Team Yoast, while all working from home for the first time in our history, is working on one of the biggest improvements to Yoast SEO yet. This release, Yoast SEO 14.0, internally has the codename “Indexables”. This release, while fully backwards compatible, will change some of our known integration API’s. If you integrate with Yoast SEO you should therefore test with it as soon as possible.
What is changing?
This is basically a full re-build of all our front-end code. We will write blog posts about specific bits of it, but these are the highlights:
We’re moving all of our meta data from wp_postmeta to custom tables. This allows for far more efficient querying.
We’ve moved to using an ORM on top of$wpdb.
Our frontend architecture now uses dependency injection from Symfony.
We’re adding a REST API endpoint for easy integration in headless WordPress sites.
We’re opening up a set of new API surfaces to make integration with Yoast SEO a lot easier, you can also more easily add meta tags. Read the documentation if you’re integrating with Yoast SEO, and update your code to be ready for 14.0 if you need to.
How can I test this?
You can find our latest Release Candidate below. You can also check out the release/14.0 branch from our GitHub repository and test your integrations. You’ll find that we add a couple of database tables and that these database tables are filled slowly as you and other people browse your site. The first page load of a page can be slightly slower because of that, after that it’ll be faster. In our testing it looks like the frontend of your site will be anywhere between 5 and 20% faster depending on how many other plugins you run and what your theme is like (the heavier all the other stuff, the lower the impact of our speed improvements).
Our scheduled release date is Tuesday, April 28th 2020.
Why didn’t I hear of this before?
If you didn’t hear of this before and would have liked to because you’re integrating with Yoast SEO in some way, we’re sorry! We have a special channel on our Slack for integrators, with whom we’ve already shared a zip for testing. Please do reach out to @jjcomack, @Michiel Heijmans or @joostdevalk on the WordPress slack.
Joost is an internet entrepreneur and the founder of Yoast. He has a long history in WordPress and digital marketing. On our blog, he has written a lot about SEO in general, technical SEO and important topics related to SEO.
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Discussion (38)
This sounds like a very positive release – performance improvements are always welcome! I have one question – You say you’re moving all of your meta data from wp_postmeta to custom tables. Will the data also be kept in the wp_postmeta table (at least for the short-term) to ensure backwards compatibility? To take an example, I know of at least one search plugin which looks at your noindex meta key when generating search results, and I’m wondering if this sort of plugin would break after the move to Yoast 14.
Yes, we are keeping these two in sync for now.
Do I just download this Yoast 14.0 plugin on to my WordPress?
I have Yoast premium on my site and a plugin for Yoast local inactive for the lack of an API Key.
Hi Byron. We recommend testing on a staging site before running it on a live site. Be sure to make a backup of your site, just in case.
Will I have any issues if I delete the current running version from my live site to install it?
Hi Jerry. We recommend testing on a staging site before running it on a live site. Be sure to make a backup of your site, just in case.
Looking forward to see the new features of your SEO plugin.
Will the 14.0 version impact the import of an excisting Yoast setting? If so, how? And should we then create a new export?
Hi Anders. We’ve built it fully backwards compatible, so it shouldn’t cause any issue. Still, we recommend testing it on your staging site.
How do I know if I integrate with Yoast? I have Yoast Premium and Yoast Local on my site.
Hi Janice, thanks for your question. This message was meant for developers of tools/plugins etc our plugins integrate with. So, no worries if you just run our plugins!
I’m not a developer. But I have created my own small site and want it to run well. I use Yaost SEO Premium. But…this announcement means very little to me…the only thing I see that I understand is…”this is a HUGE announcement…my site MAY run faster…But….blah, blah, blah.”
What am I supposed to do? Do I install 14.0 ? or do I not? What do I have to do to realize the benefits you’re talking about?
What is all this talk about Integrating with Yoast SEO have to do with me? What is ‘integratring’ mean with regard to using Yoast SEO premium?
Please consider your audience when you make these announcements.
John Givens
Hey John, Thanks for your feedback! Sorry if we were a bit too techy here :-) We posted this on our dev blog as we were mainly looking for developers to test it. If you don’t feel addressed, no problem! I’d advise waiting until it’s fully tested and we release the real thing :-)
Hi,
Not only developers are buying your products isn’t it?!
I am not developer also and most of the talk is NOT what i want to hear indeed. If you detail your announcements regarding – NEW INSTALL, UPGRADE, UPDATE would be highly appreciated.
Also what is this about Gutenberg OLD version may not compatible?
Thx
Is this geared to Guttenberg users? I use the Classic Editor. How will this affect me? Thanks.
Hi Carlos, no worries, it’s geared at both!
