Yoast SEO 文档

FAQ: XML sitemaps in WordPress 5.5 and Yoast SEO

Since 5.5, WordPress comes with its own in-built XML sitemaps. Together with Google, we proposed to get this feature into every WordPress site out there. XML sitemaps offer an additional way for search engines to find out about your content. Now that XML sitemaps are a core feature in WordPress, over 41% of the sites on the web will have these enabled by default. Crawlers will be delighted to stumble upon all that fresh content. Cool, right? But what about the XML sitemaps in Yoast SEO?

This FAQ will answer some of your questions.

What does Yoast SEO』s XML sitemap functionality do, now that WordPress has its own sitemap? Automatically building a fully-formed XML sitemap for every installation was always one of the biggest features of Yoast SEO. Why would we throw this out? Well, we don』t!The new XML sitemap feature in WordPress 5.5 is very basic. The one in Yoast SEO is sophisticated, with a number of enhancements and performance improvements. So, while it』s awesome news that millions of sites improve their chances of ranking thanks to the XML sitemaps in WordPress 5.5 and onwards, we』re confident the XML sitemaps in Yoast SEO are richer, better, and more powerful. Should I disable my WordPress XML sitemap? Since every WordPress now comes with its own XML sitemap, you might think it』d be a good idea to turn it off if you have already had a sitemap. While it probably won』t lead to indexing issues or the like, it』d definitely help if you only have one sitemap running. Don』t run the risk of confusing search engines. As of Yoast SEO 14.5, we automatically turn off the default XML sitemap (if you』re using our XML sitemaps) and make sure that ours runs flawlessly. You don』t have to do anything.If for some reason you don』t run Yoast SEO and you don』t want an XML sitemap on your WordPress site, you can disable it. In the documentation of WordPress XML sitemaps, you can find more information on how to do that. You can also turn it off by changing your settings to discourage search engines from indexing your site, but that would also mean that your site won』t appear in the search results at all. Be careful with that one! What』s the difference between the core XML sitemap in WordPress and the one in Yoast SEO? The current WordPress XML sitemap is very basic, while the XML sitemaps in Yoast SEO have been fully featured for many years. For the time being, we will continue to advise using our XML sitemaps.Not only does your sitemap generate automatically, but we also give you options to determine what goes into that sitemap. We already have a default list of pages that should never appear in a sitemap, but you can extend that however, you see fit. Now, if you noindex a post or page with Yoast SEO, it』s immediately removed from your sitemap.Plus, we add properties like last modified date to help crawlers distinguish between what』s new and what』s old. We break up large sitemaps into smaller ones to help keep everything fast. Last but not least, we include images in our sitemaps so crawlers can discover these in one go. Of course, this is just a small sampling of the power of the Yoast SEO XML sitemaps. What does the XML sitemap in WordPress 5.5 do? At its core, an XML sitemap is simply a list of URLs in a text file. The XML sitemap helps search engine crawlers uncover your content. It helps them find and update content on your site which helps them get your content in the indexes for ranking purposes. The current version of the XML sitemap in WordPress is very basic and supports only a small set of content types. Of course, you can extend its support via an API. There is, however, no way for you to control from WordPress itself what goes into core sitemap — or what shouldn』t appear. What happens if I disable the Yoast XML sitemap setting? If you disable the XML sitemap functionality in Yoast SEO, we don』t disable the WordPress core XML sitemaps. You』ll still get these as a 『fallback』.Because WordPress core』s XML sitemaps are much simpler than ours, using them alongside our SEO plugin might result in some unexpected behavior, or even SEO errors. For example, posts or pages which you mark as 『noindex『 (or otherwise 『non-public』) will still be included in your sitemap. That sends 『mixed signals』 to search engines, which might trigger errors and warnings in Google Search Console and other tools, like the example below.Errors like this can be resolved or prevented by:– Enabling the Yoast SEO XML sitemaps (which disables the WordPress core sitemaps).– Disabling WordPress core』s sitemaps, or, customizing their behaviour in your theme/plugin code (see the documentation). How can I customize WordPress core』s XML sitemaps? If you prefer to use WordPress』 XML sitemaps to ours, and you wish to customize or alter the outputs (e.g., including or excluding specific content types), you can learn more from the documentation.

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』.

Why am I not getting rich results for my content?

If you use Google, you must have noticed that some content gets displayed as rich results. So, instead of the regular snippet with a blue title and some text underneath, you see more exciting results.

