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Yoast SEO changelog - page 2

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18.9

Yoast SEO 18.9 is out now! In this release, we have improved the first experience users have with the plugin. The first-time configuration takes users by the hand and guides them in properly setting everything up so that search engines understand their site. Make sure to run that first-time configuration to see if you’ve filled everything in correctly! Read more about what's new in Yoast SEO 18.9 in our release post in English or our release post in Spanish!

18.8

Did you catch the latest update from Google? Today they made some small changes to how they read XML sitemaps. But you don't have to worry about that - today's Yoast SEO 18.8 update already applies the latest standards. Read more about what's new in Yoast SEO 18.8 in our release post in English or our release post in Spanish!

Enhancements​

  • Removes XML sitemap image properties title and caption following deprecation by Google.

18.6

Meet Yoast SEO 18.6: a small Yoast SEO update, fixing a number of bugs, including several bugs related to the Wincher integration. With the Wincher integration, you can track the rankings of your articles in the search results. If you haven’t checked that feature out, please do so! Read more about what's new in Yoast SEO 18.6 in our release post in English or our release post in Spanish!

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where a version mismatch caused broken styling in WooCommerce select fields when linking products.
  • Fixes a bug where keyphrases could show up multiple times in Wincher table.
  • Fixes a bug where the Wincher connection flow would fail on certain installations.
  • Fixes a bug where the Wincher integration could throw a fatal error on PHP 8.0+.

Other​

  • Adds a disabled Wincher integration toggle to the Network admin/Multisite Integrations tab.

18.5.1

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where a fatal error would occur on the site health page if WordFence was installed and active.
  • Fixes a bug where a fatal error would occur on PHP 5.6.

18.4.1

Other​

  • Reverts the 18.4 release due to errors in the WordProof integration.

18.4

In Yoast SEO 18.4, we're launching a new integration with an innovative new service called WordProof. WordProof offers a way to add timestamps to your content and add those to the blockchain to prove ownership. Try it out now! Read more about what's new in Yoast SEO 18.4 in our release post in English or our release post in Spanish!

Enhancements​

  • Adds the possibility to timestamp your Privacy Policy page and your WooCommerce Terms and Conditions page by use of a WordProof certificate.

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where the Google preview would display wrong breadcrumbs for child pages.
  • Fixes a potential error related to the has_ancestors column of our indexables table. Props to @junaidbhura.

Other​

  • Sets the minimum required WordPress version to 5.8.

17.7.1

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where the notification to start configuring Yoast SEO would also been shown on existing installations.
  • Fixes a bug where Yoast addons would not inherit the auto-update settings from Yoast SEO.
  • Fixes a bug where changing the auto-update settings of another plugin could stop Yoast addons from being auto-updated.

17.4

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!

Enhancements​

  • Improves two queries used to determine whether or not a site has been fully processed using our SEO data optimization. This should prevent potential slowdowns in extremely large sites.

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where the url property in the search page schema would be empty.
  • Fixes a bug where a duplicate canonical tag was output for web stories created with the Web Stories plugin. Props to swissspidey.
  • Fixes a bug where a race condition could occur that caused the rewrite rules to be flushed on every page request when using a persistent cache like Redis. This may speed up your site’s load times if it’s using persistent caching.

17.3

Yoast SEO 17.3 is out today! This release includes general bug fixes to some SEO assessments and improvements to indexables data management. Now is as good a time as any to start optimizing your content with Yoast SEO! Read more about what's new in Yoast SEO 17.3 in our release post!

17.2.1

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug that could lead to a fatal error in the breadcrumbs block for auto-draft posts.

17.2

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!

17.1

Yoast SEO 17.1 is out today! In this release, you’ll find a couple of small changes that’ll help you write great titles that stand up to Google’s scrutiny. It also includes some behind-the-scenes improvements, including several fixes for our indexables data management. For now, please enjoy Yoast SEO and write the best possible content in the language of your choice! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 17.1 in our release post!

17.0

Say hello to Yoast SEO 17.0! This release includes some behind-the-scenes improvements, including several fixes for our indexables data management. For now, please enjoy Yoast SEO and write the best possible content in the language of your choice! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 17.0 in our release post!

Enhancements​

  • Speeds up load times of admin pages by preventing unnecessary counts of unindexed objects.
  • Cleans up items from the database that are not used anymore, thereby reducing the size of many sites' database.
  • Improves the overall performance and responsiveness in Gutenberg.

