Added: [NEW & HUGE!] A completely new design with best in class user experience. Setting and using the plugin can never be more comfortable. Check the preview here
Added: Easy & Advanced modes for better option handling. One can choose between the two to make the interface simpler or advanced. Easy mode is what we would recommend to 99% of the users
Added: A brand new Image SEO module by moving all the image SEO-related options into it
Added: If error logging is turned on a site, the error log’s data shows up inside the System Status page of Rank Math. Will come in handy when debugging issues
Added: A new filter is added to show NoIndexed posts/pages in the Sitemap. It is only for advanced users having an edge-case. For normal users, it is not recommended to use
Improved: Strengthened the plugin’s SECURITY further
Improved: The working of the focus keyword field. Now, as soon as you paste the keyword or click outside the focus keyword area, the keyword gets registered. No more requirement to press the enter key
Improved: The styling of the focus keyword area with long keywords not fitting perfectly in the Gutenberg sidebar
Improved: The confusing layout of the Search Console related options to make it easier to follow by showing just a single button on the first instance
Improved: Added a tutorial link in the Search Console step of setup wizard to let users use their Google App. It is highly recommended to the Agency owners. Read here
Improved: Updated the text inside the options panel to make them easier to understand
Improved: Schema Markup output now limits the title characters to 110. Props to Saijo George
Improved: Query performance related to the Rank Math Variables by running it on only required pages
Improved: Allow only one Focus keyword in the Taxonomy pages(Category/Tag etc.), as there are no tests for the secondary keywords
Improved: Internal linking SEO test now considers relative URLs as well when assigning a score to the page
Improved: Compatibility with the WPML plugin
Improved: Score calculating formula in the SEO Analyzer, you will see the slight score difference on the next run
Improved: Breadcrumbs code by adding better support for accessibility
Improved: SEO Meta can be changed even if a post is set to noindex
Improved: By default, the Elementor page builder’s templates are now set to noindex, this will not affect the posts/pages created using Elementor
Improved: As soon as someone deactivates the plugin, the site connected to the Rank Math’s account also gets removed
Improved: Recipe Schema to include contentURL as a required field in the Recipe Video
Improved: The options panel search is much more meaningful now and shows the options from all the Rank Math related settings
Improved: The Schema type for pages like Home, Contact Us, About Us, etc. will now have None selected by default
Improved: For the page set as the Blog page from the WordPress ‘Reading’ settings, there won’t be any content related tests. They made no sense on that page and users were finding it impossible to get a good score on that page
Removed: Stopwords functionality completely, as it is not relevant anymore due to the updates like BERT
Removed: Multiple Social meta options, as they are not required anymore for the Knowledge Graph by Google & Bing. You should only see the needed options in the Global Social Meta settings page
Removed: Social tests from the SEO Analyzer as those are not needed anymore
Removed: isSimilarTo Schema code from the single WooCommerce products to comply with Google’s demands
Fixed: Score was not updating immediately after adding new Focus Keyword in some cases
Fixed: Keyword density test not working when diacritics were used in the focus keyword
Fixed: URL count was not updating immediately and correctly. It should be displaying the count as expected
Fixed: Text in the contact info Shortcode was not translation-ready
Fixed: Filter to disable Gutenberg Sidebar works fine again. Sorry about this and we would recommend to try and get used to the sidebar version as that is more productive
Fixed: An issue with the lazy loading image scripts, where the automatic ALT & Titles tags were adding gibberish characters instead of the proper values
Fixed: Bulk image ALT edit was not working properly in the Media page[List View]
Fixed: The preview section was showing In Stock status for WooCommerce products even though products were out of stock. Frontend Schema Markup was printing correctly. They should be in sync now
Fixed: For WooCommerce, when the Remove Product Category Base option was enabled, double slashes were incorrectly getting added to the URLs
Fixed: Wrong homepage URL was showing in the Elementor Editor’s preview if the static page was set as the homepage
Fixed: Phone Number label in the Contact Info shortcode was not localized
Fixed: Score and color of the secondary keyword in the Classic Editor was not matching with the Gutenberg Score
Fixed: Yoast’s HowTo Block importer not working from the Status & Tools page. it was working fine from the setup wizard
