Title: [Plugin: WordPress SEO by Yoast] stopwords functionality not working
Last modified: August 20, 2016

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# [Plugin: WordPress SEO by Yoast] stopwords functionality not working

 *  Resolved [davidpauldoyle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidpauldoyle/)
 * (@davidpauldoyle)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/)
 * I’m using WordPress SEO plug-in. Yoast says on his website that it automatically
   removes stopwords once you save a blog post, but I don’t see that happening. 
   Is that functionality still supposed to work? Or has it been removed? If it’s
   supposed to work, is there a setting somewhere that I’m missing to activate it?
 * [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/)

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

 *  [majordude](https://wordpress.org/support/users/majordude/)
 * (@majordude)
 * [14 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704037)
 * I have the same problem.
 *  Plugin Contributor [Joost de Valk](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joostdevalk/)
 * (@joostdevalk)
 * [14 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704044)
 * Which version of WordPress SEO are you using?
 *  Thread Starter [davidpauldoyle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidpauldoyle/)
 * (@davidpauldoyle)
 * [14 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704045)
 * I have 1.1.3 installed. I thought it was the latest since I haven’t been prompted
   to upgrade the plug-in within WordPress. I was under the impression that I would
   be automatically prompted to upgrade the plug-in when a new update was released.
   I just noticed that the latest version is 1.1.6. However, I don’t see any upgrade
   instructions. If I download the latest version and simply copy the new folder
   to the plug-ins directory, will I lose my current settings/ configuration? How
   do I upgrade from 1.1.3 to 1.1.6 without losing my current settings?
 * Thank you.
 *  Plugin Contributor [Joost de Valk](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joostdevalk/)
 * (@joostdevalk)
 * [14 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704046)
 * You won’t loose any settings. The stopword removal functionality was broken and
   will be re-fixed in 1.1.7, probably out later this week, I just committed it 
   to the development version.
 *  Thread Starter [davidpauldoyle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidpauldoyle/)
 * (@davidpauldoyle)
 * [14 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704047)
 * Wonderful. Thank you.
 *  Plugin Contributor [Joost de Valk](https://wordpress.org/support/users/joostdevalk/)
 * (@joostdevalk)
 * [14 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704048)
 * It’s going out today 😉
 *  Thread Starter [davidpauldoyle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidpauldoyle/)
 * (@davidpauldoyle)
 * [14 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704051)
 * Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. I had other developments going
   on with my blog and I couldn’t really test anything until some of the issues 
   were resolved. I’m not 100% sure if it’s working or not. What is the best way
   to test?
 * For example, I have 2 blog posts that are currently in draft format. The title
   of one is: In Giving We Receive
 * The URL is: [http://www.thevoiceforlove.com/community/in-giving-we-receive/](http://www.thevoiceforlove.com/community/in-giving-we-receive/)
 * I would have thought that some of those little words would’ve been removed as
   stop words.
 * Another draft blog post has this title: The Constancy of God’s Love
 * The URL is: /the-constancy-of-gods-love/
 * I don’t see any stopwords being removed in these 2 examples. So how can I tell
   if the plug-in is working? It doesn’t seem to be in these examples.
 * Thank you.
 *  Thread Starter [davidpauldoyle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidpauldoyle/)
 * (@davidpauldoyle)
 * [14 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704052)
 * I just posted a blog post.
 * [http://www.thevoiceforlove.com/community/difference-between-jesus-and-holy-spirit/](http://www.thevoiceforlove.com/community/difference-between-jesus-and-holy-spirit/)
 * The title of the post is: The Difference Between Jesus and the Holy Spirit
 * Within the WordPress admin for that post, that title was listed at the top of
   the page and in the SEO Title area below the blog post. However, I had to manually
   edit the perm link to shorten the URL. The stopwords were not automatically removed.
   Before manually changing it, and this is after repeatedly saving the draft blog
   post, the URL was:
 * /community/the difference-between-jesus-and-the-holy-spirit/
 * So I decided to remove the words “the”at the beginning and the middle of the 
   URL. I decide to keep the word “and” in there. But it didn’t look like any stopwords
   were automatically being removed. So in this initial test, it doesn’t seem like
   this update removed any stopwords.
 *  Was I supposed to do something specifically to have the stop words removed?
 *  [RobertKCole](https://wordpress.org/support/users/robertkcole/)
 * (@robertkcole)
 * [13 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704066)
 * I am experiencing same issue as [@davidpauldoyle](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidpauldoyle/).
 * Tested on 3 sites running WordPress SEO version 1.2.5.
 * a) WordPress 3.4.1; Thesis 1.8.2
    b) WordPress 3.4; Thesis 1.8.5 c) WordPress
   3.3.1; Simple, stripped-down custom theme.
 * Joost – any insight or suggestions?
 *  [domino66](https://wordpress.org/support/users/domino66/)
 * (@domino66)
 * [13 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704068)
 * Same problem here — using 3.4.1. Just installed your SEO plugin for the first
   time. I also just created a new post with stop words in the title, but the slug
   it created for me still had those stop words in them…
 *  [foolishbrilliance](https://wordpress.org/support/users/foolishbrilliance/)
 * (@foolishbrilliance)
 * [13 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704088)
 * Me too.
 * WordPress 3.5.1
    WordPress SEO 1.4.7
 * Example title: AWS VPN Cisco ASA and SLA Monitor
    Example slug: aws-vpn-cisco-
   asa-and-sla-monitor Example URL: [http://virtuallyhyper.com/2013/04/aws-vpn-cisco-asa-and-sla-monitor/](http://virtuallyhyper.com/2013/04/aws-vpn-cisco-asa-and-sla-monitor/)
 * Thanks for the plugin! Any thoughts on this? It seems like many others are having
   the issue as well.

Viewing 11 replies - 1 through 11 (of 11 total)

The topic ‘[Plugin: WordPress SEO by Yoast] stopwords functionality not working’
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 * 11 replies
 * 6 participants
 * Last reply from: [foolishbrilliance](https://wordpress.org/support/users/foolishbrilliance/)
 * Last activity: [13 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugin-wordpress-seo-by-yoast-stopwords-functionality-not-working/#post-2704088)
 * Status: resolved