Today, we’re launching Yoast SEO 15.0. This release features some awesome new additions and enhancements. We’ve added full support for Arabic, made a new block for the block editor and made the Yoast SEO block editor sidebar fully-featured. So, high time to take a look at Yoast SEO 15.0!
What to expect in Yoast SEO 15.0?
In Yoast SEO 15.0, we have three main focal points:
Of course, this release also comes with a round of fixes and enhancements. Short on time? Simply check the changelog (free or Premium) for this release to see what’s new.
Readability and word form support for Arabic
In Yoast SEO 14.8, we started our journey in the world of right-to-left-languages with Arabic keyphrase recognition. This is an essential first step in getting to fully understand a language so we can bring support for our advanced language features. In Yoast SEO 15.0, we’re adding readability support for Arabic in free. Also, Premium users get to enjoy full word form support in Arabic starting today.
With the readability analysis, Yoast SEO helps you produce a powerful piece of content. We help you keep your content focused and easy to read. Plus, Yoast SEO gives you feedback on what you can improve to make it even better. All of this is now available for anyone writing in Arabic.
Of course, that’s not all! In Yoast SEO Premium, we have something called word form support. This is an advanced analysis that makes our language tools a lot smarter. For instance, it takes grammatical forms of your focus keyphrase in account. This makes the process of optimizing a text a lot more natural and flexible. After English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Indonesian, Russian and Polish, we’re now introducing word forms support for Arabic!
Interested to see how that works? Check out the video below.
We’re always looking for ways to make your work easier to find and understand by both users and search engines. Over the years, we’ve talked a lot about how to structure text to make it more readable and attractive. One of the tools that can help you improve the scanability of an article is a table of contents at the top of the page. For longer articles, these are a must-have but even shorter articles can benefit from them.
In Yoast SEO 15.0, we’re adding a simple table of contents block for our Premium users.
An example of a table of contents generated by Yoast SEO 15.0 for our Image SEO article
It is a simple block for the WordPress block editor that automatically renders a table of contents for the current page and it takes into account all headers and hierarchy. The block is very easy to use and you can edit the results of the table of contents block as you see fit. The table of content block automatically updates whenever you make changes to your text.
A chance at getting jump links in Google search
There’s a second reason for adding this block, namely jump links. The way we built the table of contents block encourages Google to include ‘jump links’ in the search results. You can see these links underneath a search result and these allow you to see the sections of a page from within the SERP, and to click directly to the relevant section. This also ties in neatly with Googles work on linking to specific text fragments straight from the search results.
Jump links, as seen in Google
It works like magic: we simply add an ID attribute to every header and use those to automatically fill the table of contents. Now, Google can use these anchors to show them in search.
Here’s a quick overview of how the block works:
The Yoast SEO sidebar is now full-featured
For some time, we’ve been gradually improving the Yoast SEO experience in the block editor. Today, we’re adding a big one: a much improved sidebar with expandable modals. In this new sidebar, you can now find all the post settings, including the advanced settings, the Schema tab and internal linking suggestions (Premium). Finally, everything is in one place! The sidebar is now on par with the good-old meta box.
Simply click on the tabs to expand them. The one with a down arrow expands in the sidebar itself, while a click on the pencil icon will open a new overlay screen.
The new block editor sidebar in Yoast SEO 15.0
For some time, you could find the Google preview in the block editor sidebar. Today, we’re also adding the social previews to the sidebar. Clicking on the Google preview, will open a new screen with additional settings, like the meta description and SEO title. Premium users also get full-featured social previews in these modals. This is one of the cool features of Yoast SEO Premium, and you now get much quicker access to it — and it looks better as well.
The social media previews in Yoast SEO Premium let you improve your post before sharing it
Other fixes and enhancements
As always, we do a lot of behind the scenes work to improve the plugin. In this release, we made some fixes in our Schema implementation, including one where in some instances the value of the Schema type @type could contain null. Thanks to Joseph Paul, we added a wpseo_sitemap_index_links filter to enable adding links to the sitemap index.
We’ve also improved our handling of languages. For one, we’ve expanded our list of English transition words, to make the transition word assessment more accurate. In addition, we can better find keyphrases and prominent words from words in the text that have specific Arabic or Urdu punctuation marks.
Yoast SEO 15.0
That’s it for Yoast SEO 15.0! In this release, we have three major enhancements: Arabic language support, a new and improved block editor sidebar and a new table of contents block. We hope you enjoy this release.