An example of a rich snippet

So how can you get such rich results for your content? One way to increase your chances is by adding structured data to your site. You might have already done that, but you still do not get any rich results. In that case, there are a few issues you need to consider.

Why are my results not shown as rich results?

Structured data is code, and, like any code, it may contain some undetected errors. That is why it is worthwhile to check the code and make sure you did everything right. Sometimes, it takes time for Google to crawls and index your pages. Consequently, your pages don』t show up properly in the search engine.

Note: Even if you add the correct structured data markup, it is not a guarantee for rich results. Google decides how to display the results. In some cases, it may decide not to display rich results for your content.

How to check your structured data markup

Check if you have the right type of markup for your content. Google provides an extensive list of the types of content you can add structured data to. Read the Google guidelines and make sure that you have the right type of markup with the right type of content. Use the Google Structured Data Testing Tool. After you』ve added the structured data markup to your pages, use Google』s Structured Data Testing Tool. You can check the code in two ways. Either enter the URL of the page you have added structured data markup to. Or, paste a piece of code you want to inspect. Google will validate it, detect any errors, and recommend improvements. For some types of content, you can also preview what the search result will look like once it appears in Google. Use the Google Rich Results Test. Another tool you can use to check if your site is eligible for rich results is Google』s Rich Results Test. To be able to use this tool to its full potential, you will need to have a Google Search Console account. With it, you can get detailed reports with warnings and troubleshooting tips.

Make sure Google crawled and indexed your pages

Another issue that may be preventing your content from appearing in a rich result format is crawling and indexing. Use the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console to check for crawling issues.

You can find more information on structured data and how to use it properly on Google』s developers page.

Switching Single Site Subscriptions

Switching From Development Server To Live ServerWill Switching Subscriptions Affect the SEO?

Switching From Development Server To Live Server

If you have a subscription for a single site and want to do development on a test server before you move the server to a live environment: you can!

A single site subscription can be connected to only one site at a time. However, you can add both your live and staging site in My Yoast and connect/disconnect to switch between the live and development site.

An active subscription connection to your site is required to check for updates so we recommend connecting the subscription to the WordPress installation you use to test version updates.

If you decide that you need to connect multiple WordPress installations or multiple domains, please purchase additional subscriptions.

Will Switching Subscriptions Affect the SEO?

No, switching subscriptions is not expected to affect the SEO of the site which no longer has it. However, an active subscription is required to get updates and use the WordForms feature.

Sites without an active subscription are unable to get plugin updates and will see a Yellow Banner on posts/pages alerting you to the fact you do not have WordForms.

Setting up Twitter Cards in Yoast SEO

With Twitter Cards, you can add rich content, like images, when your content is shared on Twitter.

In Yoast SEO Premium, you get full control of your Twitter (and Facebook) shares! There is no guesswork with the social preview feature. By seeing exactly what your posts look like when you share them, you get the chance to improve your social media presence.

Table of contents

Activate Twitter Cards
Using Twitter Cards in Yoast SEO
Available Card Types

Custom Twitter meta tags
Troubleshooting

How to activate Twitter Cards in Yoast SEO

You can set up or change Twitter Cards in Yoast SEO by going to SEO → Social. Apart from enabling 『Add Twitter card meta data』, you』ll need to add few pieces of information so the plugin can generate the appropriate card data. Log in to your WordPress website. When you』re logged in, you will be in your 『Dashboard』. Click on 『SEO』. The SEO menu item is located in the WordPress admin menu, on the left side of the screen. Click on the SEO menu item and select 『Social』. The 『SEO』 settings will expand providing you additional options. Click on 『Social』. Under 『Accounts』, add your site wide Twitter username. Enter your site wide Twitter username if it』s not already entered. Click on the 『Twitter』 tab. Enable 『Add Twitter card meta data』 and select your preferred card type. Click 『Save Changes』.

Using Twitter Cards in Yoast SEO

You can preview and edit your Twitter cards in the Social Tab of the Yoast SEO meta box.

Note: Previews are available only in Yoast SEO Premium.

Twitter in the Social tab of Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO automatically fills in the Twitter card with some of the information you add when optimizing your posts. For example, the SEO title, the meta description, or a featured image.

You are free to edit the image, title, and description of the Twitter Card. To do that, open the Social tab of the Yoast SEO meta box and expand the Twitter header. Use the appropriate fields to make the desired edits. With this Yoast SEO feature, you get maximum control over how your post appears when you share it on Twitter.

What card types are available?

