yoast SEO Premium and complete the checkout process, or by going to https://my.yoast.com/install. Then, to install Yoast SEO Premium to your WordPress site, follow these steps. Enter your site』s URL in the designated field. You can either add a new URL or choose an existing one you』ve already added to MyYoast (both options indicated with an arrow in the image below). Click the Download Yoast SEO Premium button. Depending on the browser you are using and the settings you have you may: a. be prompted to select the folder where you want to have your plugin downloaded (see image below). Then, a .zip format of the plugin will be downloaded to your hard drive. b. the plugin may automatically download in your downloads folder. When the download is ready, click the button: I』m ready. Please take me to my website. You will automatically be taken to the backend of your website. If you are not logged into your site you will need to log in. When logged in, you』ll automatically land on the Add Plugins screen in WordPress. In the Add Plugins screen, upload the plugin .zip to your WordPress site and click the Install Now. You can do that either by clicking Choose File and then finding and selecting the .zip. Or, you can drag the downloaded .zip from the folder where you downloaded it and drop it in the Choose file filed. Click Activate Plugin. When the plugin is installed, you will be taken to a new screen that shows you the installation status. If the plugin was successfully installed, you should see that message on the screen. Enjoy using Yoast SEO Premium! Yoast SEO Premium will be active on your site. You will be taken to a screen that confirms that your installation was successful. On that screen, you will also see some suggestions on where to start with your SEO optimization. For example, you can start by doing the Yoast SEO Premium internal linking workout.

How to manually install Yoast SEO Premium

Getting the Yoast SEO Premium plugin to work consists of three steps:

Downloading the pluginInstalling the pluginConnecting your subscription

Let』s go through each step in a bit more detail.

Step 1: Download the Premium plugin

First of all, you need to download the Premium plugin. You can download the plugin in the Downloads section of MyYoast. When you click the download button of the Yoast SEO Premium plugin in MyYoast, you will either be prompted to select a folder to save the zipped file or your browser will save the zip file automatically to your Downloads folder. Either way, make sure to remember where you save this file.

You can always visit the Downloads section of MyYoast, should you wish to download the plugin again.

Don』t have a MyYoast account yet? Use our QuickStart Guide to find out how to create one. Keep in mind that we create a new MyYoast account for you when you purchase with a new email address.

You can download the Yoast SEO Premium plugin in the Downloads section of MyYoast

Click the Download button to start downloading the Yoast SEO Premium plugin

My download is a folder, not a .zip file

If you』re downloading one of our plugins and instead of a .zip file you get a folder, your computer is unzipping the archive file immediately. The steps to change this behavior depend on the browser you use to download the file. After you change the behavior using the steps here, return to the Downloads section of MyYoast and download the plugin again.

Step 2: Install Yoast SEO Premium

Yoast SEO Premium is an 「add-on」 for the free version of the plugin. This means that Yoast SEO Premium is a companion to the free version, and you need both plugins to work. So, before you can install Yoast SEO Premium, make sure you have Yoast SEO free installed and activated.

If you already have Yoast SEO free installed, please update it to the latest version before you install Yoast SEO Premium.

How to install Yoast SEO Premium

Installing the Premium plugin is a little different than installing our free plugin since it』s a downloadable plugin and not one that you can find in the free WordPress plugin repository. Let』s go through the steps you have to take to install the Yoast SEO Premium plugin!

Log in to your WordPress website. When you』re logged in, you will be in your Dashboard.Click on Plugins in the Admin menu on the left (see image below).The Plugins settings will expand. Click Add New. A new screen will open. Note: If you don』t see the Add New option, your site is either a part of a multisite network, or you don』t have the right permissions to install plugins on the site. If you are in a multisite environment, please install the plugin through the network admin under 「My Sites」> 「Network Admin」>」Plugins」. Click the 『Upload Plugin』 button at the top of the screen. The screen will expand with the option to upload files. Click the Choose File button. A new box will pop out. You can browse the folder where you save the plugin and select the plugin .zip file there. Click Install Now. You will need to wait for the plugin to install. That may take a while. If you get an error message, check the Common installation errors for a possible solution. Click Activate Plugin. You have to activate the plugin for it to work. If you have a multisite installation, you will see the option to 「Network Activate」. To activate the plugin for all sites within the network, click 「Network Activate」.

Install through Composer

Want to install our premium plugins via Composer? We』ve got you covered with this guide on how to install Yoast plugins using Composer.