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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91 Responses to Yoast SEO 15.0: Support for Arabic, plus a new table of contents block
Siddharth Jain • 4 years ago
I am not able to add related keywords. Please help
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Siddharth, are you a user of our free or Premium plugin? Because adding related keyphrases, synonyms and word forms is a Premium feature, which might explain why you won’t have that option if you use the free plugin! You can find more info on it here: https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/synonyms-related-word-forms-premium/
If you’re a user of our Premium plugin, let me know so we can help you figure out what’s going on :)
location de voiture • 4 years ago
thank you so much for adding “Table of Content”.
I was trying so many plugins already, but your add-on is just right.
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
That’s wonderful to hear, thank you!
VIPIN CHADHA • 4 years ago
Hi,
Just wanted to thanks you for this amazing plugin you people write. Brilliant stuff.
Our website has now started using Yoast ToC. Very nice. One less thing we need to worry about. Can I suggest(maybe stepping out of my remit) you add a couple of more features to the Yoast ToC.
– Ability to select which Headings we include in the ToC. It can help us manage the size of ToC
– Ability to use the same ToC and use it as a widget in sidebar of a post, with the section of the post highlighted.
Regards
V
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Thank you! Also for your suggestions!
Concerning the size of your ToC manageable, I might be able to help you right away: The TOC block allows you to exclude certain headings (say for example your H3’s) by removing the ID attribute for these headings. You can do this by clicking on a header, clicking on the 3 dots in the top menu above your header, and going to Block settings. This will show your block settings in the sidebar on the right, where you can go to Advanced and remove the HTML anchor you’ll find there. Hope this helps :)
russier • 4 years ago
super
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Thank you :)
Dan Septian • 4 years ago
Great idea!
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Thank you, Dan!
Rex • 4 years ago
I don’t really like this Edit snippet’ button you guys removed, the first I noticed it’s absence I was worried I’m thinking that maybe you it’s some bugs that need to be fixed, but later realised it’s from your new update I wish you guys put it back (Edit snippet’ button)
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Rex. Sorry to hear that, but you are still able to edit your snippet! In the Yoast sidebar, simply click the tab ‘Google preview’. Or if you use the meta box at the bottom of the page, you can edit your snippet preview under the preview that is shown there.
Hope this helps!
Ketti Wilhelm • 4 years ago
Hi, I’m excited about the Table of Contents, but I have two questions:
1. When I’ve already created an ID for a header, will the TOC override that ID? Or create a second one? Or will it be smart enough to use the one I’ve already created? (I use IDs with a different Scroll to Page ID plugin for jump links within articles, so I wouldn’t want those to be messed with by adding a TOC block.)
And 2. If I create a TOC now, as premium subscriber, and eventually don’t renew the premium, will my TOC blocks disappear or remain functional?
Thanks for the update!
Ketti
Angelia Embler • 4 years ago
Hi Ketti,
We’re happy to hear that you’re excited about the new Table of Contents block.
1. Yoast SEO Premium will use IDs that have been previously added when editing content. So the answer depends on how the other plugin adds headings. You can quickly check this by going to a post that has IDs and edit the post to check if the previously created IDs show in the HTML anchor field (image). If at least one field has an ID, Yoast SEO Premium will use the current IDs as they appear on the edit screen. If all of the heading anchor fields are empty for a post, Yoast SEO Premium will automatically create IDs.
2. As long as you have Yoast SEO Premium installed, the TOC blocks will be available and functional on your site.
Hussain Wali • 4 years ago
Loved the features
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Thank you, Hussain. That’s great to hear!
elsayedelhawary93 • 4 years ago
I have a problem that does not appear to describe in the search or meta
Is there a way to have the internal linking suggestions still show at the bottom of the meta box? Before they were front and center, very useful. Now they’re in a different window and not as readily accessible.
Otherwise, can this be an option for those who preferred the way it was? Updates are meant to hopefully save clicks and improve efficiency. This unfortunately did the opposite. Thanks.
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi there! I’m afraid not. The idea behind the expandable tabs is that you can see all the features at once, without having to scroll down. I understand that if you want to use the internal linking tool, this might feel a bit weird as you’ll have to click the modal to expand it. Sorry about that, but hopefully our new layout grows on you :)
Metaflix.com • 4 years ago
I understand. Impossible to please everyone : ) Thanks for your thoughtful reply and keep up the great work!
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Thank you for understanding!
Joe Goodwill • 4 years ago
I was very excited about this feature because I publish very long posts. So I tried to use this in a post that I created in Classic Editor. I don’t use Block Editor because (like millions of other people), I HATE it. It has taken what was a simple job and made it difficult. Isn’t that the opposite of an update? Anyway, the table of contents does not work at all. It is blank. I suspect that is because the ridiculous Block Editor thinks that my ginormous post is actually just one paragraph. Is there any workaround for this? Or will I be forced to use the odious Block Editor?
