Description
Rank Bix SEO is the lightweight SEO plugin that gives you everything you need and nothing you don’t. No bloat, no feature paywalls, no forced upgrades. Professional SEO tools that just work.
rankbix.com | Features | Pricing | Docs | Support
The SEO Plugin That Respects Your Site
Most SEO plugins are either too bloated, too complex, or lock essential features behind expensive plans. Rank Bix SEO is different. Every core feature is free, the codebase is lean, and you stay in control.
Multi-AI Meta Generator
Generate SEO titles and meta descriptions using your own API keys – no middleman markup. Choose from OpenAI (GPT-4o), Claude (Anthropic), Google Gemini, Groq, or Cohere. Generate one post at a time or run bulk generation across hundreds of posts in minutes.
Live SEO Score and Keyword Analysis
A live SEO score ring shows a 0-100 score as you write. See keyword density, whether your focus keyword appears in the title and description, content word count, reading time, and internal/external link counts – all updated in real time without running a separate analysis tool.
SERP Preview
See exactly how your page will look in Google search results before you publish. Switch between Desktop and Mobile previews. Featured image thumbnail shown alongside the snippet – just like Google displays it.
Everything Else You Need
Sitemaps
- XML Sitemap with sitemap index and per post-type sub-sitemaps
- Google News Sitemap
- HTML Sitemap shortcode
- Auto-ping search engines on publish via IndexNow
Schema / Structured Data
- Article, Product, Review, HowTo, FAQ, BreadcrumbList, LocalBusiness
- JSON-LD output – no microdata, no render-blocking scripts
Social and Open Graph
- Open Graph tags for Facebook and LinkedIn
- Twitter / X Cards
- Custom OG image per post
Redirections and Monitoring
- Redirections Manager (301, 302, 307, 308) with auto-redirect on slug change
- 404 Monitor with CSV export
- Broken Link Checker
Content and Images
- Bulk SEO Editor – update titles and descriptions across all posts
- Image SEO – auto alt text and title on upload
- Image Alt Audit with bulk auto-fill
- Duplicate Page
Technical SEO
- Canonical URLs
- Robots.txt editor and URL tester
- LLMs.txt for AI crawlers
- Breadcrumbs shortcode and template function
- Header & Footer code injector – inject scripts, styles, and tracking codes into the head, body, or footer of every page
- Import from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, and SEOPress
Why Developers Trust Rank Bix SEO
- Passes the official WordPress Plugin Check (PCP) with no errors or warnings
- Module-based – enable only what you need
- Zero frontend scripts unless a feature requires them
- Developer-friendly shortcodes and template functions
- Works with posts, pages, WooCommerce products, and all public custom post types
Need More? Upgrade to Pro
Rank Bix SEO Pro adds powerful features for agencies and power users:
- GSC Performance – Real Google Search Console data inside WordPress
- Site Audit – Automated technical SEO crawl of your entire site
- Rank Tracker – Monitor keyword positions over time
- Schema Templates and Rules – Reusable JSON-LD templates with auto-assignment by post type
- Client Reports – Branded SEO reports for agency clients
- White Label – Rebrand the plugin for client sites
- Role Manager – Control SEO access by user role
- WooCommerce SEO – Enhanced product schema, OG tags, and breadcrumbs
- Multi-location – Schema-rich location pages for multi-location businesses
- AI Alt Text Generator – Bulk AI-generated image alt text
- Advanced Redirections, .htaccess Editor, Video Sitemap, and more
Translations
Rank Bix SEO is translation-ready and currently available in the following languages:
- English (US) – default
- Hindi (hi_IN) – हिन्दी
- Korean (ko_KR) – 한국어
- Portuguese (Brazil) (pt_BR) – Português (Brasil)
All translations are community-contributed at translate.wordpress.org. Thank you to every contributor who has helped make this plugin accessible worldwide.
External Services
Rank Bix SEO optionally connects to third-party AI services and search engine ping endpoints.
No data is sent to AI providers unless you configure an API key and manually click an AI generation button. Search engine pings can be disabled in settings.
AI Providers
The following services are contacted only when you have configured the corresponding API key in Rank Bix SEO Settings Advanced AI Keys and clicked an AI generation button in the post editor.
