Pre-Install Questions: Category Structure and Video

Hi krisfannin,

That’s great ??

The answers, in TL;DR format:
1. No + Yes for URL. Yes for Title, but requires manual input.
2. No plans for it as it’s unnecessary for SEO with HTML5.
2.a WordPress has achieved a great way of making everything find-able when using proper navigation and sidebars, a sitemap isn’t necessary, actually.

3) Can I use other sitemap plugins?
3. Yes, you can disable the sitemap output of The SEO Framework and other plugins can replace this functionality. In fact, The SEO Framework disables its sitemap output when another (popular) sitemap plugin is active.

The answers, in Wall of Text format:

A preamble:
The SEO Framework doesn’t touch the general permalink structure, but only to fix a problem in Domain Mapping and to output the sitemap.xml correctly.

I also see no SEO benefit in this day and age to use special structures. When at least something is included in the URL, it’s good!
A good official video on this is (by Matt Cutts from Google):
https://youtu.be/UbimY0exQIA?t=58s
And another (same guy, same Google):
https://youtu.be/l_A1iRY6XTM?t=50s

So, to get back to your questions:
1. Permalink part: No, and yes.
You don’t need a plugin to do this, but you do need a plugin to force this, The SEO Framework won’t force, for the reasons that it’s not easy for the user, it can cause a lot of bugs, it’s taxing on the system, and it has no SEO benefit.

You can simply go to the permalink settings of your website at https://www.example.com/wp-admin/options-permalink.php
And use this custom structure: /%category%/%postname%/

Standard behavior will still continue, e.g. for the category changelog:
https://theseoframework.com/changelog/ and https://theseoframework.com/category/changelog/ will lead to exactly the same page, this is per WordPress default.
And the hidden feature of The SEO Framework will also still work: The canonical URL point to https://theseoframework.com/category/changelog/ on both URL’s to prevent duplication errors.

But what will change is that the following will be forced, as per your 2nd example:
https://theseoframework.com/2-5-1-undocumented-properties/, must be:
https://theseoframework.com/changelog/2-5-1-undocumented-properties/

1. Title part: Yes.
But you will need to fill in use the Custom Post Title on each post. There’s no customization for this other than the separator and it being left or right. For the reason is still the same: It’s taxing, not easy for the user and can cause bugs.

2: About the sitemap
Nope, the sitemap doesn’t include anything very special. The reason; pulled from the SEO Tip of the Update 2.4.1:

• Navigation is very important for your website. Depending on your content, create an easy menu on what visitors need the most.
• Do not depend on your sitemap too much, if a user can’t find a page [or video/image], then why should a Search Engine?

And from the SEO Tip of the Update 2.3.7:

No sitemap? Not a problem! Search Engines will just follow links within your site to find new pages. This default behavior will also continue with a sitemap available, so no pages are missed even if your sitemap has reached its limit.

I hope this wall of text clears things up! If you are in need of a bigger wall, feel free to ask! ??

Thanks and have a great day!

Thank you! I don’t think I have learned so much in a support forum and very much appreciated.

We tested yesterday and just had a couple of issues, which I am sure you have answers to. Currently using All in One SEO Pro. As well we are using the WPSSO plugin for robust social sharing.

Theme is Extra (Elegant Themes) with the Divi Page Builder built in.

As suggested, we used SEO transporter.

The SEO title fields seemed to not come through. What seemed to be happening is the shortcodes came through (a part of the Divi Builder).

I saw a support post regarding the Divi Builder but did not seem to mention this issue.

Lastly, when we tested sitemap, the corresponding sitemap url was https://www.intelivate.comsitemap.xml (there was no training slash between the two).

Thanks in advance!
Kris

Hi Kris,

Anytime!

Thanks for the bug report on the sitemap.xml url, the fix will be released in the next update (force_slash and forceslash mixup), this will also fix the wrong robots.txt URL :). This bug will not cause any problems on the front-end as it’s only used in the SEO Settings Sitemap metabox.

About the Divi Builder, as it’s a page builder, its output mostly consists of shortcodes.
When something wrong happens with the shortcode syntax, The SEO Framework will read it as default text and will put it in the description, regardless. The SEO Framework is using WordPress Core Shortcode detection functions to strip the shortcodes and their content prior to manipulating the content for the description generation. This is for security reasons.

Therefore, when using a page builder, it’s recommended to manually fill in the description.

