Lack of documented behavior caused severe SEO damage

Hello @fariazz,

Thank you for contacting the support, and sorry for any inconvenience that might have been caused due to that.

Please check this screencast:
https://i.rankmath.com/v/ViHsFV (sorry, the voiceover did not come up in the video)

From what we understood, you are under the impression that Rank Math hinders the default WordPress redirection system, which it does not.

Rank Math simply extends the redirection functionality.

Please let us know if we understood differently.

Looking forward to helping you.

Thanks for the prompt?response. Strange, as the behavior in the video was not what we experienced on our website.

The test I did to narrow the issue down to RankMath was very simple: I turned the plugin off and all of the sudden, the old permalinks were working again. What I did next was re-enable it, and only turn off the redirection module. After doing that, the old permalinks worked again. We did absolutely no other change.

Hello @fariazz,

WordPress doesn’t have any automatic redirections created for when you change the permalink structure or the slugs of the pages.

The only automatic redirections happen with the canonical redirect feature, which in some cases takes pages with a similar slug and redirects them to the canonical version, but that is not something that can be relied upon, and instead, it’s recommended that people add actual 301 redirections when they make any changes to the permalinks or slugs on the website.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any other questions.

I’ve never said that WordPress automatically redirects pages or changes to the permalink structure.

WordPress does automatically redirect post permalinks when you change them in the Edit Post page – even if it is radically different to the initial ones. You even showed that in the video that you shared in your first response!

Unless I’m missing something here, there seems to be a lack of knowledge as how your own plugin works, which is deeply concerning.

Please see this video in which I prove that the plugin indeed overrides the default behavior when the Redirection module is activated:?https://app.screencast.com/7p4z6HhkhpmVV

Hello @fariazz,

It seems like your site is using the following function and saving the old slugs in the postmeta table: https://developer.www.ads-software.com/reference/functions/wp_check_for_changed_slugs/

This isn’t the default behavior of WordPress and doesn’t happen with every site. That’s why we created the Auto Post Redirect feature.

Having said that, for this function to work, you will have to keep the default behavior for non-existing pages. Currently, you have set the Fallback Behavior as Redirect to Homepage in the settings of our plugin and that’s why our plugin is redirecting the non-existing URLs to the homepage.

To keep the URLs redirecting to their new slug, please set the Fallback Behavior to Default 404 in WP Dashboard > Rank Math SEO > General Settings > Redirections.

Hope that helps. Let us know if you need any other assistance.

We have searched our entire codebase for this function and there is not a single occurrence in our wp-content folder or subfolders. Moreover, I’ve observed this same behavior in the 25+ WordPress sites that I’ve worked on. Automatic post direction of old slugs IS a default WordPress behavior as per your initial video (YOUR OWN VIDEO –> https://i.rankmath.com/v/ViHsFV ).

If you don’t want to update your documentation and product to warn people about the potential dangers of your “Redirection” module that’s your problem.

I’m not gonna re-enable the Redirection module, why would I risk my site’s SEO to take another hit? I’m not asking you for help, just leaving a review to share my experience with your plugin and the damage it cause to our company.