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Joe and thank you for your comment. I’m afraid this feature is only available in the block editor. We understand that this can be frustrating, but unfortunately, it’s *impossible* for us to do both. Joost explains why in this comment: https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-15-0/#comment-18537286
Urhobo Daily • 4 years ago
I just wish to say thanks for the Yoast SEO plugin
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
You’re very welcome :)
Ekapol Chucherd • 4 years ago
Table of Content is great feature, but there have problem with page break. I can’t jump to section in page 2.
Ramon Bauza • 4 years ago
Hi Ekapol! We see that you contacted our support team a few days ago. If you have any additional questions, feel free to follow up with them. They’ll be more than happy to assist you further. Thanks!
Chris Maxcer • 4 years ago
About your cool new TOC block, I’m concerned about adding it to pages where I have 20 or more sections — that would create a 20-plus line TOC to scroll through or much longer. For people who don’t want a big TOC and intend to read the post from beginning to end, is there a way to toggle the TOC so that it essentially disappears when the page loads — but can be clicked on to reveal the TOC to a reader if desired? And still provide all the same SEO benefits when it’s “hidden” when the page first loads? I was looking at a different plugin that does this, and I really like that feature, but I would prefer to use Yoast. Thoughts?
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Chris. Thanks for your comment! Love your thinking, but I’m afraid it isn’t possible at the moment :)
Our TOC block does allow you to exclude certain headings (say for example your H3’s) by removing the ID attribute for these headings. You can do this by clicking on a header, clicking on the 3 dots in the top menu above your header, and going to Block settings. This will show your block settings in the sidebar on the right, where you can go to Advanced and remove the HTML anchor you’ll find there.
Perhaps this can help you with your pages that have lots of sections. Good luck!
Yoast User • 4 years ago
The red dot for notifications annoys me! After 5 years I certainly don’t need a red dot to click after.
In Gutenberg Seo Yoast does not mark sentences anymore with a connective word in it. Seo Yoast use to ran fine with Classic Editor, but now the plugin is just causing stress.
^ Post author
Edwin Toonen • 4 years ago
Hi, we’ve added that notification to help people understand that the plugin updated. As WordPress now allows auto updates there’s no longer a singular moment where people upgrade. We want to give people a heads up that Yoast SEO updated and offer a link to find out more about what’s in that update. Feel free to dismiss the notification once you’ve read it.
Can you explain what you mean about Yoast SEO not recognizing text? We don’t want to cause stress, so maybe you can give us an example so we can fix it? Thanks.
Ahmet • 4 years ago
Turkish support please :)
Willemien Hallebeek • 4 years ago
Noted, Ahmet!
Correcteur • 4 years ago
Error after update.
PHP message: Error Unknown column ‘indexable_id’ in ‘field list’ … during execution query INSERT INTO `website_yoast_seo_links`
(`url`, `type`, `indexable_id`, `post_id`) VALUES …
Angelia Embler • 4 years ago
Hi Correcteur,
We’re sorry our plugin update caused a problem on your site. Unfortunately, we couldn’t locate a premium subscription to reach out to you directly. As the comment section is not the best place for troubleshooting, please contact our support team for further assistance. How can I get support?
Dörte Opitz • 4 years ago
Finally,
thank you so much for adding “Table of Content”.
I was trying so many plugins already, but your add-on is just right.
Vielen Dank!
Willemien Hallebeek • 4 years ago
Bitte, Dörte!
Amy • 4 years ago
Really nice article, great features. Looking forward to testing them.
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Thanks, Amy! Let us know what you think :)
WARREN B SEMMES • 4 years ago
I recently purchased your PREMIUM SEO package, but keep getting adds for me to upgrade to it. I’m wondering if I now have it or not…since I paid for it already. It shows on my credit card that I paid for it. Also, now that I have purchased the product, will someone be doing something with the SEO PREMIUM package to enhance my website, or is this something I will have to do with the product? If it’s something I have to do, I would like a refund so I can pay someone else to help with improving my site on search engines. Thank you for any help. Warren
Jerlyn Parcon • 4 years ago
Hi Warren! We understand you just purchased Yoast SEO Premium but your site is still asking you to upgrade. We’ll help you fix it. We were able to locate your order and have sent you an email (email entered during checkout) on how we can get this corrected. In the email, we’ve also answered your question about your site enhancement and refund concerns.
martin mairesse • 4 years ago
Bonjour,
un trèsbon article, mais je
^ Post author
Edwin Toonen • 4 years ago
Bonjour, je pense qu’une partie du commentaire manque. Que vouliez-vous demander?
Garrett Owens • 4 years ago
A great article like always, you guys at Yoast are the best! I did have a question on the schema support. I use SEMrush to crawl my website and I believe they just added the ability to detect schema errors. The biggest error and I believe the only “error” that pops up is the image attribute. Is there a way in Yoast premium to deter this error? I do not think it is a big deal for most of our websites though.
