Web stories

Hey, we are pretty conservative when adding features — Google is getting better at understanding content, not worse. A lot of people asked us to implement FAQ schema, but we decided to wait. Lo and behold, Google seems to be already phasing out FAQ from SERP:

https://www.seroundtable.com/google-fewer-rich-results-faq-how-to-29787.html

The FAQ Rich Results apocalypse will not be publicized. #seo pic.twitter.com/FWVHG2r6SM

— AJ Kohn (@ajkohn) July 22, 2020

At this time, we are not planning on making FAQ part of TSF. However, it is pretty simple to have, since WordPress is modular precisely for this reason. There are loads of FAQ schema addons https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/search/faq+schema/ that will do just fine. We might eventually implement it, but it isn’t currently on the table. Sorry for the inconvenience. On the other hand, this is the most secure SEO plugin for 5 consecutive years because we add features carefully.

> Do you have a sitemap for the webstories?

What do you mean? AMP stories? Please point me to a plugin/theme you are talking about so I can check it out. Thanks.

Thanks for your reply. Amp stories have been rebranded and are now Web Stories:
https://google.github.io/web-stories-wp/beta/

They created a new type of content, besides posts and pages.

With Yoast they create a sitemap just for that. I don’t need it but I’d like to see the stories added to the regular map.

Thanks

I would not use BETA if I was you on the production website. Anyway… I tested it, and it works.

But if you change the story URL, it does not change URL sitemap instantly in TSF sitemap. For it to change, you have to go to any page/post and resave it. That will trigger sitemap regeneration.

Even if you won’t do that, there is an automatic 301 redirect, so it basically works, but we can make it more elegant.

TLDR: You can already use it, it works, but it is BETA so it can break at any time.

The story was already created when I switched to your plugin. But I don’t see it in the sitemap even if I resave it.

This is the sitemap:
https://www.fabionodariphoto.com/sitemap.xml
This is a story:
https://www.fabionodariphoto.com/stories/otranto-cosa-vedere/

Thanks

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by outcats85.

Hello!

Web Stories should be included in the sitemap–at least, using version 1.0.0-beta.1.

On the SEO Settings page:
– At “General Settings > Post Types/Exclusions”, make sure you’ve not disabled the post type web-story.
– At “Robots Meta Settings > Indexing”, make sure the web-story is indexable.

I tested this using TSF v4.1, which I will release within 10 days.

Thanks for your reply. All this settings are enable but still I don’t see them added to the sitemap. I even tried to create a new story just in case but it wasn’t added. Weird

Hmm, it works for me without issues, but we will investigate further. I apologize for the problems you are experiencing. We will let you know in the comments here.

Thanks a lot for your reply. This is one of the reasons why I ditched Yoast.

Anyway if it can help I can give you access to the website.

Hello again, it looks like you look genesis as your framework — we use it on our website as well, so we probably won’t need the access. Plus other users will demand the compatibility too, see you can be reasonably sure we will solve it.

A quick update. The problem was that no language was assigned to the stories. This plugin hides the language settings but I found a way to assign one. After that the stories appeared in the sitemap. Thanks!

Hello again!

Which plugin do you use to assign languages?

We only hide the WP Admin toolbar language dropdown for WPML on the SEO settings page because it’s redundant there. It shouldn’t (rather, can’t) do that anywhere else.

To learn more about the sitemap and translation plugins, please see this article.

Sorry, my bad. When I wrote “this plugin” I meant Google’s plugin.

If you try it you’ll see that when you are creating a story they hide most of the options (such as the language options) and there is no way to enable them.

You wrote this:
“Polylang works differently from WPML, since it augments (annihilates) the WordPress installation URL’s integrity, among changing the WordPress Query based on cookies–affecting your site’s performance by roughly 20%. Moreover, because of this, some theme and plugin functionality may stop working altogether after Polylang sets a cookie in your browser.”

Is this true (especially the performance issue) even if the “Detect browser language” option is disabled?

Thanks

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by outcats85.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by outcats85.

Hello!

Ah, that makes much more sense ??

Yes, that’s true, even with the option disabled–the detect option redirects the visitor before setting a cookie, after which it sets a cookie regardless of that setting.

The problem isn’t superficial. It must transform every query going through your site, trying to make sense of which language it should pick. This processing is vehemently expensive on your server since redundant uncached calls are made.

Alas, unless WordPress makes translating pages an integral part of its CMS (which will come at “phase 4 of Gutenberg“), translation plugin authors have to find ways to incorporate it anyway with brute force. Often, the older a plugin is, the more legacy code (“technical debt”) it drags along, which it can’t get rid of. So, you’ll have to pick your poison either way; or, go the Multisite route, which isn’t a turnkey solution.

Got it thanks. Any suggestion for an alternative free plugin? I don’t need it to be fancy but speed is my priority. I have all the translations already. I know WPML is good but it’s not free.

Thanks

Unfortunately, I don’t know any free alternatives. If what you’ve got works, keep using it ??