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This manual contains easy to understand explanations concerning relevant settings of wpSEO.

Title » Format

• Different formats per area possible.
• Placeholder are replaced in desired order.
• The Following placeholders are available:
  • Blogname (Name of the blog)
  • Title (Title of current page)
  • Tags
  • Separator, see Title » Separator
  • Keywords, see Title » Format » Keywords
  • Label, see Title » Label
  • Category Description, see Title » Category Description

Title » Format » Keywords

• Is formatting of keywords active, which are formatted as meta tags, you can display the keywords in a title on any page.
• You can if once the formatting of keywords is activated, which select in the option panel where you would like to place the keywords in your title. We recommend you put them between title and blog name. From our experience you shouldn't have more than 10 keywords.

Title » Separator

• The Separator separates different parts of the title, see Title » Format.
• It is recommended to use HTML-Code for the separator.
• A Separator can be any string you like.

Title » Label

• You can define a label in any area.
• This will be used, if you select "Label" as placeholder in Title » Format.

Title » Category Description

• If you use the placeholder "Category Description", it will display the category description of your current category in your tittle.
• The Category Description can be entered in "Posts" » "Categories" » select desired category and type in field "Description" a meaningful but short description in it. If you use a WordPress Version previous to 2.7, you can enter Category Description in Manage » Categories » select desired category and type in the field "Description" your text.
• Since wpSEO 2.7

Titel » Front page title

• Title of front page can be automatically generated as well as manually assigned.
• If you input a desired title in the available field, this value will be displayed in the title of the Front page.
• In case of absence of a manually set title, the dynamic generated value will be used.
• Whether the front page shows the latest articles or it is a static page, for this option it is not relevant.
• Since wpSEO 2.7.3

Titel » Convert title

• Depending on the selection of the function it converts the entire title of the individual blog pages in upper- or lowercase.
• In the default setting "No convert" is no conversion done.
• Since wpSEO 2.7.6

Title » Activate page numeration

• Display consecutive numbers in the tittle for mutiple pages.
• This option only applies to categories, searches and archives containing multiple pages
• Format: Separator page number Separator.

Title » Author of a post

• Display author's name of current post in your title.
• Only in posts and pages.
• Format: Separator author Separator.

Title » Clean up title

• If post titles are formated in XHTML, you can remove the formatting of the title within the metatags.
• Only in posts and pages.
• Since wpSEO 2.7.1

Title » Add keywords manually

• After you activate this option you will see in "Add New Post" your "wpSEO Settings" where you can put in a title manually.
• Manual title always has highest priority.
• Assign a title manually is not required, if there is no manual title, the dynamic settings of Title » Format will take place.
• A manually assigned title can always be modified or deleted if you go to "Post" > "Edit" and edit the text field in wpSEO.
• The option "Deactivate a automatic formatting and only display this value as the post title" is responsible for deactivating the automatic Format Title and substitues it with the manual title in the title bar of your browser.

Title » Suppress

• Goal: No display of titles in single pages and posts.
• To Do: Add custom field "hidden-title" with value "1".
• Only works in posts and pages.

Description » Default value

• The default value will take place as a description of a page, if you select "Default" as option in Description » Dynamic value.
• If there is no value assigned, it will note the blog description as default value ( "Settings > General > Tagline")
• Recommend length not more than 20 words.
• If possible don't use this option and use dynamic generated values.

Description » Dynamic value

• The value will be created dynamically from part of the page.
• Depending on the area, following parts are available:
  • Default value, see Description » Default value
  • Excerpt of first post
  • Titles of listed posts
  • Title of current post
  • Excerpt of optional hand-crafted summary
  • Category description of current category
  • Tag description

Description » Dynamic Value » Category » ... Description of current category

• While creating a new category in WordPress, you can write a category description.
• After activating this option the category description will be in the source code of your category page.
• Category Description can be set in Posts » Categories » select desired category and type in field "Description" a meaningful and short description. If you use a WordPress Version previous to 2.7, can add a Category Description in Manage » Categories » select desired category and type in field "Description" your text.

Description » Dynamic value » Post » ... Optional hand-crafted summary

• While creating a new category in WordPress, you can write an optional summary of your post, also known as excerpt.
• This summary can be used as description of a blog page if the option is active.
• You will find the text field excerpt of optional hand-crafted summarys' in "Posts" » "Add New" or "Edit" or if you use WordPress previous to version 2.7, you can find it under "Write » Write Post".

Description » Dynamic value » Post » ... Tag description

• When creating a tag, a corresponding short description can be entered.
• After activating the option, the entered description can be used as Description of the currently selected tag.
• The optional tag-short-description is available since WordPress 2.8 and wpSEO 2.7.4.

Description » Number of words

• It sets the maximum amount of words in description.
• Everything more than this will be truncated.
• Recommended value is between 15 and 20.