^ Post author
Edwin Toonen • 4 years ago
Hi Garrett! Thanks for the kind words. May I ask where you encounter that image error? Do you have an example page to look at?
MD Rakib • 4 years ago
Very informative article. Thanks for the share
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
You’re welcome! :)
David • 4 years ago
Just added the ToC block to my yet unpublished post. Works like a charm. For future modification would suggest allowing the heading to be centred. Also, allowing links colour to be changed. Am not the brightest spark on the block. Just dreaming, but having a return back to the ToC from the links would be fabulous.
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi David, thank you for your feedback and suggestions! Always good to hear :)
Tony Payne • 4 years ago
Looks like some really nice features, well done Yoast.
It took me a while to take the plunge and switch to the Gutenburg editor, but having done so I haven’t looked back.
Looking forward to taking advantage of these new options.
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Thank you, Tony. That’s great to hear :) I hope you enjoy our latest features!
Cat • 4 years ago
Hi there,
Is there a way to use the new content block in a builder theme like Divi?
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Cat! I’m afraid this block can only be used in Gutenberg.
David Stone • 4 years ago
Just excellent. Recent improvements have been exciting to use, and they’ve gotten results. Thanks.
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Thank you, David! That’s great to hear :) Hope these improvements will help you even more!
Jochen Gererstorfer • 4 years ago
Hello, the TOC block is great!
I miss only the option to exclude certain headings from the TOC.
Like show only H2 and H3, but exclude H4, H5 and H6.
Sometimes I have many H4, H5 in very long articles, what makes the TOC with the Yoast block very long.
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Jochen! Thanks for your comment :) If you want to exclude certain headings you can do so by removing the ID attribute for these specific headings.
You can do this by clicking on a header, clicking on the 3 dots in the top menu above your header, and going to Block settings. This will show your block settings in the sidebar on the right, where you can go to Advanced and remove the HTML anchor you’ll find there.
Hope this helps!
Jochen Gererstorfer • 4 years ago
I see. Well done!
thanks
Jochen
Manu Cornel Ilie • 4 years ago
Can you stop with your annoying notifications?
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Manu, sorry to hear that you’re experiencing our notifications as annoying. That is definitely not our intention! You can hide it by clicking on the eye icon next to it.
Kingsley Felix • 4 years ago
nice feature, today i found RELATED LINKS block, i never knew such existed
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Kingsley, that’s great to hear! And don’t worry! This block is relatively new, so you’re not late to the party :D you can read more and watch a video on the related links block here: https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-14-8/#relevant-links
Per-BKWine • 4 years ago
A comment that is perhaps slightly off topic (or not). You have been putting a lot of focus on building functionality for the block editor. Many of us, enthusiastic users of Yoast, don’t use the block editor. Some use classic, and more and more are using page builders like Elementor.
So, in a way I think it is a bit unfortunate that you put so much effort into the block editor. A lot of people with be missing out on those great new functionalities that you develop (me included).
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi there! Thanks for your feedback :) and thank you for using Yoast on your site! The reason we build our functionalities for the block editor is that this is where all the innovation in the WordPress space is happening. You can read more about it here: https://yoast.com/the-block-editor-gutenberg-why-you-should-be-using-it/
Cat • 4 years ago
So, there is no roadmap to keep the Yoast experience inline for those who do not want to use Gutenberg? Wow. That seems very heavy handed and leads me to think that after years of using Yoast, it may soon be time to move on.
Joost de Valk • 4 years ago
Hi Cat, and Per,
I fully understand that it’s frustrating to have to see new features appear in the block editor and not see them for the classic editor. It is however unfortunately *impossible* for us to do both. I would really like to, but our development team simply isn’t big enough.
What you have to understand here is how the WordPress world is divided. The largest chunk of users we see is on the block editor. Another good chunk is still on classic, though we see users move from classic to the block editor all the time. Another portion of users is using a page builder like Elementor or Divi. In fact, more of our users seem to use Elementor than the classic editor.
We’re constantly trying to come up with good ways to build stuff that works for all of these sites. Our new Indexables feature works for you and makes your site faster regardless of which editor you’re on and we’ve got more features in store like that. But the blocks we’re building are simply impossible to build in the classic editor. The classic editor really is limited in what it can do.
We have put out a free block editor course to help people move over, because we also do feel the pain. Trust me when I say that, we don’t want to force anyone over, but as I hope you can understand, my hands are a bit tied.