Summary or summary with large image cards

Summary cards are included for all Yoast SEO users and are the default for all posts and pages. As of Yoast SEO (Premium) version 5.8, you get a summary with large image cards by default when you first install the Yoast SEO (Premium) plugin.

Gallery, product, photo cards

Twitter no longer supports gallery, product, and photo cards. They will be automatically mapped to an appropriate card type. Learn more directly from Twitter here.

Player or app cards

We do not support player or app cards, at this moment.

Want to learn more about Twitter Cards? Visit the Twitter developer page.

How to customize your Yoast SEO experience

Yoast SEO comes with a lot of features that get your posts and pages in tip-top SEO shape. We believe that everything the plugin offers is valuable and that it』s good to take advantage of these tools. We』ve carefully built the features in Yoast SEO based on extensive research and experience. Each one has a role to play in making your site perform and rank better. That is why we』ve enabled our features by default when you install the plugin. Of course, there might come a time when you』d like to turn some features off. You can do that in the General settings of Yoast SEO. We want to make sure you know the value and function of each feature. So, in this article, we shortly explain what each feature does, and how you can use the features to customize your Yoast SEO experience.

Note: Some of these features appear both in the Yoast SEO meta box, and the Yoast SEO sidebar. To learn more about the sidebar settings, read: How to optimize your content with the Yoast SEO sidebar!

Turning some of these features off will likely have an effect on the SEO of your website.

How to fix missing Schema property: missing field 「sku」

The warning missing field 「sku「 occurs in Google Search Console when a product has no SKU (stock keeping unit) defined. According to Schema.org, the sku property refers to 「merchant-specific identifier for a product or service」.

You can add a SKU in WooCommerce. In addition, if you use WooCommerce SEO, all you』ll need to do to fix the missing field 「sku「 issue is to add the product SKU in the WooCommerce meta box. The WooCommerce SEO plugin will output the correct Schema for you automatically!

Fixing the missing Schema property: missing field sku

To allow WooCoommerce SEO to automatically add the missing field 「sku」 to your product, follow these steps. Select the product you want to add a SKU to from the Products overview. In the Product editing screen, scroll down to the WooCoomerce meta box. You will see a box with different tabs. The settings of the General tab show first by default. Click on the Inventory tab. You will see the Inventory tab options. Add the SKU in the SKU input field at the top of the meta box. You can add up to 255 alphanumeric and special characters in the input field. Click the Update button at the top of the Product editing screen. WooCommerce SEO will automatically output the missingsku field.

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How to add Brand, Manufacturer, and Color attributes to your products

The WooCommerce SEO plugin automatically adds brand, manufacturer, and color Product Schema properties to your product pages. By doing that, it describes your pages in a way that search engines can understand. That makes them eligible for rich results, which are great for attracting traffic to your site! Of course, for this to work, you will need to have WooCommerce SEO installed. Then, you』ll need to add the corresponding attributes to WooCommerce, and configure them in WooCommerce SEO and on the product page.

Did you receive the 「missing field brand」 error in Google Search console? The warning occurs when the product brand and manufacturer attributes haven』t been configured in the WooCommerce SEO plugin settings. To fix it, follow the steps below!

How to create attributes in WooCommerce and automatically fix the 「missing field brand」 with WooCommerce SEO

Follow the steps below to create the brand, manufacturer and color attributes and add them to your WooCommerce product. WooCommerce SEO will pick them up, and automatically output the correct Schema. Note: in this example, we add the brand attribute. But, you can follow the same steps to add the manufacturer and color attributes as well.

Go to the Products menu item, then select Attributes. The attributes screen opens. Add the new attribute. Add the Name and the Slug of the attribute in the designated fields (In this case – Brand). Then click Add Attribute and you will see the attribute in the list on the right. Click the Configure terms link. A new screen will open. You can add the terms of the attribute there. More precisely, you can add the names of the brands you feature on your site. Add the terms to the Brand attribute. Add the Name, Slug, and Description to the Brand attribute. Then click Add new Brand. Go to the WooCommerce SEO settings. After you』ve added the Brand attribute, you can select it in the WooCommerce SEO plugin settings by going to SEO > WooCommerce SEO. The WooCommerce SEO settings screen will open. Add the Product Brand attribute Click on the Dropdown menu next to Brand, to select the Product Brand Attribute. Then, click Save Changes. Open the Attributes tab in the Product edit page. Go to the Products menu item in the Admin menu, and select the desired Product from the overview (not shown in the image below). Once you open the Product edit page, scroll down to the WooCommerce product data box, and select the Attributes tab. Add the Brand Attribute to the product. Click on the dropdown box that says Custom Product attribute and select Brand. Then, click Add. The Brand will be added and some additional options will appear. Select the Brand value. To select the value, click on the empty box below Values. The Brand values you have added will appear. Select the one you want (in this case: Dunkin』 Donuts). Click Save Attributes. That will add the Brand attribute to the product page. Click the Update button at the top of the Product editing screen.

