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Yoast SEO 9.4: Help us beta test the new SEO analysis!

Edwin Toonen 8 January 2019 54 ,

Over the years, we’ve learned a lot about SEO. We felt the impact quality content and a technically flawless site has on a successful SEO strategy, so we built tools that help you to improve your own site. We’ve developed a strong set of defaults that can be applied to a broad spectrum of sites. As with everything, after a while, you need to evaluate what you are doing and see if you can make improvements. That’s what we did — in Yoast SEO 9.4, you’ll find an updated SEO analysis that you can beta test. It will be released in Yoast SEO 10.

This beta test is now over. The results have been analyzed and feedback has been incorporated in Yoast SEO 10.0, which is now available for everyone.

Help us test the new SEO analysis, due for Yoast SEO 10

SEO is always changing. What worked years ago, might not work anymore. Sometimes ‘rules’ have become stricter, while other times looser. Since there is no SEO rulebook, we need to rely on experience, common sense and expert insights to make the right decisions. We need to keep up-to-date so we can keep our plugin up-to-date so we can keep you up-to-date, so to say.

Our latest project does just that. We carefully selected several Yoasters from various backgrounds — SEO experts, content specialists, linguists and developers — to form the research team that needed to align Yoast SEO with the latest insights in SEO. The outcome of this research, combined with your feedback, inform the choices we make that will result in the release of a new and improved SEO analysis in Yoast SEO 10.

Ready to help? Great! Activate the beta analysis and fill in the questionnaires you’ll receive. We’ll use your feedback to make the final version even better! Here’s more information on why you should test the new SEO analysis.

We need you!

As mentioned, we need feedback. We’re not going to change anything without your input. By activating the beta analysis, you can provide us with insights into how you experience the new analysis. Please use the new version of the SEO analysis like you normally do and report back. You’ll notice that it grades your content slightly different. We’ve made it extremely easy for you to take part in our beta test. Here’s how you can start:

  • Switch on the toggle for the new SEO analysis in SEO > General > Features
  • We’ll automatically add you to a special mailing list
  • Start using the new SEO analysis
  • Fill out the questionnaires we send you periodically
  • Success!
  • Done testing? Simply turn off the beta analysis

What’s changing in the new Yoast SEO analysis?

The project team thoroughly researched current SEO knowledge. They evaluated other SEO tools and writing software and carefully looked at all the analyses in Yoast SEO. Together, they came up with a solid set of improvements for the plugin. You can read more about the project or watch the documentary that gives a great overview of the how and why.

The results of this project are now live in Yoast SEO 10.0.

You can find all the different checks in Yoast SEO on the assessment overview page. Please use the new SEO analysis like you always do and give us your feedback. Together, we make Yoast SEO better than ever!

What else is new in Yoast SEO 9.4

Yoast SEO 9.4 is mostly about the new SEO analysis, but you can find plenty of other enhancements and bug fixes under the hood. For instance, we’ve improved the accessibility of the analysis results and the Title Separator settings. We’ve fixed numerous bugs, including one where pagination elements were not shown in the Genesis theme. In addition, we’ve had a lot of help from Saša Todorović for this release, mostly with WooCommerce related improvements. You can find all the changes in the changelog for this release.

Update and help us improve the next generation SEO analysis!

There you have it. Yoast SEO 9.4 gives you a glimpse of what’s coming to Yoast SEO 10 in the near future. We took a long hard look at the current state of SEO and how Yoast SEO fits into that picture. Where necessary, we made changes that bring Yoast SEO into the now and maybe even the future. What’s more, you can help build that future! We would love for you to help us improve this new SEO analysis. Thanks!

Read more: Why try out the new Yoast SEO analysis? »

Avatar of Edwin Toonen
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.

Discussion (54)

  • Said the synonym to the antonym, let’s leave the homonym behind because he makes us both look bad. Here’s why.

    In your pitch above, [dogged] is not synonymous with [dog] or [dogs] and it would defeat the purpose of context in keyphrase density. Doggie would work better ;-)

    A possible caveat might be a questionable pun like – the old bitch dogged me until I fed her.

    Since the word is closer to a homonym than a synonym maybe an exclusion or exception function in your plugin might be helpful.

    Cheers

  • i would like if this guides us for best settings such i need help with optimizing the robot text file? i do have premium for 10 sites

  • Wow, I love this update already.. Great work from the Team.

