After introducing a slew of new features, an improved meta box, and fully supporting Gutenberg in the previous three releases, it’s time to take a little breather with Yoast SEO 8.3. That’s not to say that this release is nothing but fluff — one look at the changelog will make you think twice. This release is all about fixes and enhancements, a lot of them suggested by our loyal users. Let’s get going!
Community help
A big part of Yoast SEO 8.3 is about improvements as suggested by our users on GitHub. As you know, our plugin is open source, and we encourage everyone to add their fixes or enhancements to GitHub so we can do something with them. So, if you have a good idea for a feature, please add it! Encounter a bug? Please add it! While we find and fix a lot of stuff ourselves, we can’t fix something we don’t know about it, right?
In Yoast SEO 8.3, no less than five user contributions made the cut. These range from fixing the link to a particular article (thank you Nikhil Barar!), to the introduction of a new API function to get all the Yoast SEO-related capabilities (thanks Jory Hogeveen!). Today, we also like to thank Aminul Islam for fixing a bug related to the unwanted localization of the article:published_time and article:modified_time meta properties. Mathieu Aubin helped us remove the executable bits on SVN assets, which makes checking for malware/viruses and/or other types of unwanted files a lot easier and faster. Last but not least, Marco Lipparini found some inconsistent code. He changed the second argument of the wpseo_sitemap_exclude_empty_terms filter call to the correct type. This is used when determining which taxonomies should have a sitemap.
Thanks, everyone!
Changes to structured data content blocks
In Yoast SEO 8.2, we introduced an awesome new feature: structured data content blocks for WordPress’ new Gutenberg editor. These blocks make it incredibly easy to add structured data to your FAQs and how-to articles. Since these blocks are built from the ground up, they still need some fine-tuning. In Yoast SEO 8.3, we’re improving the way the plugin handles the structured data and fix some bugs in the process.
The most significant changes happen inside the FAQ structured data content block. We’ve reformatted the rendered code a bit to follow Google’s guidelines better. Here are the changes:
Changed the @context property from http://schema.org to https://schema.org structured data output.
Renamed the associatedMedia property to image.
Moved the @type and name properties to the root of the FAQ block’s output.
Nested the Question objects in the newly introduced mainEntity property in the FAQ block’s structured data output.
Removed the superfluous position property from the How-To block’s output.
Other fixes and enhancements
The long list of changes continues. We fixed several other bugs including one where snippet variables would not be replaced in the og:description of taxonomies after being added to the Facebook Description input field. You can see the rest of the bug fixes in the changelog of Yoast SEO 8.3.
Enhancements include a new option to add a colon as a title separator and you can find a new help text in the readability analysis. We’ve also added a setting and a filter (wpseo_duration_text) to the How-to structured data content block. Users can now edit the text that describes the time needed to perform the task you’re explaining.
Ready to update?
Yoast SEO 8.3 is not about new features, but it is chock-full of bug fixes and enhancements that improve how the plugin functions. We’d like to thank everyone how has contributed to this release. If you feel the need to help improve Yoast SEO, please check out our GitHub. Thanks for using Yoast SEO and happy updating!
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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4 Responses to Yoast SEO 8.3: Community improvements
Raj • 6 years ago
I must say that yoast plugin helps a lot in seo. There are so many factors in yoast that sometimes we forget to do all these things. But thanks to these kind of article. they tell us how to use plugin and how to use its features.
Liana • 6 years ago
Hi Imran,
as a fellow yeost user I would suggest switching the tabs to see the improvement suggestions on readability. Changing keywords and subtitles usually help SEO. But it might be more simpler areas that need fixing like reducing the amount of words in a sentence. Or using active voice instead of passive. Hopefully that helps.
Gracious Store • 6 years ago
Yoast content readability is not perfect. Sometimes it finds error when there are none, and sometimes fails to recognize keywords even when in the first line of the first paragraph. I simply write my content making it as readable and SEO friendly as I can make it without paying much attention to the Yoast readability analysis
Imran Patel • 6 years ago
Hello Edwin,
I am using paid version of Yoast SEO 8.3.
I got issue in post readability. I added Focus keyword and also add subtitle.
but readability is showing Red icon. I didn’t understand why this is happening.
I must say that yoast plugin helps a lot in seo. There are so many factors in yoast that sometimes we forget to do all these things. But thanks to these kind of article. they tell us how to use plugin and how to use its features.
Hi Imran,
as a fellow yeost user I would suggest switching the tabs to see the improvement suggestions on readability. Changing keywords and subtitles usually help SEO. But it might be more simpler areas that need fixing like reducing the amount of words in a sentence. Or using active voice instead of passive. Hopefully that helps.
Yoast content readability is not perfect. Sometimes it finds error when there are none, and sometimes fails to recognize keywords even when in the first line of the first paragraph. I simply write my content making it as readable and SEO friendly as I can make it without paying much attention to the Yoast readability analysis
Hello Edwin,
I am using paid version of Yoast SEO 8.3.
I got issue in post readability. I added Focus keyword and also add subtitle.
but readability is showing Red icon. I didn’t understand why this is happening.
Can you please reply on this.