The Yoast WooCommerce SEO plugin will add the brand attribute as an OpenGraph product:brand tag in the source code of the product page and the product:brand tag for use with Pinterest. If you received the 「missing field brand」 error in Google Search Console, using WooCommerce SEO in WooCommerce should solve the issue!

Use the WooCommerce SEO plugin to make your product pages eligible for rich results

How to fix missing Schema property: missing field 「priceValidUntil」

The warning missing field 「priceValidUntil「 occurs in Google Search Console when a product has no sale price set. The priceValidUntil property only makes sense for products on sale. This value is optional, and not adding it will not harm your product』s appearance in the search results.

If you use WooCommerce with WooCommerce SEO, all you need to do is configure the sale price and the duration of your products』 sale in the General tab of the WooCommerce meta box. Then, the WooCommerce SEO plugin will automatically add the correct structured data to your product and fix the missing field 「priceValidUntil「 issue!

Fixing the missing Schema property: missing field 「priceValidUntil」

To add the necessary information for the priceValidUntil property, and to allow WooCommerce SEO to output the correct structured data, follow these steps: Select the product you want to edit from the Products overview screen. Once in the Product editing screen, scroll down to the WooCoomerce meta box. You will see the meta box with various tabs. The General tab will be open by default. In the General tab, add the Sale price in the appropriate field (outlined below). You can add the price with one monetary decimal point (.) without thousand separators and currency symbols. Click the Schedule link next to the Sale price input field. Some additional options will be revealed (shown in the image below). Insert the start and the end of the sale in the appropriate input fields. You can enter the dates manually, by following the template shown in the input field. Alternatively, you can use the calendar that appears when you click on the input field (shown below). Click the Update button at the top of the Product editing screen. WooCommerce SEO will automatically add the priceValidUntil property to the product.

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Use the WooCommerce SEO plugin to solve missing Schema property issues

How to fix the missing Schema property: either review, or aggregateRating should be specified

The full text of this error reads : Either 『offers』, 『review』 or 『aggregateRating』 should be specified. To make it easier for you to fix the error, we divided it in two articles. If you want to fix the missing 『offers』 schema properties go to this help article.

Since March 2020, all products are required to have either offers, review, or aggregateRating properties specified in their markup. WooCommerce automatically adds the properties to your product pages. But, for an even better Schema implementation that Google will easily pick up, you can use our WooCommerce SEO plugin. We have developed a sophisticated approach to implementing Schema markup which makes it easy for search engines to recognise it. So, by using WooCommerce SEO, you increase the chances that your products will get rich results! In this article, we』ll explain how you can fix the missing schema properties 「review, or aggregateRating should be specified」 with WooCommerce SEO.

Why do I need those properties?

You need to have valid markup on your product pages if you want the Google search engine to be able to show rich results for your products.

An example of a rich result

The review or aggregateRating properties

The review schema outputs properties that inform Google about what previous customers of a product and how they rate the product. The aggregateRating schema outputs properties that inform Google about the average rating based on multiple ratings or reviews.

How to fix the AggregateRating or Review missing schema properties

For reviews and aggregateRating Schema to be generated by WooCommerce SEO, you need to enable product reviews and ratings in the WooCommerce settings. Please note that, customers will need to leave some reviews and ratings on your site so that the plugins can output the data. To enable product reviews and ratings, follow these steps. Go to the WooCommerce admin menu, and then select Settings. The settings screen opens. Click on the Products tab in the settings screen. The Products settings screen opens. In the Products tab screen, scroll down to the Reviews settings and enable product reviews and product ratings. Tick the box next to Enable product reviews, Enable product ratings and Star ratings should be required, not optional. The other two boxes (Show 『verified owner』 label on customer reviews and Reviews can only be left by 『verified owners』) are optional. Click Save changes.

WooCommerce SEO will pick these changes up, and it will automatically produce the correct Schema! Still not using WooCommerce SEO? Get it now, and improve the SEO of your product pages!

Use the WooCommerce SEO plugin to solve this issue and more!