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Error: The text contains 0 words.

Sometimes, the Yoast SEO metabox displays the following error, even if you have actually written some content:

The text contains 0 words. This is far below the recommended minimum of 300 words. Add more content that is relevant for the topic.

In most cases, this is is caused by a page builder that you are using. Not every page builder allows us to see the content within the page builder, which bypasses the default editor. In that case, our plugin can』t see the words, so it is unable to analyse them.

Solution

Add content to the default editor and the word count will update automatically.

If you』re using a page builder that does not share their content, please contact their development team to request compatibility with the Yoast SEO keyphrase analysis. They can learn more about this functionality here.

In most cases, search engines can still see and analyze your content. If you are unable to pass your content into our analysis, you may decide to disable the keyphrase analysis.

How to add a short product description in WooCommerce with Yoast WooCommerce SEO

When you have an e-commerce website, it is crucial to add descriptions for your products. They can help your users better understand the product and decide if it meets their needs. In WooCommerce, you can add both long and short descriptions to a product. The Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin gives you feedback on your descriptions. For example, it checks the length of your short product description.

How does Yoast WooCommerce SEO judge the length of your short product description? You will get the feedback that the description is too short if it consists of 1-19 words. A proper short description should have between 20-49 words. If the description exceeds 50 words, then Yoast SEO will warn you that it is too long. 

Short descriptions are useful if you have a product page with multiple products. By reading an informative summary of the product, users can decide if they want to buy it. However, it is crucial to write unique short product descriptions. Don』t just use the same text over and over again. If you do, search engines will notice you have duplicate content, and that won』t reflect well on your rankings. If you want each page to rank, then each page will need unique content!

Of course, you should use the limited space of the short description wisely. So, make sure that your description focuses on the user』s needs, and don』t forget to include the focus keyphrase!

If you have too many products that are so alike, it is impossible to write unique descriptions for each of them, then consider creating a category page.

To learn more about how to make a great online shop, read:

eCommerce SEO checklist: 27 tips for a better online shopProduct page SEO, things to improveProduct page UX, 3 great examples SEO for boring products

How to change the og:url output

Facebook』s OpenGraph metadata allows users to share web pages on Facebook. When you add OpenGraph meta tags to your posts and pages, Facebook will display a preview with images and an excerpt when a link to your site is shared. One of the OpenGraph meta tags is the og:url tag. In this article, we』ll explain how you can change the og:url output.

Related articles

Social media optimization with Yoast SEOHow to add OpenGraph meta tagsAdd Facebook publisher tagsHow to set custom Facebook OpenGraph tagsAdd Facebook author tagsFacebook sharing not workingNo image when sharing

What does the og:url tag do?

The og:url tag pulls from the permalink of the post/page. When the permalink changes so will that og:url. The most common request to change the og:url is when a site migrates to https and wants to keep their previous share counts.

How to change the og:url output

You or your developer can use the wpseo_opengraph_url filter to customize this feature. Code examples can be found here.

If you do not have a developer and are not sure how to use the code or where it goes consider using a Yoast Partner who can help.

How to use Yoast SEO in your language

In the spirit of our mission, 「SEO for everyone,」 we want to make Yoast SEO available to everyone, regardless of their language. So, besides translating the plugin, we have a hard-working language team dedicated to making all the readability checks fully available in as many languages as possible. So, you can write as you normally would in your own language, and the plugin will ensure that you have optimized, readable content that your readers enjoy. Of course, in Yoast SEO free, we also run all the SEO checks related to your keyphrase, regardless of the language.

And what about Yoast SEO Premium? In Premium, we have advanced word form recognition for an increasing number of languages. So, when the plugin analyzes your content, it can recognize different word forms of your keyphrase, as well as your synonyms and the related keyphrases. That helps you write more engaging and varied content in your own language!