Step 3: Connect your subscription

Now, you can move on to the final step: it』s time to connect your subscription! Go to the Sites section of MyYoast. There, click 『Add site』, enter the URL of the site you would like to add to your account and select the platform that your site is running on. Lastly, click on 『Add』 to confirm.

Once you』ve done this, you』ll see your site in the Sites overview. Click the 『Manage』 button behind your site』s URL, and connect your subscription to your site by switching the toggle to 『On』, as shown in the image below.

Switch the toggle to 『On』 to connect your subscription to your site

That』s it! Yoast SEO Premium is now installed and activated on your site!

File Automatically Unzips When Downloaded

Email programs rely on a web browser when you click a link to download items directly from your email.

If you』re downloading one of our plugins and instead of a .zip file you get a folder, your computer is unzipping the archive immediately. The steps to change this behavior depend on the browser you use to download the file. After you change the behavior, return to MyYoast or your email and download the plugin again.

If the file continues to unzip, please see these suggestions.

Browser

Safari
Firefox
Chrome
Other browsers

Safari

This is a feature in Safari (for Macs only) that』s easily disabled by going into your Safari preferences and unchecking the Open "Safe" files box. Open Safari Click on the Safari in the menu and then Preferences. Shortcut: Command +, or ⌘, Uncheck the box.

Firefox

Open FirefoxClick the hamburger menu button (the three horizontal lines in the top left corner) and choose Options. (On Mac, go to Firefox in the top toolbar and then click Preferences). You』ll automatically be taken to the General settings screen.Scroll down until you see the Applications settings. (see image below)In the box with the Content types (shown in the image below) Search for ZIP (WinRAR ZIP or ZIP archive). Click on the downward pointing arrow next to the item in the Action column to reveal the options. Change to Always ask or Save File.Close the page to save the changes.

Chrome

By default, Chrome does not automatically unzip files. However, there are a number of browser extensions that include this feature. Please temporarily disable all extensions.

Note too, that if you click on the downloaded file in the browser, it will unzip it. Do not click on it. Instead note where the file was downloaded and navigate to it when you install the plugin.

Other Browsers

Please contact the support team for your browser for information on how to disable the automatic unzipping of files.

Still Not Working?

In no particular order, here are some other suggestions:

Please try downloading from another browser or another computer.Disable all browser extensions or add-ons.Some browsers will open and unzip the file if you click the file from the download menu in the browser. Manually browsing to the download folder on your computer avoids this issue.Check your computer』s default file association. This varies by OS and version so our best recommendation is to use your favorite search engine and search for how to set default file association in followed by your OS (Windows, Mac, etc) and version number.

Next Steps

After the zip file has been downloaded you will then need to install it. This guide explains more.

How to customize the sitemap index

The Yoast SEO plugin generates a sitemap of your site. It is a crucial feature of the plugin and it helps search engines find and crawl your pages. The sitemap index includes links to a variety of sub-sitemaps for posts, pages, authors, categories, tags, and other taxonomies. In Yoast SEO, you can customize the sitemap index, and choose what you show in it. If you are not sure what needs to go in the sitemap, read this article first.

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!

Available sitemaps

Content Types
Media and Images
Taxonomies
Archives
Other content

Related articles

Sitemap Feature
View Sitemaps
Limit the number of entries
Submit to Search Engines
Troubleshooting
Developer filters

Content types: Search appearance section

The sitemap index can be customized under SEO > Search Appearance. Posts, pages, and other custom post types can be customized under the 『Content Types』 tab. Removing a post type from the search results will also remove them from the sitemap. Showing them in the search results will show them in the sitemap. Add or remove items as needed. 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 appropriate tab and toggle Show [type] in search results? to add or remove sitemaps. Yes: [type] will be set to index and a sitemap will be created.No: [type] will be set to noindex and a sitemap will not be created. Click 『Save Changes』.

Content types: Not publicly added

Some content types are not added publicly and thus do not appear for exclusion. When this occurs, the post type can either be made public or manually excluded using a developer filter.

Content types: Removing it individually from sitemap

You can also remove individual post types from the sitemap by marking them with a noindex tag. Use this guide if you are not sure how to do that: How do I Noindex Urls?

Media and images

When you upload an image, WordPress automatically creates a post of the type 「attachment」 in the database, and the corresponding URL for that. It calls this the 「media」 post type. Learn more here.

Taxonomies

Categories, tags, and other taxonomies can be customized under the 『Taxonomies』 tab. Some taxonomies are not added publicly and thus do not appear for exclusion. When this occurs, the taxonomy can either be made public or manually excluded using a developer filter.

Archives – author sitemap

Our plugin creates a sitemap that lists the author pages. Learn more about customizing the author sitemap for single author websites or multiple author websites.

