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Yoast SEO 16.0: Sweet sixteen!

16 March 2021 | 6 Comments | Tags , , | By Edwin Toonen

Many years ago, Joost de Valk launched version 1.0 of a plugin the world would know as the number one WordPress SEO plugin: Yoast SEO. Today, we’re celebrating the sweet sixteen of Yoast SEO with the release of Yoast SEO 16.0. Of course, we’re not letting this go unnoticed!

Happy sixteenth, Yoast SEO!

While the Yoast SEO 16.0 itself isn’t a huge release, as we’ve mainly added some fixes and enhancements, but we still wanted to take this occasion to celebrate reaching the big 16. This week, we’ll tell the story of Yoast SEO and how it came to be from the people who worked on it closely.

We’re kicking things off with Marieke van de Rakt, our CEO, who’ll uncover sixteen reasons to love Yoast SEO. Tomorrow, the founder of Yoast and the inventor/original developer of Yoast SEO, Joost de Valk, will discuss the impact the WordPress SEO plugin had over the years in an interview. And, of course, he’ll give us an insight into how he sees Yoast SEO grow up to be 18! Plus, we’ve collected a visual history of Yoast SEO on a brand-new feature timeline page.

Yoast SEO Premium is now an add-on to Yoast SEO

We’ve always treated Yoast SEO Premium as a separate plugin from Yoast SEO. While that made sense in the past, we’ve concluded that providing it as an add-on to Yoast SEO is a much better proposition. For one, it makes it easier to maintain because all products now share the same codebase. But, more importantly, it’ll help us get ready to offer you a much more seamless experience buying and installing Yoast SEO Premium in the future.

Conceptually, as a free user, you will be able to upgrade to Yoast SEO Premium automatically (or as frictionless as possible), making the Premium plugin an “add-on” for the free edition. In other words, Yoast SEO Premium is now a companion to the free version, and you need both plugins to work.

Update now!

With Yoast SEO 16.0, we’re out to celebrate! In our sweet sixteen release, we had several fixes and improvements. Also, we made Yoast SEO Premium an add-on to Yoast SEO, making it much easier to maintain and improve the installation flow for new customers.

Edwin Toonen

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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6 Responses to Yoast SEO 16.0: Sweet sixteen!

  1. Ossisto
    Ossisto  • 4 years ago

    Congrats,
    Happy Sweet Sixteen Team Yoast.
    By Team Ossisto

    • Camille Cunningham
      Camille Cunningham  • 4 years ago

      Thank you so much!!

  2. John
    John  • 4 years ago

    Congrats on your milestone!

    Could you explain a bit further on what it means to now provide Premium “as an add-on to Yoast SEO” instead of as a separate plugin?

    Does this mean the Yoast SEO plugin is now larger? Or maybe there’s some other technical explanation?

    Thanks!

    • Camille Cunningham
      Camille Cunningham  • 4 years ago

      Thank you, John! To elaborate a bit more on Premium becoming an add-on: before, Yoast SEO Premium could be seen as more of a replacement of the free version of our plugin. Now it’s an expansion (or add-on) of the free version. This doesn’t mean that the plugin is now larger, it’s simply so that we can offer users a better installation flow :) Hope this answers your question!

  3. haidar mahmood
    haidar mahmood  • 4 years ago

    congratulation for the new version of yoast seo plugin , it is the best

    • Camille Cunningham
      Camille Cunningham  • 4 years ago

      Thank you!