Yoast SEO 文件

How to push updates from a staging site to a live site

If you want to make big changes on your site, you should test these first using a staging environment. This is a copy of your site on your server that allows you to test the changes without affecting your live site. In this article, we』ll explain how to push updates from your staging environment to a live site.

How to create a staging environment for your WordPress siteHow to test WordPress 5.0 – and every other new releaseMake the transition to the block editor (from the classic editor) in WordPress

Pushing changes to a live site

There are lots of popular hosting or plugin solutions for staging environments. Although pushing changes from staging to a live site will be relatively similar in all of them, it might look slightly different depending on the solution you are using. In this article, we』ll use the plugin WP Staging as an example.

Make a backup of your staging site and live site. First of all, make sure you backup your staging site and your live site. Read more about backing up your site. Start the process of pushing changes to your live site (example: WP Staging). After backing up your site, it』s time to push the database data from your staging environment to your live site. We』ll use the WP Staging plugin as an example to show you how this works. Go to your live site and click WP Staging > Sites / Start. Select the staging site you want to move over to the live site and click Push Changes. Select the data you want to push to your live site (example: WP Staging). The WP Staging plugin allows you to select the data you want to push to your live site. Any selected table or file will overwrite its equal on the live site completely. Push to live site (example: WP Staging). Click the button Push to Live Site to start deploying the changes to your live site. You』ll see a green notification when it』s finished. Reload your website. Reload your website to see the changes you made on your live site.

How to add your website to Baidu Webmaster Tools

Warning: You must have a Baidu account in order to connect your site to Baidu Webmaster Tools.

Baidu is a Chinese only search engine with a big share on the market. To add your website to Baidu, you need a Baidu account. You can register the account with a phone number. While it is easy to do that if you have a Chinese phone number, it may be slightly more complicated with an international one. Please read this information about registering your site with Badiu before proceeding.

Did you know we offer an online course about all the features and settings of the Yoast SEO plugin? It』s included in our free training subscription. Why it』s free? Because we believe in 『SEO for everyone』.

How to connect your website to Baidu Webmaster Tools with Yoast SEO

Yoast SEO allows you to connect your website to Baidu Webmaster Tools so you can track how Baidu is indexing your website. Baidu recommends adding the primary (typically www.example.com) subdomain first. This will make it easier to add other subdomains (like sub.example.com) later. Go to Baidu Webmaster Tools and sign into your Baidu account. Enter your website URL and whether your site is HTTP or HTTPS site. Click Next 「下一步」 Choose your website』s industry categories. Copy the code under the HTML tag option: 「HTML 標籤驗證」 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 『Webmaster Tools』 tab. Add the code under 『Baidu Webmaster Tools』. Click 『Save Changes』. Switch back to Baidu and click 「完成驗證」 to complete the verification.

Congratulations! You』ve connected your website to Baidu Webmaster Tools!

How to add your website to Yandex Webmaster ToolsHow to add your website to Bing Webmaster ToolsHow to add your website to Google Search Console

The meta robots advanced settings

With the Advanced tab in Yoast SEO, you can determine how search engines crawl and index your post or page. In this article, we』ll explain the meta robots advanced settings.

The ultimate guide to the meta robots tagIndexing & sitemaps in Yoast SEO: Show x in search results?Canonical URLs in Yoast SEO

What are the meta robots advanced settings?

The advanced meta robots settings allow you to set the meta robots for this page or post to:

『No Image Index』 (you disallow search engines from crawling images on this page or post); 『No Archive』 (prevents the search engines from showing a cached copy of this page); or 『No Snippet』 (prevents the search engines from showing a snippet of this page in the search results and prevents them from caching the page).

By default, this field is empty, which indicates that the default settings are followed. So, if your site-wide default is set to index/follow (or if you』ve not set any specific or restrictive rules), then it should be equivalent to 『index/follow』.

Search Console crawl error: 「Submitted URL blocked by robots.txt」

First of all, let us be clear that Yoast SEO plugins do not automatically add anything to the robots.txt file.

In this article, we』ll take a look at the Google Search Console error Submitted URL blocked by robots.txt. What does that mean and how can you fix it?

The ultimate guide to robots.txtError: Submitted URL marked 『noindex』Error: Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404What are crawl errors?

What does the error mean?

The word 『error』 indicates that this page is not indexed. In other words, Google tried to index your page, but couldn』t. Why not? Well, 『submitted URL』 indicates that you submitted the page for indexing. That means that the URL is listed in a sitemap. But… there』s a problem: your submitted URL is blocked by your site』s robots.txt file.

How to fix a 『submmitted』 error

Depending on what you want, there are different ways to fix a 『submitted』 error:

If you want Google to crawl and index your page, then you should fix the issue that prevents that from happening.If you don』t want Google to index your page, you should remove the URL from your sitemap. Google will notice the changes when it visits your site again. If you don』t want to wait until Google』s next visit, you can also resubmit the edited sitemap in the Sitemaps report of Google Search Console. Are you new to Google Search Console? Then please read this beginner』s guide first.If you don』t want Google to index your page, you could also check your Sitemaps report and delete any sitemaps that contain the URL of the page. In addition, make sure that no sitemaps listed in your robots.txt file include this URL.