Description » Complete Sentences

• In general, wpSEO limits the description because of the user-specified number of words. A break in the middle of the sentence cannot be ruled out.
• If this option is active, it provides the complete sentence and disregards the limit. Example: The limit of words is 15, the end of the sentence, however is until the 18th word. There will be a total of 18 displayed words.
• Dot, question- and exclamation mark indicates the ending of a sentence.
• Please note: Due to the unexpected extension of the Description value, it can cause that Google limits the description automatically in the search.
• Since wpSEO 2.7.3

Description » Manual description

• After you activate this option you will see in "Add New Post" your "wpSEO Settings" where you can put in a description manually. If you used WordPress previous to version 2.7, you can find it under "Write » Write Post".
• Manual description always has highest priority.
• Assigning a description is not required. If there is no manual description, the dynamic settings of Description » Dynamic value will take place.
• A manually assigned description can always be modified or deleted if you go to "Post" > "Edit" and edit the text field in wpSEO.
• Please note for example, that a manual description doesn't get approved by the amount of words for example.

Description » Suppress Description

• Goal: No display of description in single pages and posts.
• To Do: Add custom field "hidden-description" with value "1".
• Only works in posts and pages.

Keywords » Dynamic value» Post » Tags

• WordPress intern tags or tags of WordPress 2.3, Simple Tags, Simple Tagging Plugin or Ultimate Tag Warrior can be used as keywords for pages.
• This option is only useful and productive if you have at least WordPress 2.3, Simple Tags, STP or UTW installed.

Keywords » Amount of words

• Sets the maximum amount of keywords.
• Everything more than this will be truncated.
• Recommended value is between 6 and 12.

Keywords » Blacklist

• Includes words, which should be ignored as keywords.
• Recommended list of words, if the word has less than 4 letters: For for The the of Of all if If not Not but But too Too will Will it It after After when When today Today before Before to To more More then Then I We we
• Format: Space separated and case-sensitive.

Keywords » HTML highlighting

• Keywords can not only be pulled out of the current post or of the title of a post. There is another flexible possibility to get data for meta data: The function "HTML-Highlighting" recognize with EM- and STRONG-Tags formatted words in your post and convert it accordingly to a keyword. Format: <em>...</em>, <strong>...</strong>.
• Words and phrases in an article can also be marked manually, so that those can be weighted more as META-Keywords. Very recommended if you like to have certain words to be used as keywords.
• Format: <span class="wpseo_keyword">...</span> or [wpseo]...[/wpseo].
• Since wpSEO 2.5.6

Keywords » Manual tagging

• After you activate this option you will see in "Add New Post" your "wpSEO Settings" where you can put in comma-separated keywords manually. If you still use an older version than WordPress 2.7, you can find it under "Write » Write Post".
• Manual keywords always take highest priority.
• Assigning keywords are not required, if there are no manual keywords, the dynamic settings of Keywords » Dynamic value will take place.
• Manually assigned keywords can always be modified or deleted if you go to "Post" > "Edit" and edit the text field in wpSEO.
• Please note for example, that a manual description doesn't get aproved by blacklist.

Keywords » Suppress keywords

• Goal: No display of description in single pages and posts.
• To Do: Add custom field "hidden-description" with value "1".
• Only works in posts and pages.

Avoid duplicate content

• Depending on your theme, WordPress generates duplicate content: It's possible that for example tagged or cataloged posts can be reached under different URLs - same content with different path will be recognize as abuse by Google and classified as Spam.
• This function creates in your source code the entry <meta name="robots" ... /> with accordingly selected values.

Suppress Robots tag

• If "index" or "index, follow" is assigned to an area, there won't be an output of the Robots tag in your source code after activation of this option.
• FYI: Google expects standard value "index, follow".
• This practice saves code, makes it more clean and give the actual content a higher position.
• Since wpSEO 2.7.1

Creates Canonical tag

• The Canonical tag is a joint initiative of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft to help reducing duplicate content.
• The value of the Canonical tag contains the preferred URL of a blog, which can be accessed via different parameters, but will only be listed in search engines with the preferred URL address.
• wpSEO creates the Canonical tag with the correct value in the HEAD-area of the current blog page.
• The Canonical tag will be used only in areas, where the particular Robots-Tag contains the value "index".
• Applies for the front page, dynamic posts, static pages and archive.
• New since WordPress 2.9: The Tag rel=canonical gets added automatically and without questioning to each single page. wpSEO checks the existence of this line and avoids a collision with canonical-Tags (wpSEO vs. WordPress).
• Since wpSEO 2.7.2

Add Robots tag manually

• After you activate this option you will see in "Add New Post" your "wpSEO Settings" where you can put in a robots tag manually. If you still use an older version than WordPress 2.7, you can find it under "Write » Write Post".
• Manual robots tag always take highest priority.
• Assign a robots tag manually is not required, if there is no manual robots tag, the dynamic settings of Avoid duplicate content » Robots tag will take place.
• A manually assigned robots tag can always be modified or deleted if you go to "Post" > "Edit" and edit the text field in wpSEO.
• Possible values: index / noindex, follow / nofollow - the values are combined with each other.
• Only works in posts and pages.