Unlock these features in Yoast SEO Premium

Get the premium content analysis and much more for your WordPress site with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin!
Get Yoast SEO Premium »Only $89 USD / per year (ex VAT) for 1 site

Now you may be wondering how Yoast SEO (Premium) recognizes word forms in your language? Does it just work when you install the plugin, or do you need to adjust some other settings? That』s what we explain in this post.

Making sure Yoast SEO (Premium) works in your language

To get Yoast SEO (Premium) to work in your language, you will need to change the WordPress language settings in two places: the general setting and your profile settings. Let』s see how that works. Hover the mouse over the Settings admin menu. A fly-out menu appears. Select the General menu item. The General settings screen will open. In the General setting screen, go to the Site Language menu and click on it to select your language. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the General setting screen. The language of the site will change. Note: If the site language does not change, it may be set to 「site default」 in your profile. The steps below show how you can change the profile language as well. Hover the mouse over your profile picture in the top right corner. A fly-out menu appears. Select edit profile (when you change the language of the site, the 「edit profile」 menu item may be in your own language). You』ll be taken to your profile editing screen. In the profile editing screen, go to the Language setting and click on the drop down menu to select your language. Click the Update profile button at the bottom of the screen. Note: The button may be in a different language, if you already changed the site language.

That』s it! You can now use the Yoast SEO (Premium) to write engaging content in your own language. Just remember that regardless of the language you are using, there are some copywriting principles you should always follow. Read our Ultimate guide to SEO copywriting to learn more.

Error: Yoast SEO cannot create database tables

For Yoast SEO to work, it needs to be able to create tables in your database. Yoast SEO will show you an error message when we are unable to create tables automatically.

For the health and safety of your site, we recommend making a backup of the database before making changes. If possible, you may prefer to set up a test or so called 「staging」 environment to limit the downtime for your live website. Some popular hosts offer quick setups for a staging site. So, please contact your host for assistance.

Ask your host

You don』t have to fix this yourself. Instead, you can ask your host to fix this for you. Yoast SEO runs on literally millions of sites without a problem, so your host really should not have a problem fixing this. We created an example mail below, that you can use when contacting your host:

Hi,For Yoast SEO to work, Yoast SEO needs to be able to create new tables in our database. Yoast SEO automatically tries to create these tables but failed to do so. Could you fix the database permissions so it can in fact create those tables?Yoast SEO requires the following permissions: ALTER, CREATE, DELETE, INDEX, INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE and DROP.Yoast suggested I』d contact you on this page. If you have questions for them, feel free to reach out to them through the email address listed here.Thank you!

We』re happy to help them understand why this is needed.

What if my host provider won』t change the database permissions?

If you hosting provider is unwilling or unable to change these permissions for your website, we really only have one piece of advice: get a different host. We have a long list of large and reputable WordPress hosting companies with whom we have great relations that you won』t have this problem with.

Date appears in search results

In some cases, search engines may display a date in their search results, as part of your snippet. This might influence whether users click to visit your site.

Search engines usually does a good job of determining when it』s appropriate and helpful to include a date, but sometimes gets it wrong. They may occasionally include dates on pages where it isn』t helpful (e.g., a homepage), or may even show an incorrect/irrelevant date.

Unfortunately, there』s no way to directly control whether they show a date or not (or which date they show), but, you can try to 『manage』 the dates they see and use.

Table of contentsDates in Yoast SEO』s Google Preview Where did my 「Date in Google Preview」 setting go?Managing datesHow can I discourage search engines from showing a date in the search results?Remove dates from structured dataRemove dates from your theme(s)Remove dates from your contentHow can I encourage engines to use the correct date?How can I encourage search engines to update my listing?

Dates in Yoast SEO』s Google Preview

To reflect the fact that Google may include a date on any listing, we always include a date in our snippet preview tool. That allows you to better tailor your meta descriptions and results, and to avoid getting 『cut off』 when a date is present.

Where did my 「Date in Google Preview」 setting go?

In older versions of Yoast SEO, we included a 「Date in Google Preview」 setting. This controlled whether the date was shown in the snippet preview. Since Yoast SEO 14.7, this setting was removed, and we now always show the date in the snippet preview.