Julie • 4 years ago
Thank you for your reply,
I am a Divi user. I hold a Yoast Premium account and you are right, it is frustrating to see updates that do not apply because I choose to use a very popular theme. I lie Dive and am not likely to change to Gutenberg so I look forward to seeing new features that do work with builder themes.
eric.arrache • 4 years ago
Hello, could you add this table of content block to the Classic Editor? I hate the Gutenberg Editor
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Eric, I’m afraid this block is only available in the block editor. Sorry about that. But we do have a free training that shows you all the awesome things you can do with the block editor. It might be interesting to have a look at that :) https://yoast.com/academy/free-block-editor-training/
eric.arrache • 4 years ago
How about inserting a shortcode in the future? That would be easy enough :)
Joost de Valk • 4 years ago
Hey Eric,
it’s not as simple as that: the headings also need to have id attributes, which is something we can now do automatically in the block editor, but can’t do as easily in the classic editor. I honestly would re-evaluate the use of the block editor. It’s constantly improving and it really does make stuff like this easier and easier.
Arjan Hofmann • 4 years ago
Looks all very good, but is there a way to prevent the table of contents to pop up?
We’re using Elementor, and I can’t find where to stop the table of contents to show on pages where there is no use for it (podcast archive, for instance). And where it definitely interferes with the design.
Thanks!
Per-BKWine • 4 years ago
Now I’m confused. If you are using Elementor you wouldn’t be concerned with the Table of Contents element since it is part of the WP block editor, isn’t that so?
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
You’re right :) it’s part of the block editor!
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi there, Arjan! Thanks for your question :) The table of content block is an optional block that you can add to an individual page or post with the block editor, which means you decide which posts/pages get one. It won’t be added automatically :) Hope this answers your question!
Arjan • 4 years ago
Thanks Camille. It did.
A sudden coincidence put me on the wrong foot. :)
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
No worries, thanks for letting me know! :)
Chris Thomassen • 4 years ago
This is awesome indeed. But having to manually add this block to hundreds or even thousands of posts is a major deal-breaker :( It would be really awesome if you could make it work with all existing posts as well – create an option with some basic settings to make the block appear standard for all posts or pages.
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Chris, thank you for your feedback. I’m forwarding your suggestion!
Michael Storer • 4 years ago
I’ll +1 that!
Dinsan • 4 years ago
Is there a way to automatically enable TOC for all posts? I can get rid of a plugin that I use only for TOC :-)
sanjaykumarmonu • 4 years ago
Hi, I also want an option to enable this new Table to Content Block to all my wordpress post automatically. That would truely be helpful.
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Dinsan, unfortunately, it’s not possible to enable this for all posts. But I will definitely forward this suggestion to my colleagues! Thank you :)
Michael Storer • 4 years ago
I would like to do that too. It is such awesome functionality – so I want to be able to apply it to all posts and pages please!
+1!
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi Michael, thanks for your feedback! As you may have already read in my comment above, I will forward this suggestion to my colleagues!
dcunningham • 4 years ago
Does this plugin update GLOBALLY update all heading IDs?
Rahul jain • 4 years ago
Thanks
sabtino • 4 years ago
Hello
Is this updated version compatible with Persian language?
Camille Cunningham • 4 years ago
Hi there! Not yet, but we’ll add it to the list :)
^ Post author
Edwin Toonen • 4 years ago
Yes, we automatically update the IDs. After that, when you drop in the TOC block, it simply works.
I am not able to add related keywords. Please help
Hi Siddharth, are you a user of our free or Premium plugin? Because adding related keyphrases, synonyms and word forms is a Premium feature, which might explain why you won’t have that option if you use the free plugin! You can find more info on it here: https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/synonyms-related-word-forms-premium/
If you’re a user of our Premium plugin, let me know so we can help you figure out what’s going on :)
thank you so much for adding “Table of Content”.
I was trying so many plugins already, but your add-on is just right.
That’s wonderful to hear, thank you!
Hi,
Just wanted to thanks you for this amazing plugin you people write. Brilliant stuff.
Our website has now started using Yoast ToC. Very nice. One less thing we need to worry about. Can I suggest(maybe stepping out of my remit) you add a couple of more features to the Yoast ToC.
– Ability to select which Headings we include in the ToC. It can help us manage the size of ToC
– Ability to use the same ToC and use it as a widget in sidebar of a post, with the section of the post highlighted.
Regards
V
Thank you! Also for your suggestions!
Concerning the size of your ToC manageable, I might be able to help you right away: The TOC block allows you to exclude certain headings (say for example your H3’s) by removing the ID attribute for these headings. You can do this by clicking on a header, clicking on the 3 dots in the top menu above your header, and going to Block settings. This will show your block settings in the sidebar on the right, where you can go to Advanced and remove the HTML anchor you’ll find there. Hope this helps :)
super
Thank you :)
Great idea!