How to test and update your robots.txt file

Let』s assume that you want Google to crawl and index your page. How can you find and fix the cause of the problem? Let』s take a closer look at the actual robots.txt file.

Test your robots.text file

You can use the robots.txt Tester tool in Google Search Console to test whether your URL can be crawled. Follow the steps as described in this support article from Google. The tool will highlight the part of the file (the rule) that causes the blocking. The tool is just for testing, you can』t make any changes to the actual file.

Update your robots.text file

As soon as you know what』s causing the problem, you can update your robots.txt file by removing or editing the rule. Typically, the file is located at http://www.[yourdomainname].com/robots.txt however, they can exist anywhere within your domain. The robots.txt Tester tool can help you locate your file. Just click 『See live robots.txt』.

If you are using a web hosting service, it』s very well possible that you can』t access and/or edit this file by yourself. In that case, contact your host and ask for assistance.

Submit your updated file to Google

Once your robots.txt file is updated, you can submit it to Google by following these steps.

Search Console crawl error: Submitted URL marked 『noindex』

In this article, we』ll take a look at the Google Search Console error Submitted URL marked 『noindex』. What does that mean and how can you fix it?

Error: Submitted URL blocked by robots.txtError: Submitted URL seems to be a Soft 404What are crawl errors?

What does the error mean?

The word 『error』 indicates that this page is not indexed. In other words, Google tried to index your page, but couldn』t. How come? Well, on the one hand, 『submitted URL』 indicates that you submitted the page for indexing. That means that the URL is listed in a sitemap. However, on the other hand, something on the page is telling Googlebot not to index the page. That could either be a noindex meta tag in the page』s source code or an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header. As a result, the page will not show in the search results.

How to fix the 『submitted URL marked noindex』 error

Depending on what you want, there are different ways to deal with this error:

If you want Google to crawl and index your page, then you must either:remove the meta tag: This is really easy if you use Yoast SEO. This article explains exactly which steps you should take. No need for coding skills. If however, you do need or want to find the meta tag in the source code of the page, search for something that looks like this: or modify the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header: Check your HTTP headers for a noindex or noarchive or other negative header. That could look like this: X-Robots-Tag: noindex. You can modify the X-Robots-Tag using .htaccess and httpd.conf files that are available by default on Apache based web servers. Find out how here. Joost wrote about the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header as well, so if you』re into the technical stuff, read this post. If you don』t want Google to index your page, you should remove the URL from your sitemap. Google will notice the changes when it visits your site again. If you don』t want to wait until Google』s next visit, you can also resubmit the edited sitemap in the Sitemaps report of Google Search Console. Are you new to Google Search Console? Then please read this beginner』s guide first.If you don』t want Google to index your page, you could also check your Sitemaps report and delete any sitemaps that contain the URL of the page. In addition, make sure that no sitemaps listed in your robots.txt file include this URL.

Ask Google to reindex your page

Once you』ve solved the problem, you can use the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console to check whether the error is really gone. This Google Webmasters video explains how to do that. If the noindex directive is indeed gone, you can ask Google to reindex your page, by clicking 『Request Indexing』. This is also shown in the video.

How to create a staging environment for your WordPress site

When making significant changes on your site, it』s important to test these first. The best way to do this is by using a staging environment. A staging environment is a copy of your site on your server that allows you to implement and test changes without affecting your real site. In this article, we』ll explain how to create your own staging environment.

How to test WordPress 5.0 – and every other new releaseHow to make the transition to the block editor (from the classic editor) in WordPress

Creating a staging environment

There are two ways to get a staging environment for your WordPress site:

through your hosting company;by using a WordPress plugin to create a staging environment.

Let』s discuss these two options in more detail.

1. Getting a staging site through your hosting company

The first thing you can do is ask your hosting company to create a staging environment for you, and most hosts should be able to do this for you. If for some reason, your hosting company isn』t able to create a staging site for you, you can use a WordPress plugin to create a staging site yourself.

Read more: WordPress hosting companies, vetted by Yoast

2. Using a WordPress plugin to create a staging environment

If your hosting company can』t set up a staging site for you, you can use a WordPress plugin to do it yourself. Follow the steps below to create your own staging site.