We』ve removed this setting because it was leading to confusion. Many of our customers reasonably assumed that the setting would influence whether or not the date would be shown in the (Google) search results. In reality, it only influenced the snippet preview in Yoast SEO.

Because the date now appears in the snippet preview, it 「takes away」 a few characters from the max length of your meta description if you had previously disabled this feature.

Managing dates

How can I discourage search engines from showing a date in the search results?

Whilst none of these suggestions guarantee that search engines won』t show a date, they reduce the chance that they』ll find a date to use. Working through your content, plugins, and themes to remove dates may reduce the chance that they』re shown in your results.

Remove dates from structured data

Yoast SEO outputs datePublished and dateModified schema.org structured data, which Google may use to show the date in the search results. Read the Schema API – Documentation to learn how to remove schema pieces.

Remove dates from meta tags

Yoast SEO outputs article:published_time and article:modified_time meta tags, which are used by Facebook and other social media platforms. Search engines might also read this information. You can read about our Metadata API to learn how to remove/disable these tags.

Remove dates from your theme(s)

WordPress, along with many themes, may automatically add hatom microformats into your theme code. You can view your page source to see if this is the case, and if you find one, try some of the handful of plugins that offer date removal features. If the plugin directory doesn』t offer what you need, you or your developer can manually remove dates from your theme.

Remove dates from your content

If your content includes or references dates, then you can try removing those references so that your content is evergreen / date-agnostic.

How can I encourage engines to use the correct date?

There are a number of ways that Google determines the date of your post. Most commonly, a plugin or theme adds a date to the page』s code. If this date is incorrect, it may confuse search engines, and they may use it in place of the intended value. You can view the page source of your post to see if you can find the erroneous date in your code.

If the invalid date is within your source code, there is likely something inside your WordPress site (or possibly your server) that has generated or stored an invalid date. If the date is within the Yoast SEO data, please contact our support team.

Alternatively, if the invalid date is not within the source code, it may be that you』re including external content (like a video, or embedded resource) which Google has used to date your post.

How can I encourage search engines to update my listing?

Even if you』ve made changes to your website to try and remove or correct dates, it may take search engines some time to update your results in their listings.

Thankfully, there are some ways that you can try to speed up this process:

If you only have a handle of pages on your website, you can use the Inspect any URL tool in Google Search Console to manually re-submit them.If you have many pages and posts, you can resubmit your sitemap to Google to encourage them to re-crawl the site.

How to optimize your content with the Yoast SEO sidebar

With the settings in the Yoast SEO sidebar, you can make sure your content has all the necessary elements required to rank in the search results. For example, its settings help you optimally use your keyphrases, write readable texts, include relevant internal links, and get your post ready for social media. And there many other things to consider when getting a post ready to rank. The more you optimize it, the better its chances to appear at the top of the search results.

Yoast SEO helps you tick all the boxes required by search engines and users. In this article, we』ll go through each of the settings in the Yoast SEO sidebar. If you cannot see the sidebar, click on the Yoast icon in the upper right corner, and the sidebar will appear.

Table of contentsThe Yoast SEO (Premium) sidebar settingsFocus keyphraseReadability analysisSEO analysisRelated keyphrase (Yoast SEO Premium)Internal linking suggestions (Yoast SEO Premium)Google previewFacebook preview Twitter preview Schema Advanced Cornerstone contentInsights (Yoast SEO Premium)

The Yoast SEO (Premium) sidebar settings

Focus keyphrase

The first thing you can do in the Yoast SEO sidebar is set the focus keyphrase of your post. That will enable the plugin to do a full SEO analysis of your post and give you feedback on your keyphrase use.