Other sitemaps

Video sitemap

Our Video SEO plugin sitemap can be customized under Admin > SEO > Video SEO.

News sitemap

Our News SEO plugin sitemap can be customized under Admin > SEO > News SEO.

Local sitemap

Our Local SEO plugin sitemap is generated based on the location data entered into the plugin.

Non-Yoast plugin sitemaps

You can add non-Yoast sitemaps to the index. Please read this article for more information.

Below are a few examples using the developer filters in your functions.php file to customize the sitemaps. If you are not familiar with implementing code in WordPress, we highly recommend checking out Code Poet as they have a great list of available freelance WordPress developers. You may also wish to review a Yoast Partner.

Content types

Filter: wpseo_sitemap_exclude_post_type

/* Exclude One Content Type From Yoast SEO Sitemap */
function sitemap_exclude_post_type( $value, $post_type ) {
if ( $post_type == 'post_type_slug' ) return true;
}
add_filter( 'wpseo_sitemap_exclude_post_type', 'sitemap_exclude_post_type', 10, 2 );

/* Exclude Multiple Content Types From Yoast SEO Sitemap */
add_filter( 'wpseo_sitemap_exclude_post_type', 'sitemap_exclude_post_type', 10, 2 );
function sitemap_exclude_post_type( $value, $post_type ) {
$post_type_to_exclude = array('post_type_slug1','post_type_slug2', 'post_type_slug3');
if( in_array( $post_type, $post_type_to_exclude ) ) return true;
}

Taxonomies

Filter: wpseo_sitemap_exclude_taxonomy

/* Exclude One Taxonomy From Yoast SEO Sitemap */
function sitemap_exclude_taxonomy( $value, $taxonomy ) {
if ( $taxonomy == 'taxonomy_slug' ) return true;
}
add_filter( 'wpseo_sitemap_exclude_taxonomy', 'sitemap_exclude_taxonomy', 10, 2 );

/* Exclude Multiple Taxonomies From Yoast SEO Sitemap */
add_filter( 'wpseo_sitemap_exclude_taxonomy', 'sitemap_exclude_taxonomy', 10, 2 );
function sitemap_exclude_taxonomy( $value, $taxonomy ) {
$taxonomy_to_exclude = array('taxonomy_slug1','taxonomy_slug2', 'taxonomy_slug3');
if( in_array( $taxonomy, $taxonomy_to_exclude ) ) return true;
}

Authors

Filter: wpseo_sitemap_exclude_author

Entries per sitemap

You can change the number of entries per sitemap by using the filter below. The default number is 1000. Please refer to this code snippet as an example.

wpseo_sitemap_entries_per_page

Exclude posts and pages

To exclude posts and pages from the sitemap follow the instructions here

Exclude a term from the sitemap

Use the filter below:

wpseo_exclude_from_sitemap_by_term_ids

Add an external sitemap

To add an external sitemap follow the instructions here

Work with dynamic URLs

Please refer to this GitHub comment for how you may best integrate dynamic URLs.

Change post URLs for the sitemap

You can use this filter to change post URLs for the sitemap:

wpseo_xml_sitemap_post_url

How to change the name on your certificate

You can change the name that appears on your Yoast SEO academy certificates on the MyYoast account profile page. In this article, we』ll explain how.

Related articles

Yoast SEO academy FAQMyYoast quickstart guideYoast subscriptions: FAQCommon MyYoast issues

Follow the steps below to change the name on your certificate. Log in to MyYoast. Log in with your MyYoast account. This is the account you use to login to Yoast SEO academy. Forgot your password? Click on 『Account』 in the sidebar (desktop) or across the bottom of the screen (mobile). Click on 『Account』 in the sidebar (desktop) or across the bottom of the screen (mobile). Enter your first and last name or change them. Click 『Save changes』.

Error: No meta description has been specified.

No meta description has been specified. Search engines will display copy from the page instead.

A customized meta description has not been set for the post or page.

Why are meta descriptions important?

A meta description is a crucial part of your SEO. They are your business card in the search results and can help greatly improve the number of times people click on your search result in Google. If you』re not familiar with meta descriptions, take some time to find out what meta descriptions are and why they matter.

Solution

Yoast SEO allows you to set custom meta descriptions for each post or page. Edit the post or page. Click 『Edit snippet』 in the snippet preview section Add or change the custom meta description The snippet editor will expand allowing you to add, change or remove the meta description. Click 『Update』 to save the published post or page. For unpublished content, you will click 『Save Draft』.