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where the Save all button in the bulk editor did not work.
  • Fixes a bug where the Existing column in the bulk editor did not update after save.

Other​

  • Updates the message that recommends you to install WooCommerce SEO when WooCommerce is installed.

16.8

Yoast SEO 16.8 is out today! This release comes with an updated readability analysis with support for two new languages: Norwegian and Slovak. Did you know that Yoast SEO is nearing language support for twenty languages? Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 16.8 in our release post!

16.7

Meet Yoast SEO 16.7! This release comes with extended support for headless WordPress. Yoast SEO comes with a REST API that developers can use to access our metadata in a headless WordPress installation. In Yoast SEO 16.7, we’re making more data available and also in a different format: JSON. Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 16.7 in our release post!

16.6.1

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where many Premium editor features would not work if Yoast SEO was updated to version 16.6 while Yoast SEO Premium was still on version 16.5 or lower.

16.6

Yoast SEO 16.6 comes with a new round of improvements and fixes. We’ve updated the analysis to exclude sentences inside tables and table captions from the consecutive sentences assessment. Enjoy! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 16.6 in our release post!

16.5

Yoast SEO 16.5 is out today! This release comes with a number of fixes and enhancements. For instance, easier social media settings, better understanding of the Turkish and Czech languages and improvements to the breadcrumbs schema output. Read all about it in our release post!

16.4

Meet Yoast SEO 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!

16.3

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. Enjoy! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 16.3 in our release post!

16.1.1

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where a fatal error would be thrown when creating a new Elementor template or editing an existing one.

16.0.2

Enhancements​

  • Changes the deactivation prevention text on the Plugins page from ‘Deactivate Yoast SEO Premium first’ to ‘Required by Yoast SEO Premium’ to avoid confusion.

16.0.1

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where in rare cases incorrect usage of WP_Query could lead to incorrect SEO data.

16.0

Yoast SEO 16.0: The Sweet Sixteen release is out! It comes with several fixes and improvements. Happy updating and thank you for using Yoast SEO! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 16.0 in our release post!

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where invalid breadcrumbs would show PHP warnings.
  • Fixes a bug where a fatal error would be thrown when a post ancestor was not an indexable.
  • Fixes a bug where a fatal error would be thrown when both Yoast SEO and Polylang for WooCommerce were installed, and the site contained WooCommerce variable products. Props to manooweb.

Other​

  • Sets the WordPress tested up to version to 5.7 and minimum supported WordPress version to 5.6.

15.9.2

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where the order of the robots values was suboptimal when running WordPress 5.7. Note that the order has no effect on how the values are interpreted.

15.9

Yoast SEO 15.9 is out! This release comes with performance improvements and general enhancements. Happy updating and thanks for using Yoast SEO! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 15.9 in our release post!

Enhancements​

  • Adds a preview of the chosen image for the organization and person image, social images, Facebook front page image and Facebook default image.
  • Improves interoperability and consistency in database queries.
  • Improves the performance by preventing database queries for the homepage indexable.

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where the disabled style of the switch toggles didn't look right.

15.6.2

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where notifications in the notification center would not be dismissible on sites using FastCGI.

15.6.1

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where the estimated reading time would not be shown when posts that were created before Yoast SEO 15.6 were shared on Slack.

Other​

  • Adjusts the default words per minute for the estimated reading time from 250 words per minute to 200 words per minute.

15.5

Out now: Yoast SEO 15.5! You can easily check if you are doing a great job in terms of the readability of your text when writing in Hungarian! Yoast SEO helps you produce a powerful piece of content that’s easy to read. It also gives you feedback on what to improve! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 15.5 in our release post!

15.4

It’s here: Yoast SEO 15.4! In this release, you’ll find a seamless, easy-to-use integration of Yoast SEO with Elementor. Building websites and optimizing content for the search engines now in one workflow! Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 15.4 in our release post!

15.3

Out now: Yoast SEO 15.3! In this release, you’ll find full language support for Hebrew in our analysis! This makes it a lot more natural to optimize your posts and it lets you focus on the writing part. Read more about what’s new in Yoast SEO 15.3 in our release post!

15.2.1

Bugfixes​

  • Fixes a bug where AMP and W3C validation would break because Twitter meta tags would contain 'value' attributes instead of 'content' attributes.