Wow! that will be awesome that means it easier and faster. Glad to hear that.
so far very satisfied and find it a great tool for me. will shortly opt for premium once my Business Website Business soars up.
Thanks, that would be great!
Are you triggering the move of meta directly on a hit to the site?
If so, could it be done using the wp cron to transfer the meta in the background or just on hits to the admin rather than when users hit the frontend of the site?
We’re triggering the move as the pages get hit, but we also plan to ship an indexing feature which allows doing this in the backend and a WP CLI method.
Dear Yoastees
I’d be happy to help with the testing… but as a lay-person, I have to admit that the instructions dont really help me much;
1. download the release candidate
2. and then I do what ??
Run the plugin on your staging site, see if everything works as expected :)
As a data tester is love to help! So just follow instructions to upgrade and that’s what I’m doing. Do you also have an affiliate program I’m a charitable business? I raise awareness for mental health and trauma survivors as a kidnap hostage survivor I know how important it is and I’m determined to try to save a life! Hopefully many
Hi Elizabeth, Thanks for helping and that sounds like great work you’re doing! We don’t have an affiliate program, but here you’ll find an ebook, especially aimed at non-profits, to help you improve the SEO of your site https://givewp.com/lps/wordpress-seo-for-nonprofits/ Perhaps this helps? Good luck and keep up the good work!
I would like to test it out
That’s great, Katerina, just follow the instructions above!
I haev no idea what you’re talking about with this…”will you test notification…” what does it mean to “intergrate with Yoast SEO”?
I own a small WP site and use Yoast SEO Premium…
But…what does this mean to me? I develop my own site – but I have no idea what all this:
————————————————
What is changing?
This is basically a full re-build of all our front-end code. We will write blog posts about specific bits of it, but these are the highlights:
We’re moving all of our meta data from wp_postmeta to custom tables. This allows for far more efficient querying.
We’ve moved to using an ORM and are completely bypassing$wpdb.
Our frontend architecture now uses dependency injection from Symfony.
Our Schema API is changing.
We’re opening up a set of new API surfaces to make integration with Yoast SEO a lot easier, you can also more easily add meta tags. Read the documentation if you’re integrating with Yoast SEO, and update your code to be ready for 14.0 if you need to.
—————————————————————
What in the world do you expect me to do with this confusing and alarming notice?
So sorry, John, if you were alarmed by this message. There’s absolutely no need to worry! With integrating we mean other tools or plugins we collaborate with. And about testing; we were just looking for developers who could help us test our Release Candidate so we could gather as much data as possible on its performance. But please feel free to wait for the real thing on April 28! Thanks for your feedback.
Help us test Yoast SEO 14.0: A major release!
Aan de hand van deze vraag in de nieuwsbrief installeerde ik het volgende:
Yoast SEO (beta) | release/14.0 | 02-04-2020 16:28
Versie: 14.0-RC2
Helaas zonder succes want deze website was daarna niet meer bereikbaar. Er was alleen nog maar een wit scherm zichtbaar. Ik heb daarna dus weer versie 13.4 teruggezet zodat de website weer normaal bereikbaar was.
Hi Phil,
and did you see any errors? Also, please test on a staging site at all times.
Hello,
you write “completely bypassing$wpdb”.
I hope everything is still full cache-able. And full support for WP Rocket.
thanks
Jochen
All the output is of course cache-able, and your queries can still be cached at the MySQL query cache level too.
Hello,
As long as you don’t support DIVI pagebuilder, all these improvements are of little use. :(
Regards,
Jose A.
Hi Jose,
we support Gutenberg, the Classic Editor and that’s it for now. That might change in the future, but I don’t have any timelines :)
Uninstall the old one first? Install both together?
Uninstall it first, then install this. But please do this on your staging site.
Hello,
I just downloaded the Beta RC to my Oakland News Now WordPress blog and went to activate it, and it failed to turn on – three times. I have existing Yoast software. Normally, I am supposed to drop one for the other, but you all did not provide such rules. I think you should design it to override the existing plugins. I am running MH Themes Newsdesk Theme. Thanks, Zennie Abraham
Hey Zennie,
Did you get an error? Kind of hard for me to tell what’s going wrong otherwise. If you have a staging site, please disable all Yoast plugins, enable this one and see if this one does what you’d expect it to do.
This sounds like a very positive release – performance improvements are always welcome! I have one question – You say you’re moving all of your meta data from wp_postmeta to custom tables. Will the data also be kept in the wp_postmeta table (at least for the short-term) to ensure backwards compatibility? To take an example, I know of at least one search plugin which looks at your noindex meta key when generating search results, and I’m wondering if this sort of plugin would break after the move to Yoast 14.
Yes, we are keeping these two in sync for now.