Thank you, Dan!
I don’t really like this Edit snippet’ button you guys removed, the first I noticed it’s absence I was worried I’m thinking that maybe you it’s some bugs that need to be fixed, but later realised it’s from your new update I wish you guys put it back (Edit snippet’ button)
Hi Rex. Sorry to hear that, but you are still able to edit your snippet! In the Yoast sidebar, simply click the tab ‘Google preview’. Or if you use the meta box at the bottom of the page, you can edit your snippet preview under the preview that is shown there.
Hope this helps!
Hi, I’m excited about the Table of Contents, but I have two questions:
1. When I’ve already created an ID for a header, will the TOC override that ID? Or create a second one? Or will it be smart enough to use the one I’ve already created? (I use IDs with a different Scroll to Page ID plugin for jump links within articles, so I wouldn’t want those to be messed with by adding a TOC block.)
And 2. If I create a TOC now, as premium subscriber, and eventually don’t renew the premium, will my TOC blocks disappear or remain functional?
Thanks for the update!
Ketti
Hi Ketti,
We’re happy to hear that you’re excited about the new Table of Contents block.
1. Yoast SEO Premium will use IDs that have been previously added when editing content. So the answer depends on how the other plugin adds headings. You can quickly check this by going to a post that has IDs and edit the post to check if the previously created IDs show in the HTML anchor field (image). If at least one field has an ID, Yoast SEO Premium will use the current IDs as they appear on the edit screen. If all of the heading anchor fields are empty for a post, Yoast SEO Premium will automatically create IDs.
2. As long as you have Yoast SEO Premium installed, the TOC blocks will be available and functional on your site.
Loved the features
Thank you, Hussain. That’s great to hear!
I have a problem that does not appear to describe in the search or meta
Hi there! Not quite sure what you mean but if Google is not showing the meta description that you’ve added, this page might be able to help you: https://yoast.com/help/my-meta-descriptions-arent-showing-up-in-the-search-result-pages/
Hi,
Is there a way to have the internal linking suggestions still show at the bottom of the meta box? Before they were front and center, very useful. Now they’re in a different window and not as readily accessible.
Otherwise, can this be an option for those who preferred the way it was? Updates are meant to hopefully save clicks and improve efficiency. This unfortunately did the opposite. Thanks.
Hi there! I’m afraid not. The idea behind the expandable tabs is that you can see all the features at once, without having to scroll down. I understand that if you want to use the internal linking tool, this might feel a bit weird as you’ll have to click the modal to expand it. Sorry about that, but hopefully our new layout grows on you :)
I understand. Impossible to please everyone : ) Thanks for your thoughtful reply and keep up the great work!
Thank you for understanding!
I was very excited about this feature because I publish very long posts. So I tried to use this in a post that I created in Classic Editor. I don’t use Block Editor because (like millions of other people), I HATE it. It has taken what was a simple job and made it difficult. Isn’t that the opposite of an update? Anyway, the table of contents does not work at all. It is blank. I suspect that is because the ridiculous Block Editor thinks that my ginormous post is actually just one paragraph. Is there any workaround for this? Or will I be forced to use the odious Block Editor?
Hi Joe and thank you for your comment. I’m afraid this feature is only available in the block editor. We understand that this can be frustrating, but unfortunately, it’s *impossible* for us to do both. Joost explains why in this comment: https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-15-0/#comment-18537286
I just wish to say thanks for the Yoast SEO plugin
You’re very welcome :)
Table of Content is great feature, but there have problem with page break. I can’t jump to section in page 2.
Hi Ekapol! We see that you contacted our support team a few days ago. If you have any additional questions, feel free to follow up with them. They’ll be more than happy to assist you further. Thanks!
About your cool new TOC block, I’m concerned about adding it to pages where I have 20 or more sections — that would create a 20-plus line TOC to scroll through or much longer. For people who don’t want a big TOC and intend to read the post from beginning to end, is there a way to toggle the TOC so that it essentially disappears when the page loads — but can be clicked on to reveal the TOC to a reader if desired? And still provide all the same SEO benefits when it’s “hidden” when the page first loads? I was looking at a different plugin that does this, and I really like that feature, but I would prefer to use Yoast. Thoughts?
Hi Chris. Thanks for your comment! Love your thinking, but I’m afraid it isn’t possible at the moment :)
Our TOC block does allow you to exclude certain headings (say for example your H3’s) by removing the ID attribute for these headings. You can do this by clicking on a header, clicking on the 3 dots in the top menu above your header, and going to Block settings. This will show your block settings in the sidebar on the right, where you can go to Advanced and remove the HTML anchor you’ll find there.
Perhaps this can help you with your pages that have lots of sections. Good luck!