When triggered, Rank Bix SEO sends the post title, site name, tone preference, and optionally a plain-text excerpt of the post content. You can disable sending post content in the same settings screen.
OpenAI
- Endpoint:
https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completionsfor generation andhttps://api.openai.com/v1/modelsfor model list - Data sent: post title, optional post content excerpt, site name, and tone preference
- Terms of Service: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use
- Privacy Policy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy
Anthropic / Claude
- Endpoint:
https://api.anthropic.com/v1/messagesfor generation andhttps://api.anthropic.com/v1/modelsfor model list - Data sent: post title, optional post content excerpt, site name, and tone preference
- Terms of Service: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/aup
- Privacy Policy: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy
Google Gemini / Generative Language API
- Endpoint:
https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/{model}:generateContentfor generation andhttps://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1/modelsfor model list - Data sent: post title, optional post content excerpt, site name, and tone preference
- Terms of Service: https://ai.google.dev/terms
- Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Groq
- Endpoint:
https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completionsfor generation - Data sent: post title, optional post content excerpt, site name, and tone preference
- Terms of Service: https://groq.com/terms-of-use/
- Privacy Policy: https://groq.com/privacy-policy/
Cohere
- Endpoint:
https://api.cohere.com/v1/chatfor generation andhttps://api.cohere.com/v1/modelsfor model list - Data sent: post title, optional post content excerpt, site name, and tone preference
- Terms of Service: https://cohere.com/terms-of-use
- Privacy Policy: https://cohere.com/privacy
Search Engine Pings
When a post is published and the Auto-ping setting is enabled, Rank Bix SEO sends a lightweight HTTP GET request to notify search engines of the updated sitemap.
Only the public sitemap URL is transmitted. No post content, user data, or private content is sent.
- Google Ping:
https://www.google.com/ping?sitemap=<your-sitemap-url> - Bing Ping:
https://www.bing.com/ping?sitemap=<your-sitemap-url>
You can disable automatic pings at Rank Bix SEO Settings Sitemap Auto-pings Google & Bing on publish.
Google Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Microsoft Privacy Statement: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement
IndexNow
When the IndexNow feature is enabled and a post or page is published or updated, Rank Bix SEO sends a single HTTP POST request to the IndexNow API endpoint to notify participating search engines (Bing, Yandex, and others) of the updated URL.
- Endpoint:
https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow - Data sent: your site hostname, a plugin-generated verification key, the URL of the verification key file, and the URL of the published/updated post or page. No post content or user data is sent.
- When: only on post/page publish or update, and only if IndexNow is enabled in Rank Bix SEO Settings Tools IndexNow.
IndexNow is an open protocol. The api.indexnow.org endpoint is operated by Microsoft. Submitted URLs are shared with all IndexNow-participating search engines.
IndexNow Privacy Policy: https://www.indexnow.org/privacypolicy
Microsoft Privacy Statement: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement
Broken Link Checker
When the Broken Link Checker feature is enabled, Rank Bix SEO runs a background cron job that sends HTTP HEAD requests to external URLs found in your post content to check whether those links are still reachable.
- Data sent: a standard HTTP HEAD request to each external URL found in your published post content. No post content, user data, or authentication credentials are included in these requests. The requests appear as ordinary browser-like HEAD requests to the destination server.
- When: only via a background WP-Cron job (runs twice daily, 5 posts per run). The feature is disabled by default and must be explicitly enabled in Rank Bix SEO Settings Tools Broken Link Checker.
- Destinations: any external URLs present in your own published post content. These are third-party URLs you have already linked to; Rank Bix SEO does not choose or control them.
No data from the broken link check is transmitted to Rank Bix SEO or any service operated by the plugin developer. Results are stored only in your own WordPress database.
Screenshots
Blocks
This plugin provides 2 blocks.
- HowTo Schema
- FAQ Schema
Installation
- Upload the
rankbix-seofolder to/wp-content/plugins/. - Activate the plugin through Plugins Installed Plugins.
- Go to Rank Bix SEO in the WordPress admin menu.
- Configure your settings under Rank Bix SEO Settings.
- Edit any post or page to add SEO title, meta description, focus keyword, schema, social image, and other SEO settings.
FAQ
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Does Rank Bix SEO work with WooCommerce?
