Incoming links not displayed

Hi @havig

We’re sorry to hear that you are unable to locate the ‘incoming links’ column. Just to confirm, are you using the latest version of Yoast SEO for WordPress v15.5, WordPress v5.6, and the latest versions of your other plugins and themes?

Please try and follow the steps below:

• Install & activate the Yoast Test Helper plugin — https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/yoast-test-helper/
• Go to your WordPress admin dashboard > Tools (sidebar) > Yoast Test
  Locate the Yoast SEO section and select the ‘reset internal link counter’ & ‘reset indexables tables & migrations’ buttons
• After resetting, go to the WordPress admin dashboard > SEO (sidebar) > Tools section and click the ‘Start SEO data optimization’ button

Do both columns then appear in your post and page overview?

We are going ahead and marking this issue as resolved due to inactivity. If you require any further assistance please create a new issue.

Please, do not close the issue. It’s the holidays. It works on small sites but not on large sites. ‘Start SEO data optimization’ does not function is the site is too large.

Not fully resolved.

@havig How large is the site? For sites with more than 10,000 posts, instead of using the ‘Start SEO data optimization’ button, we’d advise using the WP-CLI command wp yoast index --reindex to do the indexation on the server. You can read more about this here:?https://yoa.st/wp-cli-index

@devnihil Evidently, it is a large site, your plugin issues a warning to run WP-CLI. I will forward this to their developers. I do not know how long it will take for them to tackle it. Please, do not close this issue. As soon as they execute this, I will be back and let you know.

Why doesn’t it run on Staging? It would much easier for me to run ‘Start SEO data optimization’ on Kinsta staging and push to the Live environment. It would also take less time for me to tackle this. Is there a way to have it run on Staging?

Hi @havig,

We’ll leave this issue open for you to reply. To help us manage this issue, We’d like to continue to reply only to this topic.

Just to explain a bit more, the SEO data optimization caches the permalinks to improve performance. This means that you have to run it on the production site as well in order for your data like the canonical URLs and breadcrumbs to use the production site’s URL will appear instead of the staging site’s URLs.

We’re sorry for this inconvenience when using a workflow that pushes from staging to production and there have been recent updates for test environments to help improve this.

To help us understand why the SEO data optimization isn’t running on your production or staging site, we have a few questions below:

1. Can you give us an estimate of how many posts or pages are on your site where this is happening or the URL of the site?

2. Are all your plugins and themes updated? Are you using the latest version of Yoast SEO {15.5)? If not, does updating solve the problem? We have instructions available in this guide: How can I update my (free) plugin?.

3. Can you confirm that your site meets the plugin’s minimum requirements? You can often find these details by going to Tools > Site Health > Info in WordPress.

4. Check for JavaScript errors in the console when you run the SEO optimization under SEO > Tools.

5. Check for conflicts by temporarily deactivating all plugins except for Yoast SEO and switching to a default WordPress theme like Twenty Twenty-One. Does the SEO optimization complete successfully?

6. Check your PHP error log for any error messages related to Yoast SEO. You can do this by enabling WordPress debugging or contact your web host.

@priscillamc thank you for the long reply. First, I am not a beginner (so you don’t spend time explaining the basics) ??

Ok. So what I read from your answer is that it will NOT run in a Staging environment. Correct?

I do not like pushing Staging into Production for WordPress Theme/Plugin updates but I always test by updating Staging first. Cannot do this here. I have 3 options:
1- Running this update on Staging, if successful (and short downtime) run it in the Live environment.
2- If too long a process and update successful, push Staging into the Live environment. Evidently, this won’t work because Yoast does not “create” a table of incoming links but caches them where? All links get their domain automatically updated when you push a Staging area to a Live area. Including Yoast’s.
3- Run WP-CLI – I already submitted the ticket to the client’s development team.

Site’s size I estimate about 9,500 to 13,000 pages/posts.
No conflicts, no Javascript errors, no issues with the plugins at all. Just this function. If there were any other issues, I would have solved it myself.

And FYI, I only used the very last step of the original solution. Run the ‘Start SEO data optimization’ on the other sites. That fixed it.

As you have stated that solutions 1 and 2 will not work, we need to wait until the client’s development team runs WP-CLI.

Please keep the ticket open and I’ll get back to you with an update when they provide me with the update.

Thanks.