To learn more about the focus keyphrase read:

Keyword research for SEO: the ultimate guideHow to choose the right focus keyphrase Why you should use a focus keyphrase only once Why you should use your focus keyphrase in the introduction

Readability analysis

With the readability analysis in Yoast SEO, you can make sure that your texts are easy to read! The analysis includes a lot of factors that we chose based on extensive research. Each part of the analysis contains clickable links that take you to a relevant, informative article on yoast.com that can help you with the issue. And here is the best part: the feature is available in many different languages!

The feedback contains three levels: Problems, Improvements, and Good Results. The most pressing issues you need to solve are in the Problems section. If there are any improvements you can make, it is advisable to consider them as well. Of course, we don』t forget to give you credit for the good results either!

Read more: How to use the readability analysis of Yoast SEO »

SEO analysis

The SEO analysis is about the key elements you need to include in your post in order to rank. If you do not set a keyphrase, the SEO analysis bullet will be grey (see image below). Of course, to get the best out of it and make sure you rank, we strongly advise you to include the focus keyphrase.

Keep reading: Premium SEO analysis: As smart as Google »

Related keyphrase (Yoast SEO Premium)

In Yoast SEO Premium, besides the focus keyphrase and its synonyms, it is also possible to add a related keyphrase and a related keyphrase synonym. The plugin will still consider your focus keyphrase as the most important one. So, the analysis for the related keyphrase will be less strict than the focus keyphrase one.

Read on: Why you should use synonyms and related keywords. »

Internal linking suggestions (Yoast SEO Premium)

The internal linking suggestions are a feature available in Yoast SEO Premium. They make it easy for you to get an overview of your related posts and link them together. As a result, you improve your site structure and make it easier for your audience and search engines to find your content.

To learn more about internal linking read:

Internal linking for SEO, why and howA much improved internal linking tool in Yoast SEOHow to use the Yoast SEO internal linking tool

Google preview

A snippet is the first thing people see on the search results page. If you write an inviting title and give people an informative meta description, the chances that your snippet gets clicked increase. Luckily, you can control what your snippet looks like with the Yoast SEO Google Preview! The preview lets you see your mobile and desktop results, giving you even more power over your snippets.

Want to know more about editing your snippet? Read:

How to craft great page titles for SEOHow to create the right meta description

Facebook preview

Did you know that you can control what your posts look like when they get shared on Facebook? Yes, even if someone else shares them, you can determine beforehand how that post appears in the Facebook feed. How? With the Facebook preview tab in the Yoast SEO sidebar! Click on the tab to open the editing pop-up window. In the Facebook preview editor, you can set a title, image, and post description. In Yoast SEO Premium, you also get a visual preview of what the post will look like when shared on Facebook.

Keep on reading: Social previews in Yoast SEO Premium »

Twitter preview

Just like with Facebook, you can also edit your twitter shares with Yoast SEO! Click on the Twitter preview tab in the sidebar, and add the image, title, and description you want people to see! In Yoast SEO Premium, you get a fill preview, including the image. So you don』t have to wonder what users see in their Twitter timelines!

Eager to learn more? Read:

Twitter cards in Yoast SEO Setting up Twitter cards in Yoast SEOSocial media optimization with Yoast SEO

Schema

One of the most significant innovations in Yoast SEO is the Yoast Schema graph. This graph automatically describes your pages to search engines. That makes it possible for you to get rich results for your content. By default, Yoast SEO describes your Pages with WebPage schema and your Posts with Article schema (and WebPage schema). If you think that your content needs some other schema type, you can set that with the Schema tab!

Want to learn more about Schema.org? Take our Structured data for beginners course. And, check out these articles:

Structured data with Schema.org: The ultimate guideHow to get great looking Google results

Advanced

The advanced tab in the sidebar lets you control how the post you are working on gets indexed. By indexing the post, search engines can show it in the search results. If you want to block the post from appearing on the search results pages, you can do that in the Advanced tab. The settings also allow you to decide whether search engines follow links in the posts, add advanced meta robots tags, and set a canonical post. By default, this feature is only available to site administrators. Yoast SEO also lets you allow other users access to the Advanced tab.