No proof of duplicates

• The default settings of wpSEO checks the source code of your pages if there are meta tags like category description, keywords, robots or title included. These get replaced by wpSEO automatically.
• To improve the performance of the plugin you can suppress the search after meta tags.
• If you activate this option, make sure that all
  - <title>...</title>
  - <meta name="robots" ... />
  - <meta name="description" ... />
  - <meta name="keywords" .. />
  tags have to be deleted from the header.php-template, otherwise there can be unfavorable overlaps in your source code.

Other settings » SEO Monitor

• If you activate this option, wpSEO will display a single module on your WordPress dashboard.
• The module displays daily updates on Google PageRank and Alexa Rank and the count of backlinks and FeedBurner subscribers.
• Access to your FeedBurner-Statistics is only possible if the Awareness-API is activated (you can find it in your FeedBurner-Account under Publish) and with the additional installation of the FeedBurner-Plugin (then known as FeedBurner-FeedSmith-Plugin).
• The following PHP functions provides values from the SEO Monitor and can be used in your theme templates:
  • Google PageRank:
    $GLOBALS['wpSEO']->get_google_pagerank();
  • Alexa Rank:
    $GLOBALS['wpSEO']->get_alexa_rank();
  • Yahoo! Backlinks:
    $GLOBALS['wpSEO']->get_yahoo_backlinks();
  • FeedBurner:
    $GLOBALS['wpSEO']->get_feedburner_subscribers();
• Since WordPress 2.7 available.
• Since wpSEO 2.7

Other settings » AdSense highlighting

• Google allows within target group orientation to highlight specific parts of your text, so that AdSense can provide a better content related ad.
• The plugin wraps the post with - by Google prescribed - tags and masks the target group orientation of ads.
• Following tags are used for highlighting: <!-- google_ad_section_start --> and <!-- google_ad_section_end -->.
• This option shouldn't be activated if your template includes a label for target group orientation, otherwise you have to remove the label for target group orientation.

Other settings » ODP snippet

• The declared meta tag with the content value "noodp" in your source code refers search engines to not use the description text in the search result of the open directory projects. Instead, it should either use an excerpt or a category description.

Other settings » Noarchive snippet

• Google automatically creates a mirror of all crawled pages and creates in its own cache an archive. After activation of this option, wpSEO creates a robots metatag with the "noarchive" value, which suppresses caching of your blog pages in cache of search engines.
• Since wpSEO 2.7

Other settings » Protect RSS Feeds

• This function writes a noindex metatag in your main feed and avoids to be indexed.
• It should be noted, that blog pages by blocking of the feed won't included in Google Blog Search because Google uses blog feeds as a source of search results.

Other settings » File renaming

• With WordPress it's also possible to upload a medium which can be inserted in your text.
• For Search Engine Optimization the name of an uploaded file has an important role - as it has for the title (Google Images).
• This option renames the uploaded file or video and uses the entered title as template.
• Example: If the file has the file name "FCS161718.jpg" before the upload and the title is "My beautiful Mac", it will rename the file to "my-beautiful-mac.jpg".
• Special characters in the file name are separately treated and accordingly converted.
• If a file already exists with the same name, it will add a time stamp to the file name.
• Since WordPress 2.5 you have to press the button "save all changes", before the file name can be converted.

Other settings » Order of the meta tags

• You can change the order of tags, which are generated by wpSEO in your source code manually (Title, Description, Keywords and Robots).
• There are many combinations in a dropdown menu available.
• We recommend to sort tags in reference to their priority (for example: The title should be listed as the first position).
• Since wpSEO 2.7

Other settings » Plugin language

• The plugin is able to automatically detect the language of the WordPress installation and loads automatically the appropriate language.
• A non-standard language of the plugin interface can be set manually in the option panel and be used in the future.
• Since wpSEO 2.7.6

Cleanup Procedure after Deactivation

• If settings are made in a plugin, then these are saved in a database for later use.
• If a plugin is deactivated and then taken out of a blog, it normally will still remain in the database and bloat the system.
• Since version 2.7, wpSEO is able to inform the installed blog system which option fields the SEO plugin needs and which can be deleted after being installed. In this manner the database stays clean and lean.
• Since WordPress 2.7 available.

Manual redirect of pages (301-Redirect)

• Manually assigned redirects are very useful if you join several pages or changing the permalink structure.
• To Do: add custom field "set-redirect" with desired redirect link (URL).
• Status of redirect: 301 Moved Permanently.
• Only works in posts and pages.

Option export/import

• You can export plugin settings as XML-Format.
• You can use these settings in other blogs or restore them at a later time.