v17.9 -
Yoast SEO 17.9 is now available! Yoast SEO now comes with a keyphrase tracking tool powered by Wincher that lets you monitor your keyphrases, straight from the plugin! Make sure to try out this new keyphrase tracking feature and let us know what you think. Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 17.9 in our release post in English or our release post in Spanish!
Enhancements:
Introduces word form support for Japanese.
Bugfixes:
Fixes a bug where a fatal error would be thrown when trying to retrieve the URL of a non-existing taxonomy.
Other:
Replaces the workout assistant images in the Cornerstone and Orphaned workout.
Bumps minimum required Free version to 17.9.
v17.4 - October 19th, 2021 -
Yoast SEO 17.4 is out today! This release comes with several fixes and enhancements to help database performance on larger sites by cleaning up data and streamlining retrieval. Happy updating! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 17.4 in our release post in English or our release post in Spanish!
Enhancements:
Cleans up old unused database items related to a previous version of the internal linking suggestion feature. This will reduce the size of your website’s database and make your site a little bit faster.
Other:
Changes some copy in the Orphaned Content and Cornerstone Content workouts.
Ups the minimum required Free version to 17.4.
v17.3 - October 5th, 2021
Yoast SEO 17.3 is out today! We’ve revamped the two available SEO workouts. It’s become really easy to identify what content you should optimize. Start cleaning up your website and improve your internal linking structure for optimized results in search engines! If you haven’t tried the SEO workouts yet, now is the time to do so!
Enhancements:
Improvements to the Cornerstone workout:
Merges the first three steps, allowing users to search and add cornerstone articles from within the workout.
Improves the step where users can check how well their cornerstones are doing. Cornerstone articles with few links are now listed at the bottom of the table to better indicate they need attention.
Gives users control over which cornerstones they want to optimize, instead of always only showing linking suggestions for the three least linked cornerstones.
Loads all data for the workout when the workout is opened instead of on the page load.
Improvements to the Orphaned workout:
No longer includes terms (categories / tags) as part of the orphaned workout. In the majority of cases terms are very shallow in content and should be optimized in different ways.
Fixes a bug where redirect suggestions were fetched for all orphaned articles instead of only when an article is being removed.
Makes sure the reset button actually resets the entire workout.
Makes sure linking suggestions in both the Cornerstone and the Orphaned workout no longer include articles which already link towards the article you are trying to optimize.
Bugfixes:
Fixes a bug where the sitewide social image was provided to the Algolia search service, instead of the post specific featured image. If you use the social image from the Algolia search results on your search results page, you will have to reindex your Algolia database.
Fixes a bug where a notification would be shown to redirect a post that was already redirected while trashing it via the Orphaned Content workout.
v17.2 - September 21st, 2021
Yoast SEO 17.2 is out now! Yoast SEO comes with many powerful tools that will help you write SEO-proof and readable texts. And as of today, you can also work on your readability in the Farsi language. Readable content is awesome content! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 17.2 in our release post!
Enhancements:
Optimizes performance for saving a post and running the SEO Optimization tool, by inserting and deleting prominent words into and from the database in one query, instead of word by word.
Introduces word form support for more Russian irregular nouns.
Introduces word form support for the most common perfective verbs in Russian.
Other:
Prevents loading Premium if Free is on an outdated version, to prevent backwards compatibility issues.
v17.1.2
September 9th, 2021
Bugfixes:
Fixes a bug where internal linking suggestions, in either the editor or the orphaned content workout, and the related links block would not load on WordPress installations that have a different database table prefix than the default wp_.
v17.1.1 - September 8th, 2021
Bugfixes:
Fixes a bug where newly added Yoast Related Links blocks would load indefinitely.
16.4:
This brand-new version of Yoast SEO comes with a rewritten language analysis, plus a newly supported language: Czech. People who write in this language can now fully use our tools to improve their content. We hope you enjoy this update! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 16.4 in our release post!
Enhancements:
Completes the readability analysis for Czech by adding the transition words, sentence beginnings and passive voice assessments.
Improves keyphrase recognition in Czech by filtering out function words such as dvou, tvému, nějaký.
Improves the accuracy of passive voice detection in Portuguese.
Adds the missing Polish transition word jak wiemy (props to @jarekherisz).
Makes all twitter meta tags self-closing, for the sake of consistency and to allow pages to pass validation in some tools.
Improves the UX consistency between the notification counter in the admin bar and in the sidebar.
Makes the notification counter in the admin bar a closer match to the counter the sidebar.
Bugfixes:
Fixes a bug where new feature notification couldn’t be dismissed.
Fixes a bug where the primary term for custom post types was not always properly set for posts edited in the Gutenberg editor.
Fixes a bug where the schema output could be incorrect on terms with the same ID as the static posts page.
v16.3 - May 18th, 2021
Out now: Yoast SEO 16.3! This release helps you with one of the key aspects of modern SEO: Structured data. Yoast SEO 16.3 comes with a lot of enhancements for the Schema.org implementation. You can now enhance your personal profile in Schema, for instance! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 16.3 in our release post!
Enhancements:
Adds user profile controls for richer profile Schema. If you fill in (for example) your job title, birthdate or honorific prefix in the newly added input fields in your user profile settings, that data will be used in the profile Schema output.
Implements TranslationsPress to reduce the zip size, by no longer shipping translations for Premium in the zip but loading them dynamically instead.
Moves the “Custom fields to include in page analysis” input fields to above the archives settings for supported post types on the Search Appearance > Content types tab, updates the styling of the field, and adds a help icon that links to the related help page.
Other:
Restricts access for managing redirects to Editors and Administrators, and other users with the wpseo_manage_redirects capability.
Fixes a bug where the “Activate your subscription” link would be in the wrong place on the Plugins page. Sorry for the confusion.
Fixes a bug where the strip category base class would be wrongly instantiated under specific circumstances.