Learn more about indexing with these articles:

The ultimate guide to the meta robots tagrel=canonical, the ultimate guideWhy does Yoast SEO output 「index=follow」 in the meta robots tag?Indexing in Yoast SEO: Show x in search results?

Cornerstone content

Your most complete posts containing all the crucial information you want to rank with are called cornerstone content. For example, we have many ultimate guides on yoast.com that we consider to be the backbone of our website. Do you have such articles on your website? If not, you should consider writing some!

When you set a post as cornerstone content with the Yoast SEO settings in the sidebar, a few things happen. First, we adapt the SEO analysis and make it stricter, so it fits the needs of a cornerstone article. In Yoast SEO Premium, we also give priority to cornerstone articles in the linking suggestions. Finally, to make sure your cornerstone content doesn』t get stale, we include a stale cornerstone content filter.

Read more: What is cornerstone content? »

Insights (Yoast SEO Premium)

The Insights tab in the Yoast SEO Premium sidebar gives you an overview of the words that occur most frequently in your content. This feature is there to help you make sure your content is focused on the words you want to rank for. It would be a shame if you are trying to rank for 「SEO」, yet you use that word only a few times in your text. You can prevent that with Yoast SEO Premium!

Keep reading: How to add focus to your text with Yoast SEO insights »

Estimated reading time in Yoast SEO: a how-to

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

In Yoast SEO 15.6, we introduced the estimated reading time feature. This feature consists of a block, with which you can add the estimated reading time to your post or page, and it adds the reading time to the Insights section of the Yoast SEO sidebar (if you have Yoast SEO Premium). In this article, we』ll explain how to use the estimated reading time feature in Yoast SEO.

How to use the Estimated reading time block

The Estimated reading time block lets you easily add the estimated reading time to your post or page. With this feature, you can let your readers know how long it will take on average to read your text. Note that this is a block for the WordPress block editor (or Gutenberg), so it』s only available if you use the block editor. Let』s find out how to use the Estimated reading time block!

Log in to your WordPress site. You will be in your WordPress Dashboard. Go to the post or page editor. To add a new post or page, hover over Posts or Pages in the admin menu on the left-hand side, and click 『Add New』. Alternatively, go to the Posts or Pages overview by clicking either Posts or Pages. Then, select the post or page you want to edit. You』ll be in the post or page editor. Hit the + button and select the Yoast Estimated reading time block. You can also search for the block using the search bar or type a forward slash followed by 『estimated reading time』. You can add your estimated reading time anywhere you want. The Estimated reading time block appears in your post or page. The estimated reading time of your post or page will automatically be calculated. If needed, you can change the appearance of the block in the block settings. If you select the block and click the settings cog in the top-right corner, the block settings will automatically open. In the settings you can change the descriptive text and select whether you want to show the descriptive text and the icon.

Where to find the estimated reading time insights

If you have Yoast SEO Premium, you can also find the estimated reading time of your content in your Insights tab. If you click the Yoast SEO icon in the top-right corner, this will open the Yoast SEO sidebar. Scroll down and click 『Insights』, and the Insights modal will open. There, you will find the estimated reading time of your post or page, next to the prominent words insights.

The Estimated reading time in the Insights screen

Do I need a DPA when I purchase from Yoast?

When you use one of our products or services, there is no need for a DPA (Data Processing Agreement). In this situation, you are the 「data subject」 and we are the 「controller」 under the GDPR. You can read in our privacy policy how we handle your personal data and in our GDPR Article how we handle compliance.

A DPA would only be needed when we (Yoast) would process, collect or store personal data under your supervision and instructions. The Yoast plugins do not process, collect, or store any of that personal data at Yoast premises or servers. Every analysis performed on your content is done on your site and none of your content is used by Yoast off-site. Therefore, a DPA is not needed when you purchase from Yoast.

For example, you run a webshop and have customers for which you store personal data. Our plugins do not send any of that data to Yoast, so we are not processing that data under the GDPR at all.