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Yes. Rank Bix SEO supports WooCommerce products in the post editor meta box, bulk SEO editor, sitemap, and schema features.
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Does Rank Bix SEO support custom post types?
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Yes. Rank Bix SEO supports public custom post types with UI. They can be used in the SEO meta box, sitemap, and bulk editor.
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Can I import SEO data from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, or All in One SEO?
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Yes. Go to Rank Bix SEO Content Manager Import SEO tab and choose your source plugin. Rank Bix SEO can import SEO titles, meta descriptions, focus keywords, canonical URLs, and noindex settings.
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Will Rank Bix SEO slow down my website?
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No. Rank Bix SEO is designed for performance. The XML sitemap is cached, AI model lists are loaded only when needed, and redirects use a dedicated database table with a fast lookup process.
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Do I need an API key for AI features?
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Yes. You need at least one API key from a supported AI provider. AI features do nothing if no key is configured.
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Is any data sent to AI providers automatically?
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No. Data is only sent when you configure an AI provider API key and manually click an AI generation button in the post editor.
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What data is sent to AI providers?
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When you click an AI generation button, Rank Bix SEO sends the post title and optionally a plain-text excerpt of the post content to the selected provider. You can disable sending post content in Settings Advanced AI Keys Allow sending post content. When disabled, only the post title is sent.
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Can I stop the plugin from pinging search engines?
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Yes. Go to Rank Bix SEO Settings Sitemap and uncheck Auto-pings Google & Bing on publish.
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Add this function to your theme template:
<?php rankbix_seo_breadcrumbs(); ?>Alternatively, use the shortcode:
[rankbix_seo_breadcrumbs] -
How do I display an HTML sitemap?
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Use this shortcode on any page:
[rankbix_seo_sitemap]Optional shortcode attributes include
show_tags="0",columns="3", andorderby="date". -
Where is the redirect debug tool?
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Visit any redirected URL and append
?rankbix_seo_debug_redirect=1. Logged-in administrators can see redirect match details instead of being redirected. -
Can I use Rank Bix SEO only for basic SEO?
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Yes. You can use only the features you need, such as meta titles, descriptions, Open Graph, sitemap, schema, redirects, or breadcrumbs.
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Does the AI meta generator cost extra?
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No. You use your own API key from OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Groq, or Cohere and pay only your provider’s standard rate. Rank Bix SEO adds no markup and requires no Rank Bix account to use AI features.
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Can I use multiple AI providers, or do I have to pick one?
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You can add API keys for all five supported providers and switch between them at any time. This lets you compare output quality or use a cheaper model for bulk generation and a more capable model for individual posts.
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Does Rank Bix SEO require a Rank Bix account?
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No. Every free feature works without creating an account. A licence key is required to activate Rank Bix SEO Pro, but there is no account login step inside WordPress.
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What happens to my SEO data if I deactivate the plugin?
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Your SEO data – titles, descriptions, OG images, redirect rules, schema settings – is stored as standard WordPress post meta and options. It stays in your database after deactivation. You can choose to delete it permanently on uninstall via Rank Bix SEO Settings Advanced Remove data on uninstall.
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Does Rank Bix SEO work with Elementor, Bricks, Kadence, and other page builders?
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Yes. The SEO meta box appears on any post or page regardless of which builder you use to edit the content. Page builder output is analysed in the same way as the standard block editor.
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What is IndexNow and should I enable it?
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IndexNow lets you notify Bing and other participating search engines the moment a page is published or updated, rather than waiting for them to crawl it on their schedule. It is optional but recommended. Enable it in Rank Bix SEO SEO Tools IndexNow.
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What is LLMs.txt and do I need it?
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LLMs.txt is an emerging standard that tells AI crawlers – such as those used by ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude – what your site is about and which pages they may reference. If you want your content to appear in AI-generated answers, enabling LLMs.txt in Technical SEO is a simple step that takes under a minute.
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Does Rank Bix SEO work on WordPress Multisite?
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Basic multisite compatibility is included. Each subsite manages its own SEO settings, sitemap, and redirects independently. Network-level management across all subsites is on the Pro roadmap.
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Does Rank Bix SEO work with multilingual sites?