Search for 『staging』 in the WordPress plugin directory. The first step is to find a WordPress plugin that can help you with this. A quick search for 『staging』 in the WordPress plugin directory results in many plugins (see image below). Select a trustworthy staging plugin. When choosing a plugin, make sure it is trustworthy by checking:– the reviews;– the number of active installations;– the last time it was updated;– its compatibility with your version of WordPress;– the quality, performance, and the support the plugin offers.Do you want to learn more about plugins in WordPress? Check out our free WordPress for beginners training! Make a backup of your site. The next step is to make a backup of your site. It』s important to make backups of your site regularly, and it』s especially important when you want to make big changes. You can learn more about how to backup your (WordPress) site here. Create the staging site using the staging plugin (example: WP Staging). After backing up your site, you』re ready to create the staging site. We』ll use the WP Staging plugin as an example to show you how this works. To create your staging site, click 『WP Staging > Sites / Start』 in the Admin menu and click 『Start cloning』. Select the files you want to clone and start cloning your site (example: WP Staging). After you do that, you will get the option to give your staging site a name, and choose the files you want to clone. Then, click the 『Start Cloning』 button, and the cloning will commence. The duration of the cloning depends on the size of your site. Access your staging site (example: WP Staging). When the cloning is done, you can open your staging environment. To access the staging site, click the 『Open staging site』 button. Then, you can log in with the same credentials you use for your regular website. Start testing! The environment of the staging site looks the same as your regular site (see image below), so getting around should not be a problem. You can now start testing!

How to disable the 『Text Link Counter』 feature

The text link counter helps you keep track of the internal and outbound links in your texts. Links help crawlers find your posts and pages and figure out the structure of your site. Your visitors also use links to navigate your content. The text link counter feature is automatically enabled in Yoast SEO. You find it in the Posts overview screen. If, for some reason, you want to turn this feature off, follow the steps below. 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 『Text link counter』 switch. To enable the feature, toggle the switch to 『On』.To disable the feature, toggle the switch to 『Off』. Click 『Save Changes』.

How to add an external sitemap to the index

Our Yoast SEO plugin creates sitemaps on the fly for the content within WordPress. In some cases, you may have sitemaps for other parts of your site that you want to add to our sitemap index.

For this purpose, we introduced the wpseo_sitemap_index filter. You will find an example of how to use the filter here.

The last mod date is hardcoded so it would not update automatically with this code. If you would like to update the last mod automatically we suggest developing on the plugin or hiring someone. We highly recommend checking out Code Poet, or one of the Yoast partners, for available freelance WordPress developers.

In addition to the Yoast SEO plugin, we have several other WordPress plugins that optimize specific aspects of your site, like video.

Troubleshooting

If posts fail to appear on the external sitemap try to disable and re-enable the sitemaps using this guide.Clear all your caching from all your plugins, themes, and hosting such as server caching Add rules for common caching plugins to exclude sitemaps from caching using this guide.Disable the transient sitemap caching using this guide.

How to update information in Google search results

When you update an article, you probably want to see the updated version in the search results straight away. However, that does not always happen. Sometimes, it takes a while before your updated page gets crawled and indexed. Luckily, there are tools in Google Search Console that can help you speed up the crawling and indexing processes.

You know what Google bots love? SEO-friendly posts and pages! Yoast SEO Premium is an excellent tool that can help you with that! For example, its advanced text analysis helps you write naturally flowing texts. The internal linking tool and the content filters make your posts easy to find. 404 errors become a thing of the past with the redirect manager. And, the social previews give you full control of how your posts appear on social media. Get it now!

Google Search Console (New version)Google Search Console (Old version)

Google Search Console (New version)

Google Search Console provides valuable information with a URL inspection including any issues that prevent content from appearing in search results. Go to the Google Search Console. If prompted, log in using your Google account. Choose your website from the 『Search property』 drop down in the sidebar. If the sidebar does not appear, click on the three line menu. In the top bar, type (or paste) the complete URL of the article that is missing from Google search. Expand the 『Coverage』 section to view the 『Last crawl』 date. If the page has changed since the 『Last crawl』 date, click 『 Test Live URL』. If the test returns any errors, please make any necessary changes so the URL is available to Google before proceeding. Learn more about the different results and how to resolve issues here. Click 『Request Indexing』.

Google Search Console (Old version)

The old 『Fetch as Googlebot』 feature as been migrated to the new Google Search Console process of inspecting URLs following the steps above.

How does the image caching work?

This is unrelated to other forms of caching. It』s a technical term for the mechanism we implemented but works differently to the forms of caching you are probably using.

In Yoast SEO 7.4 we』ve enhanced our image support. You may have noticed in our changelog, we also added caching for images found in a post to reduce the server load. But you might wonder, how does this actually work?

Well, let』s start at the beginning. This only applies to the og:image tag. If you have the social settings enabled, we want to know what image we need to use for your og:image tag. If you don』t have a featured image and there is no Facebook image set, we』ll use images from your post.

We need to calculate the dimensions of the images found in your post and we』ll need to do some operations for each image we find. We don』t want to do this every time a user of your website loads your post. Therefore, we』ll cache the results of these calculations to the database in the postmeta table where the meta_key is set to _yoast_wpseo_post_image_cache.

This postmeta field will be cleared when you save the post (on the save_post action) because those dimensions will need to be recalculated (you may have removed or added images).