How to troubleshoot Zapier in Yoast SEO Premium

Sometimes, when you use Zapier with Yoast SEO Premium, you may run into some errors. This troubleshoot guide lists the most commonly found errors, their causes, and the steps you can take to fix them.

Table of contentsYoast SEO is not connected to ZapierTest the connection between Zapier and Yoast SEOA Zap is not triggered when I publish a new postOther possible errors you may encounter Subscription failed. A subscription already exists. Error: authentication failed: The app returned 「Server Error」. What happened (You are seeing this because you are an admin): Stack trace: ResponseError: {「status」:404,」headers」The app returned 「The API key does not match.」. What happened (You are seeing this because you are an admin): Stack trace: ResponseError: {「status」:500,」headers」Authentication failed: The app returned 「DRA: Only authenticated users can access the REST API.」.We hit an error adding your new account. Authentication failed: The app returned 「503」.Did you encounter another error?

Yoast SEO is not connected to Zapier

If you get this error, as shown in the image below, please create a Zap and the notification should resolve.

Create a Zap if Yoast SEO is not connected to Zapier

Test the connection between Zapier and Yoast SEO

Make sure you』ve enabled the connection between Zapier and Yoast SEO. Follow the steps below to check if the connection is working.

Log in to your Zapier account and click on 『My apps』 > 『Yoast SEO』.Click on the three dots and then on 『Test connection』, as shown in the image below.If it shows a 『Test successful』 notification, Zapier and Yoast are working on the site. If not, please click on the dots and select 『Reconnect』. Then, follow the steps to reconnect and see if the issue resolves.

Test the connection between Zapier and Yoast

A Zap is not triggered when I publish a new post

If you created a Zap, but it is not triggered when you publish a new post, check the following:

Make sure you』ve followed the configuration guide on how to create a Zap. Go to Zapier, and make sure that you』ve enabled the Zap. Go to the Zap history, and check the status of your Zap. You can go to the Zapier help center to learn more about managing and viewing your task history.Do a plugin conflict check to see if the problem occurs when all non-Yoast plugins are disabled and your active theme is TwentyTwenty.

Other possible errors you may encounter 

These are the errors that you may encounter when using Yoast SEO and Zapier:

Subscription failed. A subscription already exists. 

Cause: You are getting this error because you are trying to set up a second Zap, which requires a Premium Zapier plan.

Solution: Instead of creating multiple Zaps, you can try adding multiple actions to a single Zap. 

Error: authentication failed: The app returned 「Server Error」. What happened (You are seeing this because you are an admin): Stack trace: ResponseError: {「status」:404,」headers」

Cause: Your site uses plain permalinks and the Zapier integration requires SEO-friendly permalinks.

Solution: Choose a permalink setting to enable REST API.

The app returned 「The API key does not match.」. What happened (You are seeing this because you are an admin): Stack trace: ResponseError: {「status」:500,」headers」

Cause: The API key in Zapier is not the same as the one Yoast expects.

Solution: Go to Admin > SEO > General > Integrations and copy the API key. Update the App in Zapier with the new API key.

Authentication failed: The app returned 「DRA: Only authenticated users can access the REST API.」.

Cause: The REST API has been blocked for non-authenticated users by a plugin like Disable REST API.

Solution: Disable the 3rd party plugin or add an exception for the endpoints below:

/yoast/v1/zapier/subscribe

/yoast/v1/zapier/unsubscribe

/yoast/v1/zapier/check

/yoast/v1/zapier/list

We hit an error adding your new account. Authentication failed: The app returned 「503」.

Cause: It may be due to different reasons. For example, when the REST API used by our plugin to connect to Zapier is blocked, i.e. by the reCaptcha protection from Cloudflare (Bot Fight mode). Zapier can provide an error log file that will help determine the exact cause of the error.

Solution: It』ll depend on the cause of the error.

Did you encounter another error?

If you encountered an error that we haven』t listed here, contact Yoast support for further assistance!

Read more: What is Zapier? And 5 things you can do with it! »