The red dot for notifications annoys me! After 5 years I certainly don’t need a red dot to click after.
In Gutenberg Seo Yoast does not mark sentences anymore with a connective word in it. Seo Yoast use to ran fine with Classic Editor, but now the plugin is just causing stress.
Hi, we’ve added that notification to help people understand that the plugin updated. As WordPress now allows auto updates there’s no longer a singular moment where people upgrade. We want to give people a heads up that Yoast SEO updated and offer a link to find out more about what’s in that update. Feel free to dismiss the notification once you’ve read it.
Can you explain what you mean about Yoast SEO not recognizing text? We don’t want to cause stress, so maybe you can give us an example so we can fix it? Thanks.
Turkish support please :)
Noted, Ahmet!
Error after update.
PHP message: Error Unknown column ‘indexable_id’ in ‘field list’ … during execution query INSERT INTO `website_yoast_seo_links`
(`url`, `type`, `indexable_id`, `post_id`) VALUES …
Hi Correcteur,
We’re sorry our plugin update caused a problem on your site. Unfortunately, we couldn’t locate a premium subscription to reach out to you directly. As the comment section is not the best place for troubleshooting, please contact our support team for further assistance. How can I get support?
Finally,
thank you so much for adding “Table of Content”.
I was trying so many plugins already, but your add-on is just right.
Vielen Dank!
Bitte, Dörte!
Really nice article, great features. Looking forward to testing them.
Thanks, Amy! Let us know what you think :)
I recently purchased your PREMIUM SEO package, but keep getting adds for me to upgrade to it. I’m wondering if I now have it or not…since I paid for it already. It shows on my credit card that I paid for it. Also, now that I have purchased the product, will someone be doing something with the SEO PREMIUM package to enhance my website, or is this something I will have to do with the product? If it’s something I have to do, I would like a refund so I can pay someone else to help with improving my site on search engines. Thank you for any help. Warren
Hi Warren! We understand you just purchased Yoast SEO Premium but your site is still asking you to upgrade. We’ll help you fix it. We were able to locate your order and have sent you an email (email entered during checkout) on how we can get this corrected. In the email, we’ve also answered your question about your site enhancement and refund concerns.
Bonjour,
un trèsbon article, mais je
Bonjour, je pense qu’une partie du commentaire manque. Que vouliez-vous demander?
A great article like always, you guys at Yoast are the best! I did have a question on the schema support. I use SEMrush to crawl my website and I believe they just added the ability to detect schema errors. The biggest error and I believe the only “error” that pops up is the image attribute. Is there a way in Yoast premium to deter this error? I do not think it is a big deal for most of our websites though.
Hi Garrett! Thanks for the kind words. May I ask where you encounter that image error? Do you have an example page to look at?
Very informative article. Thanks for the share
You’re welcome! :)
Just added the ToC block to my yet unpublished post. Works like a charm. For future modification would suggest allowing the heading to be centred. Also, allowing links colour to be changed. Am not the brightest spark on the block. Just dreaming, but having a return back to the ToC from the links would be fabulous.
Hi David, thank you for your feedback and suggestions! Always good to hear :)
Looks like some really nice features, well done Yoast.
It took me a while to take the plunge and switch to the Gutenburg editor, but having done so I haven’t looked back.
Looking forward to taking advantage of these new options.
Thank you, Tony. That’s great to hear :) I hope you enjoy our latest features!
Hi there,
Is there a way to use the new content block in a builder theme like Divi?
Hi Cat! I’m afraid this block can only be used in Gutenberg.
Just excellent. Recent improvements have been exciting to use, and they’ve gotten results. Thanks.
Thank you, David! That’s great to hear :) Hope these improvements will help you even more!
Hello, the TOC block is great!
I miss only the option to exclude certain headings from the TOC.
Like show only H2 and H3, but exclude H4, H5 and H6.
Sometimes I have many H4, H5 in very long articles, what makes the TOC with the Yoast block very long.
Hi Jochen! Thanks for your comment :) If you want to exclude certain headings you can do so by removing the ID attribute for these specific headings.
You can do this by clicking on a header, clicking on the 3 dots in the top menu above your header, and going to Block settings. This will show your block settings in the sidebar on the right, where you can go to Advanced and remove the HTML anchor you’ll find there.
Hope this helps!
I see. Well done!
thanks
Jochen
Can you stop with your annoying notifications?
Hi Manu, sorry to hear that you’re experiencing our notifications as annoying. That is definitely not our intention! You can hide it by clicking on the eye icon next to it.
nice feature, today i found RELATED LINKS block, i never knew such existed
Hi Kingsley, that’s great to hear! And don’t worry! This block is relatively new, so you’re not late to the party :D you can read more and watch a video on the related links block here: https://yoast.com/yoast-seo-14-8/#relevant-links
A comment that is perhaps slightly off topic (or not). You have been putting a lot of focus on building functionality for the block editor. Many of us, enthusiastic users of Yoast, don’t use the block editor. Some use classic, and more and more are using page builders like Elementor.