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Yes. Rank Bix SEO is compatible with WPML and Polylang. Each language version of a post or page has its own SEO title, meta description, focus keyword, and OG image. The XML sitemap includes all language variants automatically. The plugin interface itself is translation-ready and available in English, Hindi, Korean, and Brazilian Portuguese, with more languages added via translate.wordpress.org.
Reviews
Contributors and Developers
“Rank Bix SEO – Lightweight SEO Toolkit with Multi-AI” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
“Rank Bix SEO – Lightweight SEO Toolkit with Multi-AI” has been translated into 3 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate “Rank Bix SEO – Lightweight SEO Toolkit with Multi-AI” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Change Log
1.2.3
Compatibility
- Tested and confirmed compatible with WordPress 7.1.
New Features
- Header & Footer code injector – A new Technical module that lets you inject custom scripts, styles, and tracking codes (Google Analytics, Tag Manager, cookie banners, Meta Pixel, etc.) into the
<head>, immediately after<body>open, or before</body>close on every page. Three independent CodeMirror HTML editors with real-time syntax highlighting. The Save button disables automatically when syntax errors are detected. PHP tags are stripped server-side so only HTML runs. The module is zero-impact when toggled off – no frontend output, no admin menu entry. - Conditional injection – Each of the three Header & Footer code areas (head, body, footer) now has an “Apply to” dropdown so you can target injection to All pages, Homepage only, All singular pages, Blog posts only, or Pages only. Mix and match per area – for example, inject Analytics globally but target a cookie banner to all singular pages only.
- Per-post disable – A new checkbox in the SEO meta box Advanced tab lets you disable all head/footer code injection on individual posts or pages. Useful for landing pages or pages with their own tracking setup.
- Dashboard Module Status – Header & Footer now appears in the Module Status card on the dashboard so you can see its on/off state at a glance alongside all other modules.
- Admin toolbar – Header & Footer is now listed in the Rank Bix SEO admin toolbar dropdown for quick one-click access from any page.
- Hide toolbar score badge – A new option in Settings > General > Admin Toolbar lets you hide the coloured SEO score pill from the toolbar. Useful on PHP-template sites where the score count may not reflect actual frontend output.
- Toolbar score badge – smart threshold – The SEO score badge in the admin toolbar is now hidden automatically when the stored post content has fewer than 50 words after stripping shortcodes and HTML tags. Prevents a misleading score from appearing on PHP-template or page-builder pages where the editor content is minimal but the rendered frontend output is not.
- Keyword in URL slug – skip for homepage and posts page – The “Focus keyword in URL slug” check is now skipped entirely when editing the static front page or the designated blog archive page. The slug for those pages does not represent their public URL (which is always
/), so a failing slug check was misleading and is no longer shown. - SEOPress importer – You can now import titles, descriptions, focus keywords, canonicals, noindex, and nofollow settings from SEOPress. Appears automatically on the Import tab whenever SEOPress data is detected in the database.
- Cookie Bar – A new Technical module for GDPR-compliant cookie consent. Displays a fully customisable banner (position, message, button text, background/text colours, cookie duration). Integrates with Google Consent Mode v2 and Matomo. Automatically blocks scripts injected via the Header & Footer module until the visitor accepts. Toggling the module off disables all frontend output and removes the admin menu entry.
1.2.2
New Features
- Header & Footer code injector – A new Technical module that lets you inject custom scripts, styles, and tracking codes (Google Analytics, Tag Manager, cookie banners, Meta Pixel, etc.) into the
<head>, immediately after<body>open, or before</body>close on every page. Three independent CodeMirror HTML editors with real-time syntax highlighting. The Save button disables automatically when syntax errors are detected. PHP tags are stripped server-side so only HTML runs. The module is zero-impact when toggled off – no frontend output, no admin menu entry.
1.2.1
New Features
- Redesigned SEO meta box – The SEO tab has been completely rebuilt with a modern, data-rich layout that makes it faster to optimise every post without switching tools. The redesign is non-destructive – all saved SEO data is preserved and works without any migration.
- Live SEO score ring – An animated circular score ring sits at the top of the SEO tab showing a 0-100 score based on your keyword analysis results. The ring fills with a colour-coded stroke (green 70+, amber 40-69, red below 40) and updates live after every analysis run. A “Great / Good / Needs work” label appears beneath the number.