I’m unsure what you mean with “come through”, could you elaborate?
Probably related, I’m also unsure about the issue with the SEO data transporter, what did you expect to be transported but didn’t?

Thanks and have a wonderful day!

As always – a very thorough and appreciated response.

You are spot on in my “pre-coffee” description ?? Basically, the shortcodes were falling into the description rather than the actual description.

With SEO transporter, the WP descriptions seemed to come through but for whatever reason either 1) did not transfer to the plugin or 2) were somehow overwritten after the transfer?

I had to disable and go back to AIO SEO at least for now as I did not want to have to go back through and reinput all of the descriptions yesterday.

Hi Kris,

I basically need this information to determine the cause of the description not coming through:

Does All in One SEO Pack Pro and All in One SEO Pack share the same data? I’m unsure about this. If they don’t, then you have to transfer the data to AIOSEO (free) first. I see AIOSEO has built-in migration functions.

If they do share the information or if this keeps happening after the internal data transfer from AOISEO pro to free, then I want to ask the following questions, as I can’t replicate the error:
1. Is it a Post, Page, Product, Custom Post Type or something else, like Category or Tag?
2. Is the manual description filled in?
3. Did you select “Genesis” as the output?
4. Did you select “All in One SEO Pack” as the input?
5. Is the description filled in in the description placeholder of the said post or page?
6. Is the description output in the said post or page meta header?
7. Does this happen on more than 1 page?

Thank you so much!

Sybre – You continue to impress with speed!

I believe they do share the same as I am required to uninstall the AIO free version when installing pro. Are you saying that I should reinstall the AIO free version, disable pro and then do the transfer? Just want to make sure I do it correctly.

As for the other questions:

1) It was for all, however, I didn’t take the time to do a deeper dive into specifics. Just did a rough sampling.

2) Most of the time, the description is filled into the exerpt field and then AIO uses that for the SEO description (99% of the time they are the same). So now that I’m typing that, I am wondering if that is the issue since it’s not manually filled in

3) I did select Genesis for output.

4) I did select AIO as input.

5) See #2

6) It is. I confirmed that.

7) It happened on all the ones I checked. However, what I might do based on your responses, is try and install again and then check those posts/pages where the AIO field is actually filled in as opposed to the majority where AIO just grabs the post excerpt.

Hope that helps and appreciate your support!

Hi Kris,

All metadata is static, so it doesn’t matter if any plugin is active or inactive. However, some plugins tend to remove all metadata after uninstall or deactivation, this is most likely not the cause with AIO, nor with The SEO Framework.

I took a closer look in the FAQ of AIO, and it seems that they share the same metadata. So a transfer should work as intended, no matter if Pro or Free is used.

Taking a look at your answers, I test drove AIO free and I didn’t see an excerpt option there. I believe this is the cause for it not being transferred, as they don’t share the same data regarding this.

If you could send me a screenshot of the AIO settings on the said page or post, I will try to replicate the issue ?? But I believe it’s a mismatch of information, and therefore nothing is unfortunately transferred.

I hope this clears things up!

Sybre – Just getting all set up and loving the simplicity but feedback when inputting. Having them go and try and get everything green ??

I am curious about the Example Description Output

Example Title on Intelivate | This is an example description…

Since we are initially having to reinput manually, what is the benefit of redoing the title and then “Blog” name in the description? You seem to have some great knowledge around this and want to make sure we are doing it right.

Going forward, will SEO framework pull the SEO description from the standard excerpt meta field?

Hi Kris,

Thanks!

Going for all green is recommended, but please try not to over-optimize. Keep the titles organic, even if it means it’s yellow; as explained here:
https://www.ads-software.com/support/topic/length-of-titles?replies=4 (I should really archive and categorize all my replies).

The same applies to the description, for it is being organic and allowing the keywords (title, blogname) to be put in place automatically while preventing of being penalized by Google for automation. This is the reason why the blogname and title is being put in there.

It’s not required to do the SEO settings manually, and that’s why the description settings are there.
However, it’s best to enter a good manual title containing all the keywords, yet still being organic :).

Going forward, will SEO framework pull the SEO description from the standard excerpt meta field?

In the terms and taxonomies (categories, tags), this is indeed the case! In all other content types (Post/Pages/CPT), The SEO Framework generates an excerpt from the content.

I hope this clears things up! Feel free to ask any more questions.