In case anyone is interested in what I did to fix this cluster, I used two plugins from the WP repository, and the switch-over went way faster than I thought it would: 1. WP Rollback & 2. SEO Data Transporter.
I tested these plugins out on my test site first–make sure you back up everything in case something goes wrong!–but all was fine for my 3000 pages of stuff. I just rolled back the Yoast plugin to the last version of 2.whatever it was, and then used the transporter plugin to analyze and convert everything over to the new SEO plugin platform (All in one SEO Pack). Easy peasy.
I checked, and all my meta descriptions and titles from Yoast successfully migrated over to the new SEO plugin. BTW, I’m not using one of the themes listed, I’m using Weaver II, and Weaver Extreme on my test site.
Hi, I’m just reading through the reviews – as a developer I’ve implemented Yoast SEO on dozens of client sites, I didn’t realise it had deteriorated as people are stating.
Are you able to say how exactly version 3 affected your site? Do you know exactly why your site fell down the rankings, and how you can attribute it to the Yoast plugin?
I’m not defending the plugin or disputing the reviews – there are clearly many people sharing your frustrations, I’m just keen to know *how* the plugin has deteriorated
Thanks
Hi there crdunst. I’m sorry, but I’m not a developer. Just an end user. I can only attribute my problems to Yoast since I was constantly getting errors with the plugin while using it–things like it telling me I had used the keyword 0 times when in fact I had used multiple times throughout the body of the text, and in the alt tags. This was not an uncommon issue, and often was corrected whenever the plugin was upgraded again to a “fixed” version to correct the bugs.
However, what finally sealed the deal for me was my falling in the Google rankings. I used to appear on page 1 or at most 2 on Google for whatever topic I wrote on. Within hours of writing on a topic, my article was indexed, and would appear on Google. Since the 3.X release of Yoast, and especially the 3.0.6 release, Google was no longer indexing my site. I know this because I can see it through my stats program. Furthermore, I don’t need a stats program to tell me that my new articles no longer appeared in the Google search results. My older articles still appeared however… Strange…
After researching this problem through this forum, I realized others were encountering the same problem, so I switched to All In One SEO. With a day or two of switching, all my articles–new as well as old–appeared in Google again.
I can only assume it was the Yoast plugin. YMMV however, I can only tell you what my experience was. I have since taken Yoast out of all my WP sites (5 or 6 I think, I’d have to look it up, ICR ATM), plus I’m recommending that the people I’ve created sites for do the same.
Oh, one thing I would add is that the All In One Seo Pack is much more user friendly for people who don’t know what they’re doing than Yoast.
Having now seen both, I wouldn’t install Yoast for anyone again. All In One does the job really well, and makes it much easier for non-techies to set up.
Bassicsax thank you for posting this information. I was also having some trouble with the plugin and I appreciate you taking the time to share the solution you implemented.
Interesting, thanks for the extra info, I’ll check out All In One, and also look into performance on a few client sites.
Muchas Gracias! Estaba pensando en programar mi página web de posicionamiento web SEO en Malaga con wordpress.
Y conociendo este plugin con la información que dais tengo mas motivos.
Muchas gracias
Hi @bassicsax,
Sorry it’s taken us almost a year to get back to you here. Almost a year has passed since your review. Are you still using our plugin? If not, we’ve made a ton of changes to Yoast SEO and would like to invite you to give the plugin a new try.
If you want to learn more about the plugin before installing it, we feel our knowledge base is the best place to start.
Thanks!