- Keyword density chip – As you type your focus keyword, a real-time KD badge appears showing the keyword density as a percentage of total post content. Green for the ideal 0.5-2.5% range, amber outside it.
- Keyword-in-field indicators – Green “Keyword found” or red “Keyword missing” badges appear next to the SEO Title and Meta Description labels and update live as you type in any of the three fields – no need to run a full analysis to see whether your keyword is present.
- Visual length bars – SEO Title and Meta Description each show a colour-coded progress bar beneath the input reflecting the current character count relative to the recommended range (green = good, amber = short, red = over).
- Content stats strip – Word count, estimated reading time (200 wpm), and internal/external link counts are calculated from the post content and displayed in the keyword header on every page load. Word count is a feature many competing plugins lock behind premium plans.
- Search Preview open by default with device toggle – The SERP preview now expands automatically when the meta box loads. A Desktop/Mobile toggle in the header lets you switch between a full desktop result and a mobile card view without leaving the tab.
- Featured image in SERP preview – The desktop and mobile SERP preview cards now show a thumbnail of the post’s featured image (or OG image if set) on the right side of the result snippet, matching how Google displays image-rich results.
- SEO Title column – The posts list now shows the full SEO title (up to 60 characters) giving you a clear at-a-glance view of your optimised title without opening each post.
- SEO Desc column – The posts list now shows the meta description (up to 160 characters), letting you review your full description content at a glance across all posts.
Bug Fixes
- Social preview cards showing “No image selected” despite featured image set – On block editor (Gutenberg) pages, the social preview cards incorrectly showed the placeholder text on page load even when a featured image was set. The JS initialisation ran at 50ms before Gutenberg’s media store cached the attachment, found no image, and overwrote the PHP-rendered card. Fixed by reading the image URL from the PHP-rendered preview element (which already has the correct URL resolved server-side) rather than racing the async media store.
- OG image Remove button not clearing SERP thumbnail – Clicking Remove on the OG image left a stale URL in the preview image element, which caused the old image to reappear when the social cards next updated. The Remove handler now clears the
srcattribute before calling the image update routine.
Improvements
- SEO Title optimal range updated to 50-60 characters – The recommended title length has been tightened from 40-70 to 50-60 characters, matching Google’s desktop truncation point (~580-600 px). The progress bar, character counter, score check, bulk editor, and all JS now reflect the new range consistently.
- Post and Page are always enabled for SEO Meta Box – Post and Page post types are permanently enabled in Settings and cannot be disabled, removing a common source of misconfiguration. All other post types remain optional.
- Default post types changed to Post and Page – Fresh installs and fallback behaviour now default to Post and Page only, rather than all public post types on the site.
- Focus Keyword column removed from posts list – The Focus Keyword column has been removed from the posts/pages list table to reduce clutter. The keyword is still used internally for all score and analysis calculations.
- TOC theming via CSS custom properties – The Table of Contents block now uses CSS custom properties (
--toc-max-width,--toc-title-size,--toc-item-size) for its layout and sizing, making site-level theme overrides simpler without needing to target deeply nested selectors.