So, in a way I think it is a bit unfortunate that you put so much effort into the block editor. A lot of people with be missing out on those great new functionalities that you develop (me included).
Hi there! Thanks for your feedback :) and thank you for using Yoast on your site! The reason we build our functionalities for the block editor is that this is where all the innovation in the WordPress space is happening. You can read more about it here: https://yoast.com/the-block-editor-gutenberg-why-you-should-be-using-it/
So, there is no roadmap to keep the Yoast experience inline for those who do not want to use Gutenberg? Wow. That seems very heavy handed and leads me to think that after years of using Yoast, it may soon be time to move on.
Hi Cat, and Per,
I fully understand that it’s frustrating to have to see new features appear in the block editor and not see them for the classic editor. It is however unfortunately *impossible* for us to do both. I would really like to, but our development team simply isn’t big enough.
What you have to understand here is how the WordPress world is divided. The largest chunk of users we see is on the block editor. Another good chunk is still on classic, though we see users move from classic to the block editor all the time. Another portion of users is using a page builder like Elementor or Divi. In fact, more of our users seem to use Elementor than the classic editor.
We’re constantly trying to come up with good ways to build stuff that works for all of these sites. Our new Indexables feature works for you and makes your site faster regardless of which editor you’re on and we’ve got more features in store like that. But the blocks we’re building are simply impossible to build in the classic editor. The classic editor really is limited in what it can do.
We have put out a free block editor course to help people move over, because we also do feel the pain. Trust me when I say that, we don’t want to force anyone over, but as I hope you can understand, my hands are a bit tied.
Thank you for your reply,
I am a Divi user. I hold a Yoast Premium account and you are right, it is frustrating to see updates that do not apply because I choose to use a very popular theme. I lie Dive and am not likely to change to Gutenberg so I look forward to seeing new features that do work with builder themes.
Hello, could you add this table of content block to the Classic Editor? I hate the Gutenberg Editor
Hi Eric, I’m afraid this block is only available in the block editor. Sorry about that. But we do have a free training that shows you all the awesome things you can do with the block editor. It might be interesting to have a look at that :)
https://yoast.com/academy/free-block-editor-training/
How about inserting a shortcode in the future? That would be easy enough :)
Hey Eric,
it’s not as simple as that: the headings also need to have
idattributes, which is something we can now do automatically in the block editor, but can’t do as easily in the classic editor. I honestly would re-evaluate the use of the block editor. It’s constantly improving and it really does make stuff like this easier and easier.Looks all very good, but is there a way to prevent the table of contents to pop up?
We’re using Elementor, and I can’t find where to stop the table of contents to show on pages where there is no use for it (podcast archive, for instance). And where it definitely interferes with the design.
Thanks!
Now I’m confused. If you are using Elementor you wouldn’t be concerned with the Table of Contents element since it is part of the WP block editor, isn’t that so?
You’re right :) it’s part of the block editor!
Hi there, Arjan! Thanks for your question :) The table of content block is an optional block that you can add to an individual page or post with the block editor, which means you decide which posts/pages get one. It won’t be added automatically :) Hope this answers your question!
Thanks Camille. It did.
A sudden coincidence put me on the wrong foot. :)
No worries, thanks for letting me know! :)
This is awesome indeed. But having to manually add this block to hundreds or even thousands of posts is a major deal-breaker :( It would be really awesome if you could make it work with all existing posts as well – create an option with some basic settings to make the block appear standard for all posts or pages.
Hi Chris, thank you for your feedback. I’m forwarding your suggestion!
I’ll +1 that!
Is there a way to automatically enable TOC for all posts? I can get rid of a plugin that I use only for TOC :-)
Hi, I also want an option to enable this new Table to Content Block to all my wordpress post automatically. That would truely be helpful.
Hi Dinsan, unfortunately, it’s not possible to enable this for all posts. But I will definitely forward this suggestion to my colleagues! Thank you :)
I would like to do that too. It is such awesome functionality – so I want to be able to apply it to all posts and pages please!
+1!
Hi Michael, thanks for your feedback! As you may have already read in my comment above, I will forward this suggestion to my colleagues!
Does this plugin update GLOBALLY update all heading IDs?
Thanks
Hello
Is this updated version compatible with Persian language?
Hi there! Not yet, but we’ll add it to the list :)
Yes, we automatically update the IDs. After that, when you drop in the TOC block, it simply works.