Hi @havig,

Your original question mentions that you’re not seeing the incoming links column appear. If that’s still the case, can you send us a link to a screenshot that shows the problem? Also, can you send us a link to a screenshot that shows what appears when you click the Screen Options button on the screen?

As for the SEO data optimizaiton, have you or your host have added a WP_ENVIRONMENT_TYPE constant in the WordPress or server configuration files? This is the only case where we don’t expect the data optimization to run. You can find more details in the WordPress reference: wp_get_environment_type().

Are you using a multisite installation or a single-site installation? If the number of posts is the total for a single site, the fastest option would be using the WP-CLI on your production site. Running the data optimization should only be necessary after changing permalinks or after pushing from a staging site.

We’ll wait for your client’s response. Hopefully, that will bring us closer to a solution.

Hi @priscillamc ,

This is a single site install.

Ok. here’s the update:
1- client’s developer run WP-CLI
The output from the –reindex so we have it for reference:

This will clear all previously indexed objects. Are you certain you wish to proceed? [y/n] y
Indexing posts 100% [=============================================] 0:09 / 0:10
Indexing terms 100% [=============================================] 0:01 / 0:11
Indexing general objects 100% [===================================] 0:00 / 0:00
conversionsciencesdev@iUA-conversionsciencesdev:~/public$

2- Nothing changed and the incoming links would not appear.
3- Made a backup and run the SEO optimization process from the Yoast plugin itself. It took about 1 second and it was done.
4- Checked if incoming links was available of displaying on Posts: Nothing.
5- Returned to Tools> and Start SEO Data Optimization button was enabled once more. Run it again. Go back to 4, rinse, repeat.

The link you requested (again, too basic) https://ibb.co/hY17TD9

This is not working. I am sure that it took 1 second because this didn’t happen.

Ideas? Solutions?

Havi

Hi @havig,

It looks like we’ve checked all the reasons why this might be happening and we’re not able to reproduce the same problem, so this sounds like something that might be specific to your site or the settings in some way. We’re sorry to say that we don’t have a solution at this point.

If you didn’t find any conflicts or errors, we need to investigate further but are unable to do so on these forums. You have the option to href=”https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener nofollow ugc”>purchase Yoast SEO Premium and receive our premium email support and we can help you further. If we are not able to resolve any issue, or if you do not wish to use it, we do offer a 30-day refund and you can view the refund policy.

Hi @priscillamc ,

The developer did not find any conflicts or errors. I don’t know what Yoast Premium support could do if you are not able to solve the issue with a plugin feature not appearing here.

But maybe there is one thing you could help me with. I cannot find an article from Yoast (or maybe it was a ticket) that I recall addressed the manual creation of a table to hold this particular value as this bug happened before your plugin update and people were asking for a solution. And if my memory doesn’t fail me, it was something I could ask the developers to handle.

If you could send me a link to it where the names of the tables and fields to be created are detailed, I will pass it on to the developers to execute.

Thank you!

Havi

@priscillamc,

This is the text that appears on SERPs: yoast.com ? Help center
Error: The Yoast Link Statistics Feature Is Currently Disabled. In order for the feature to work correctly, it needs to create two database tables. Some may see an …

The actual post does not have that information any longer: https://yoast.com/help/dont-see-internal-link-counts/

Maybe you could facilitate this information?

Thank you!

Havi

Hi Havi,

Thanks for getting back to us. We’re glad to hear that you have developers to look into this. We only suggest premium as an option so that we can take a look at your site and try to get to the bottom of these issues.

Some of the instructions about allowing Yoast SEO to scan internal links no longer apply. The separate tools to scan the site have been merged into the one SEO data optimization tool (SEO > Tools), so what you see is the latest information.

We have more information about the permissions that Yoast SEO still needs for the databases in this article: Error: Yoast SEO cannot create database tables.

The names of the tables are in this article: https://yoast.com/help/how-can-i-uninstall-my-plugin/#database.

Hi @priscillamc

Of course. I will go through these articles and see if I can figure out a way to make this work.

On my end, I am pretty appalled about the assumption that women cannot be developers (or be geekier or much more capable and experienced than men) still exists after 43 years of being in the marketing/IT industries in all capacities. I would have noticed if there were errors or lack of permissions if I was fully in charge.

But thank you for these articles. I will get back to you regarding what I find. I have a couple of additional ideas I could try. Waiting for the client to give me their approval.

Happy new year!

Havi