In Yoast SEO 12.6, we’re activating our new beacon for help documentation. This tool helps answer the questions you might have about using Yoast SEO. It’s easy to use and very friendly. Just hit that big purple question mark and search! Other improvements in Yoast SEO 12.6 includes a number of fixes and enhancements. Read on to find out more.
New way of helping you
Our previous help center was not always as apt to provide the best answers to your questions. In Yoast SEO 12.6, we’ve removed the old help center and in its place added a beacon powered by HelpScout. This beacon — you’ll notice the big purple question mark in the lower right-hand corner —, is quick, smart and very helpful.
The new beacon allows us to present not only helpful articles for our knowledge base, but also from our SEO blog, for instance. This lets you not only access a ton of information about what you are working on, but also provides you with enough context to explain why you are doing this — or why the plugin does what it does.
So if you search for something in the new beacon, you’re searching all the content we have. Hopefully, the results will be satisfactory! In addition, Yoast SEO Premium subscribers can contact our support team from the beacon. Please let us know what you think. The beacon is now available in all our plugins.
Fixes and enhancements
Today, we’re updating all our SEO plugins. For Yoast SEO, we’re continuing our work on several larger projects and focussing on behind-the-scenes improvements in 12.6. In addition, we’ve fixed several bugs and added a couple of enhancements, like the aforementioned help beacon.
Other notable changes are the new description property we’ve added to the schema’s WebSite node. This means your site’s tagline can now be part of your site’s graph, giving search engines extra context about it. We’ve improved the Meta Robots Advanced field in the advanced section of the metabox by simplifying the options and wording around that feature.
Chris Thompson helped us fix a PHP Warning that pops up when using an empty string in the OpenGraph frontend output. We’ve also upped some of our requirements. We’ve set the minimum required WordPress version to 5.2, and the minimum PHP version to 5.6.20. Last but not least, we now show a notification to encourage Internet Explorer 11 users to use another browser as we are no longer supporting that browser.
Yoast SEO 12.6: update now
That’s Yoast SEO 12.6 in a nutshell. We’ve ironed out some kinks and introduced a massively enhanced help center based on beacons. Please update to the latest version whenever you’re ready!
Edwin is an experienced strategic content specialist. Before joining Yoast, he worked for a top-tier web design magazine, where he developed a keen understanding of how to create great content.
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8 Responses to Yoast SEO 12.6: Getting help in the plugin is now easier
gabrilevich • 5 years ago
hi) I really like your plugin, it not only simplifies the work, but also saves a lot of time for unifying meta descriptions.
But I had a question, and nowhere can I find an answer. On one of my sites installed Yoast SEO (while the free version). For page addresses, the category name is displayed. All pages are made according to one template. If you remove category output in Yoast SEO, the whole template crashes, and if you enable / category / output, then the templates work, but the URL looks /category/name category/title article
Who can help mewith it? thank you
Ben Vaassen • 5 years ago
Hi Gabrilevich,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re having an issue with our plugin. If you remove the category output, you can try to resave your permalinks. If that doesn’t work, you can get much better help by going to our free WordPress forums here https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordpress-seo/.
Good luck!
Norm • 5 years ago
Where do I get personalized help by emailing tech support? It was so easy before, but now with the new help center, all I see is a place to type in a question and “hopefully” have a generalized answer to my specific question.
Not a fan, unless I’m missing something. It seems “more” difficult to get help than it was before.
Shomirul Islam Bonny • 5 years ago
Yoast is the best SEO plugin. Previously my google rank wasn’t good but Yoast helped me to write content properly. Now, my website posts are in the top 10 in google rank!
Hanneke • 5 years ago
That’s great to hear! Keep up the good work!
Joe • 5 years ago
I’m confused. I don’t see any notifications when using IE11. Is this supposed to show up on the admin or on the front end? What sorts of things are going to break in IE11 right now?
KUMAR JAYANT SINGH • 5 years ago
Yoast SEO is one of the best SEO plugins. I start using it from the last one month and still feel some difficulty to check my blog. better provide some video tutorials tool. Soon go with paid plans.
gatewaytravelandvisas • 5 years ago
HI Bought Preimium but unable to insatll getting following message
Warning: Use of undefined constant WPSEO_NAMESPACES – assumed ‘WPSEO_NAMESPACES’ (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/shivkrupa/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo-premium/wp-seo-premium.php on line 76
hi) I really like your plugin, it not only simplifies the work, but also saves a lot of time for unifying meta descriptions.
But I had a question, and nowhere can I find an answer. On one of my sites installed Yoast SEO (while the free version). For page addresses, the category name is displayed. All pages are made according to one template. If you remove category output in Yoast SEO, the whole template crashes, and if you enable / category / output, then the templates work, but the URL looks /category/name category/title article
Who can help mewith it? thank you
Hi Gabrilevich,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re having an issue with our plugin. If you remove the category output, you can try to resave your permalinks. If that doesn’t work, you can get much better help by going to our free WordPress forums here https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/wordpress-seo/.
Good luck!
Where do I get personalized help by emailing tech support? It was so easy before, but now with the new help center, all I see is a place to type in a question and “hopefully” have a generalized answer to my specific question.
Not a fan, unless I’m missing something. It seems “more” difficult to get help than it was before.
Yoast is the best SEO plugin. Previously my google rank wasn’t good but Yoast helped me to write content properly. Now, my website posts are in the top 10 in google rank!
That’s great to hear! Keep up the good work!
I’m confused. I don’t see any notifications when using IE11. Is this supposed to show up on the admin or on the front end? What sorts of things are going to break in IE11 right now?
Yoast SEO is one of the best SEO plugins. I start using it from the last one month and still feel some difficulty to check my blog. better provide some video tutorials tool. Soon go with paid plans.
HI Bought Preimium but unable to insatll getting following message
Warning: Use of undefined constant WPSEO_NAMESPACES – assumed ‘WPSEO_NAMESPACES’ (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/shivkrupa/public_html/wp-content/plugins/wordpress-seo-premium/wp-seo-premium.php on line 76