1.2.0
New: Complete UI Redesign with Sidebar Navigation
- New sidebar navigation – All plugin screens now share a persistent left-hand sidebar, giving you one-click access to Dashboard, Settings, Image SEO, Redirections, 404 Monitor, Schema Templates, Rank Tracker, and all other modules from any page
- Dashboard SEO Scores widget – A new SEO Scores card on the dashboard shows a Good / OK / Poor breakdown of your published content, with a post-type switcher (Posts, Pages, and any custom post types) and direct View links that open the post list pre-filtered by score band
- Settings tabs reorganised – Image SEO moved from the Advanced tab to General (where always-on core features live); AI Meta Generator API keys and model preferences moved from Advanced to Tools; 404 Monitor removed from Settings entirely (free) — access it directly via the sidebar link
- Image SEO template fix – The %filename% variable now correctly resolves the original upload filename on newly uploaded images (previously fell back to the post title due to a WordPress hook timing issue where
_wp_attached_filemeta is written afteradd_attachmentfires)
1.1.15
- Added: Sitemap post-type exclusions – choose which post types to include or exclude from your XML sitemap
- Added: Split archive noindex controls – separately control noindex for author archives, date archives, and media attachment pages
- Added: Organization / Person Knowledge Graph schema – output JSON-LD on your homepage to power Google Knowledge Panels
- Added: Global robots snippet controls – set max-snippet, max-image-preview, and max-video-preview directives site-wide
- Added: Facebook App ID and Twitter/X site handle settings for Open Graph and Twitter Cards
- Fixed: Duplicate redirect entries when the same source URL is saved more than once
- Fixed: Auto-created redirects causing double-prefix URLs on subdirectory installs
- Fixed: Bulk delete on Redirections page returning “No IDs provided” error
- Fixed: 404 Monitor prune lock now set before the COUNT query to prevent excessive database queries
- Fixed: Pagination offset computed before page clamp, causing empty results on out-of-range page numbers
1.1.14
New Features
- Breadcrumbs module – complete rewrite – The breadcrumb trail builder has been rebuilt from the ground up as a shared static method (
build_trail()) used by both the visual renderer and JSON-LD schema output, ensuring they never drift out of sync. The trail now handles WooCommerce products (shop page + deepest product category ancestors), standard blog posts (blog archive page + category ancestors), hierarchical pages (all page ancestors), custom post types (archive link + first hierarchical taxonomy path), taxonomy archives (term ancestors for nested categories/tags), date archives (year, month, day with linked parent levels), search results, 404 pages, and author archives. All breadcrumb links includearia-current="page"on the final item for accessibility and Google compliance. - Breadcrumbs – dedicated Settings tab – A new Breadcrumbs tab appears in Settings when the module is active. It is automatically hidden when the module is disabled and the settings page redirects to General. The tab provides Display Settings (separator field with quick-pick buttons for common characters, home label, prefix text, include archive page toggle) and a Usage card with the PHP function and shortcode reference.
Improvements
- Settings – Robots & Indexing tab reordered – The robots.txt editor and LLMs.txt cards now appear at the top of the tab, with the noindex settings card below. Files that are actively served take visual priority over indexing directives.
- Features page – Configure links – All modules on the Features page now show a Configure link pointing directly to their relevant settings section: Breadcrumbs to
#breadcrumbs, IndexNow to#tools, LLMs.txt to#robots, Robots to#robots. Modules with no dedicated settings section show an Active badge only. - Tools tab – IndexNow key file link – The “Key file served at: /hash.txt” label has been replaced with “Key file: View key file” to avoid repeating the key hash that is already shown above.
- Bulk Editor – private posts excluded – Private posts and non-navigable post types (Elementor templates, JetEngine templates, etc.) are now excluded from all Bulk Editor queries, the post count, the status dropdown, and the Average SEO Score calculation.
- Breadcrumb CSS – CSS custom properties – Frontend styles now use CSS custom properties (
--rbs-bc-link,--rbs-bc-current,--rbs-bc-sep-color,--rbs-bc-size) with defaults, making Pro style overrides possible without modifying the stylesheet. Font size unified to 16px (14px on mobile). Elementor kit override compatibility added via!importanton color and font-size declarations. - Meta title – archive pages – Post type archives, date archives (year/month/day), and author archives now generate proper titles. Previously post type archive pages fell through to the
elsebranch returning only the site name. - Meta title – template variable resolution –
%post_title%in a taxonomy title template now resolves to the term title instead of showing literally when called without a post object. All remaining unresolved%variable%placeholders are automatically stripped after replacement so they never appear in the browser tab. - Meta description – archive and search pages – Meta descriptions are now generated for post type archives (using the post type description), author archives (using the author bio), and search result pages (a “Search results for: query” string). Previously these pages output no description at all.
Bug Fixes
- Error with Yoast SEO –
RankBixSEO_TOC::add_heading_ids()andmaybe_auto_insert()declared a strictstringtype on the$contentparameter. Yoast SEO callsget_the_excerpt()internally which triggers thethe_contentfilter withnull, causing a fatal TypeError. Both methods now accept?string(nullable) and return early safely. - Title template
%post_title%not replaced on archives – When a taxonomy title template was saved containing%post_title%, it was passed throughresolve_template()with a null post object, leaving the placeholder literal in the browser title. - Post type archives showing only site name –
get_title()had nois_post_type_archive()branch, so post type archive pages returned onlyget_bloginfo('name')instead of the archive title. - Dashboard widget – false homepage title alert on static front page – The “Homepage SEO title is not set” alert in the dashboard widget checked only the global
rankbix_seo_home_titleoption. When WordPress is configured to use a static page as the front page, the SEO title lives in the page’s own post meta (_rankbix_seo_title), not the global option. The widget now checks post meta for static front pages, suppressing the alert when the title is set on the page itself. The alert link also now points directly to the page editor rather than General settings.
