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Hello
looking at my postmeta table I've tons of _yoast.... entries in there - I've imported some posts from a client website and I don't use yeast and I'm not planning to do so - does anybody know how to clean those _yoast meta keys up?thanks
Not sure why you wouldn't want to use Yoast, but if you're looking to remove that information, I would download the Yoast plugin, then activate it.
Once that is done, I would then delete the plugin and make sure that the setting is set to delete all meta entries and Yoast content when the plugin is deleted. Probably the quickest route.
You may or may not be damaging your SEO by doing this though. Obviously, I don't know what your situation is.
-Robert McMillin
RobertMcMillin.comthanks for replying - does the Yoast SEO make that much of a difference compared to the Genesis SEO?
Yeah, like a lot. There really isn't a comparison. Yoast is like a 4 course meal with entrees, the Genesis built in SEO is more along the lines of a good value diner. It's nice, but it's not the best.
-Robert McMillin
RobertMcMillin.comFor example, you can include Twitter cards and Facebook og tags and metadata, generate xml files, sitemaps, get content insights in your posts for optimization, choose focus keywords etc... It really is a full featured SEO solution. Genesis is not.
-Robert McMillin
RobertMcMillin.comThanks for your detailed response - still cannot find the setting that would allow me to delete the metadata - as to Yoast, is it worth to go premium?
I would honestly, just try it out before spending any money, see if it works for you. If you'll be writing posts or updating pages with new content, the tools inside the post/page editor are great for SEO. Also, you can edit how your content will appear in search results, like Google.
On top of this, Yoast has a great reputation and consistently updates their plugins, which is important. I don't work for them or anything, but you really don't have anything to lose by having it on you or your client's sites. Look at it as a feature and tool that you may not need now, but may need later, that also automatically performs some optimization; like adding the appropriate social media metatags to your site to display rich content on social media when your page is shared, or use Twitter cards etc.
On top of that, unless you're worried about SEO and metatags, I wouldn't waste your time or energy worrying about them. How does it benefit your client or you to be worrying about deleting meta tags? Why delete them? If they don't match the content, sure that makes sense, but chances are they do. If anything you would want to verify and optimize on the information that is there. It is all a graphical user interface, so there is no coding or anything needed on your part. I often get hung up on little things, so I'm just giving you my opinion.
Here is a feature list that comes with the free plugin:
Yoast SEO plugin feature list
Focus keyword and content analysis
In the Yoast SEO metabox you can set a focus keyword. This is the keyword you’d like your post or page to rank for in the search results. The plugin then runs a check on your content to check whether you’re using the keyword often enough – but not too often – and in the right spots. Read on about our content analysis »
Post titles and meta descriptions
In the Yoast SEO meta box you can completely optimize your post or page title and meta description, using the snippet editor functionality to see what it would look like in Google. Don’t want to think about that for every single post? Yoast SEO also let’s you set templates for titles and meta descriptions for all types of pages. Read more »
Robots meta configuration
If you want Google not to index your page, or a set of pages, you can do so with Yoast SEO. It’s also possible to tell Google not to follow the links on your page. You can set this for single posts or pages or, for instance archives. Read more »
Readability check
Apart from checking the SEO friendliness of your post, Yoast SEO now also analyzes the readability of the copy you wrote! It checks the length of your sentences and paragraphs, and whether you use transition words or sub headings. Moreover it assesses if you don’t use passive voice too often. On top of that it calculates the Flesch Reading Ease score. At this moment it’s fully available for English and German, and partly available for all other languages.
Canonicals
Your website can show the same content on various URLs, which can confuse Google: this is called a duplicate content issue. The canonical link element prevents this by indicating one URL as the original content holder. WordPress core fixes this partly, and Yoast SEO does the rest! Read more about canonical URLs in Yoast SEO.
Breadcrumbs
The Yoast Breadcrumbs code has been powering many (premium) themes breadcrumbs for ages. Using the same code, the Yoast SEO plugin now gives way more granular control over this breadcrumb. You get to determine, for each post type, which taxonomy to show. You get to determine for each post, page and taxonomy, what title to use for that specific entity in the breadcrumb paths it appears in. Full control, that’s what this entire Yoast SEO plugin is about.
Primary category
Did you just write a post that fits in one category, but should definitely be in another category as well? Of course you can select both categories, but you probably consider one the main category. Yoast SEO brings the solution: you can select a ‘primary category’ for the category that’s most important and should be shown in the breadcrumb.
primary-category
Permalink clean up
Don’t you hate it when someone adds /2 to the end of a link towards you? Or links with all weird variables at the end of the URL? Yoast SEO solves this for you! Just checking one box will redirect all that stuff away, and make sure that your content is always found under the URL you want it to be found under. If you use a Google Custom search engine, checking another box will prevent that from breaking down while using this function.
XML Sitemaps
XML Sitemaps are an essential part of current day SEO, and can thus not be excluded from a complete Yoast SEO plugin. While there are other WordPress XML Sitemap Generators out there, they don’t talk to your SEO plugin. Meaning that if you noindex a page, preventing it from showing up in Google, it might still be in your sitemap. They also don’t allow you to keep certain taxonomies out of your sitemap. This plugin does. And, to boot, it makes your XML Sitemaps look good by using an XSLT stylesheet on them, so humans can read them too.
RSS enhancements
My RSS Footer plugin used to allow you to add a piece of content to the beginning or the end of posts in your RSS feed. The Yoast SEO plugin goes one step further and allows you to add content to both of them, allowing you to link back to your blog and the specific blog post, which is very helpful when you have a lot of people scraping your blog.
Edit your robots.txt and .htaccess
Editing your robots.txt and .htaccess files has never been this easy: you can edit them straight from the Files editor of the Yoast SEO plugin, so you can easily check and or update those files and keep it all nice and clean.
-Robert McMillin
RobertMcMillin.comYoast is great if you ask me, I've been using it on most sites and its really easy to use. The only feature I don't like is xml sitemaps because I often get errors in webmaster tools. Hope that helps.
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