  • Hi, I’m having trouble with two things:

    Firstly, the “Keyphrase in title: Does not contain the exact match.” apparently, but it is identical, I have copied and pasted for good measure. This is a repeated occurrence unfortunately.

    Also, I have experienced some inconsistency with the readability and SEO scores. By which I mean, I have done some copy and paste jobs again, where on two separate pages, two practically identical texts score slightly differently, meaning the difference between an ‘ok’ or ‘good’ readibility score.

  • My upgrade is still not working after days. I see no readability or keyword analysis.

  • Não sei se eu não estou encontrando o local para atribuir alt das imagens ou se estou colocando no local certo e nas informações fala que só tenho atributo alt de 1 imagem. Pode me explicar ou me orintar onte eu coloco atribuição atl de imagem? Obrigado

  • That’s a really great compilation. My web developer shared this with me and we have started working on a few off this list right away!

  • The analyzer seems to be having a hard time distinguishing real text from code snippets in Avada theme from theme-fusion. It’s yelling at me about needing subheadings for long text blocks when there are no true offenders in the text.

  • best SEO tool for ever thank you for providing yoast SEO tool is very powerful tool and free tool

  • Hi!
    I worry for my terrible knowledge of English. Is there all available information and video, including in Russian?

  • Hi, I activated the latest plugin but the analysis is not loading.

  • I just update plugin let’s see what will happend

  • we need you to update tamil language. why because it will be familiar for us.

    one of the ancient language in the world. it will be top 5th language. when its about the number of people’s who use tamil language in internet.

    so please make as soon as your plugin with tamil language support.

    make as soon as possible.

  • The link to the assessment overview page does not work… .

  • Changes are good. WordPress has released another update after recent major update. Now another amazing update of Yoast plugin.
    Thanks

  • The part where you need to have your keyword in your higher level headings is too strict. It stayed red even after I had put it in all my level 2 headings (about 7), which felt overdoing it text-wise. When I even added one to my H3 heading, which was my lowest heading, it stayed red too. I removed that one immediately because it was not correct text-wise; it was just to try to get an orange button. So, my conclusion is that it is too strict.

  • I activated but analysis was not loaded

  • These are pretty good updates of Yoast, I have already bought a Premium version of Yoast to go for multiple key phrase options.

  • I just updated to the new version. Not able to see the extra new analysis. please assist.

  • I tried the new beta function about keyword analysis. I think there is a bug: I’m not able anymore to add more than one keyphrase. After saving every phrase get’s dropped, except the first one. Please help.

  • The eyeball highlighter does not work anymore, I am using astra theme and have had it not working for a few weeks now which makes it difficult to edit according to your advice as I often dont know where to fix this. was hoping that with the beta version it would work again but alas, it dit not

    I tried uninstalling all the plugins and also tried another there, oceans WP but did not change anything

  • This was an amazing update of Yoast! Thanks for the “Get an even better analysis”. I already enable it all of my professional affiliate sites.

  • I activated the new beta feature. but i have been having a lot of issues since then.. and i cant even desactivated as i cant go to that page anymore because of those issues. hard to explain, please contact me thru email as someone has to access my computer to see what im talking about. thank you

  • I love the new improvements. I’m trying to test the new functions on my RPL website to see how it works.

  • We upload one post every three days to our website.

  • Is this the signup for the beta?

  • hello.. theres no toggle for for SEO beta test on my yoast premium inside my WP.? i went under SEO > general > features.

    please help :(

  • Love the syntactic and sementic improvements. I think NLP and SEO are best used with a rule-based approach and you guys are executing it perfectly.

    The keyword distribution check is super!

  • Although my keyphrase is in the title, meta, url, and the first paragraph, I still see this:

    Keyphrase in introduction: Your keyphrase or its synonyms do not appear in the first paragraph. Make sure the topic is clear immediately.

  • Whether or not we decided to opt into SEO analysis will the data be shared with all Yoast users or those who opt in? And has a time table been established on when a report on the data will be released?

  • Can someone work with me by email to guide me as to how to test your new application? I am just using basic Yoast, so not premium. I need to know the steps to take to test out your new product. I am not sure what to do. I am just getting familiar with my own plugin and have not used it very much yet. Can I work with a tech support person to help me use it? I have Gutenberg installed on my subdomain to learn about it. But my primary website just uses an upscale Themes Forest WP theme so no Gutenberg.