1.1.13
New Features
- Elementor SEO panel – A dedicated SEO tab now appears in the Elementor editor sidebar alongside the Elements and Globals tabs. The panel includes a live Google SERP preview card (showing the post’s OG image or featured image thumbnail, URL breadcrumb, title, and description – all updating in real time as you type), an SEO Title field, a Meta Description field, a Focus Keyword field, and an Advanced tab with Canonical URL, Robots directives (noindex, nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet), and a Cornerstone Content flag. All fields save automatically when you click Elementor’s own Update button – no separate save action needed. The panel is hidden for Elementor template post types (elementor_library, landing pages, floating buttons) where per-post SEO data is not applicable. If an AI provider key is configured in Settings, a Generate button appears next to the SEO Title and Meta Description fields to produce AI-written copy using the post title, content, and focus keyword.
- Bulk Editor – AI generation – A “Generate SEO for selected” button appears in the Bulk Editor toolbar when one or more rows are checked. Clicking it processes each selected row in sequence, filling any empty SEO Title, Meta Description, and Focus Keyword fields. If an AI provider key is configured it generates copy using the post title and cleaned page content; otherwise it derives values from the post title and first paragraph. Existing field values are never overwritten. Each processed row pulses blue while in progress, turns green when filled by AI, or yellow when filled from page content, so progress is visible throughout.
Improvements
- Character count colour logic – The character progress bar and counter on SEO Title (optimal 30-60 chars) and Meta Description (optimal 120-160 chars) fields now use three distinct states: yellow when the text is too short to be effective, green when it is within the recommended range, and red when it exceeds the limit. Previously the bar turned green as soon as any character was entered, making it impossible to tell whether the length was actually useful.
- Homepage SEO – static front page notice – When WordPress is configured to use a static page as the front page (Settings > Reading), the Homepage SEO section in the plugin’s General settings now displays a notice explaining that the page’s SEO fields should be edited directly on that page, with a button to open it for editing. Only the Title Separator field remains visible in this state, as it applies site-wide rather than to the front page specifically.
- Bulk Editor – per-page 30-row option – The rows-per-page selector now includes a 30-row option alongside the existing 20, 50, 100, and 200 options. The default is 20 rows per page.
- AI content cleaning – Shortcodes and excess whitespace are stripped from post content before it is sent to an AI provider or used for content-based fallback generation. This prevents raw shortcode tags such as
[pfc id="62"]from appearing in generated copy. - WordPress core sitemap suppressed – When the Rank Bix SEO sitemap module is active, WordPress’s built-in sitemap (
/wp-sitemap.xml) is now automatically disabled. Having two sitemaps active at once causes duplicate URLs and confuses search engine crawlers. If the sitemap module is turned off, the WordPress default comes back as normal.
Bug Fixes
- Noindex checkbox out of sync between tabs – The meta box has a “Noindex this page” checkbox on the SEO tab and a separate noindex checkbox in the Robots grid on the Advanced tab. Both write to the same meta key but were independent in the UI – unchecking one while the other (on a hidden tab) remained checked meant the meta was saved as noindex even though the user had explicitly unchecked it. Both checkboxes now sync instantly when either is changed.
1.1.12
Bug Fixes
- Duplicate Page – page builder CSS regeneration – When duplicating a page built with Elementor, Beaver Builder, Bricks, Oxygen, or Divi, the builder’s cached CSS (tied to the original post ID) was copied to the duplicate. The builder then skipped regeneration and served stale or mismatched styles on the new post. The CSS cache meta keys (
_elementor_css,_fl_builder_cache_ver,_bricks_page_styles,ct_css_style,_et_pb_css) are now excluded from the duplicate copy, forcing each builder to generate clean, post-ID-correct CSS on first open.
For the full changelog see rankbix.com/changelog/.