Fixed: OG & Twitter description tags were missing on the archive pages
Fixed: Conflict with the WPML plugin and Remove Product Category Base option
Fixed: Rank Math was not detecting videos added using the Divi Builder because the builder adds video tag instead of embed tag
Fixed: The output of the %excerpt% variable in the SEO Description field will use custom post excerpt before creating an auto-generated description
Fixed: Some strings were not translating in the Gutenberg(block Editor)
Fixed: The filter to change the Sitemap’s base URL was not working
Fixed: The Classic Editor was not responding when special characters were used in the Permalink field
Fixed: Missing forward slash in the preview area if WPML plugin was active
Fixed: An issue where diacritics were not getting detected in the Power Words test
Fixed: Missing twitter:site tag in single posts added from the Twitter Profile URL was not working
Fixed: Ignore Case option in the Redirection module where it was getting selected automatically for the last source when two or more sources were added
Fixed: Elementor’s preview wasn’t displaying the category slug even though the URL after publishing an article was generating correctly
Improved: Styling of the focus keyword field in the Classic Editor if keywords expanded to 2 rows
Improved: Strengthened security further
Improved: New posts where custom titles are not used, will now be generating the titles on the fly using the global variable template
Improved: Auto-update emails won’t contain the site name anymore
Improved: Removed Rollbar’s library from the plugin to make the plugin much smaller and faster
Fixed: Single posts’ Schema type was not honoring the global settings and needed a manual selection. That should not be the case now
v1.0.42.2 April 18, 2020
Changed: primary_term filter to admin/disable_primary_term
Improved: Strengthened security further
Fixed: A security issue that allowed deactivation of the conflicting plugins added inside the importer of Rank Math (AIO SEO, Yoast, Redirection, SEOPress, Schema Pro, All In One Schema Rich Snippets, etc.) even if user kept them enabled. Props to WordPress plugins team for notifying
Fixed: Rank Math meta box stopped working in WordPress 4.9 and ClassicPress
Fixed: An issue with TinyMCE script when the visual editor was disabled
Fixed: A problem with the previews in the backend when accented letters like, â, î or ô, etc., were used
Fixed: Social image set in the Author Profile was not working
v1.0.42.1 April 16, 2020
Added: One can add the permalink to a new post/page in Rank Math without saving it as a draft first
Improved: The output code of Recipe Schema now includes more data
Fixed: Classic Editor’s content analysis wasn’t working when an apostrophe was used in the focus keyword field
Fixed: An issue with Gutenberg plugin’s latest version, v7.9.0
Fixed: Some tests were missing in the newly created pages
Fixed: An inability to add a hyphen at the end of the permalink
Fixed: Social previews were not showing the auto description. Though, the social media sites were picking them just fine
Fixed: Incorrect word-count when the text from the main content was copied into WooCommerce product’s short description field
Fixed: Missing save/cancel buttons in the SEO details post-column when using the bulk editing feature
Fixed: HTML code was not stripped from the SEO title in the Classic Editor
Fixed: Trying to get property 'slug' error on the Post list page when there was no category set, and debug was turned on
Fixed: Added missing arguments in the save_post
v1.0.42 April 14, 2020
Added: HUGE! Classic Editor now uses Gutenberg aka Block Editor’s content analysis library to avoid test mismatch
Added: Dedicated SEO tests for the static page set as a homepage
Added: Text explanations in few areas to help understand options better
Added: A way to detect if a site was compromised and remove any data related to it in the redirections
Improved: SEO score on the homepage won’t show up by default even if the option is turned on. One has to add a Shortcode in the homepage’s content to show the SEO score
Improved: Schema Pro plugin’s import now imports the default settings strategically
Improved: Strengthened the plugin security further
Improved: If a newer stable version is detected, the Beta update does not show anymore
Improved: Excerpt preview trims properly in the Titles & Meta options in the options panel
Improved: Changed ALT text’s default value to use the filename instead of the post’s title. One can change the setting to any other variable
Fixed: Address field not getting saved in Job Posting Schema in the Block Editor
Fixed: An issue where the redirection type wasn’t allowed to be changed on saved posts using the dropdown. Though, the redirections were getting saved correctly
Fixed: Schema auto description not matching with the Custom SEO Meta description set in the WooCommerce products
Fixed: A problem with WooCommerce’s Remove Category Base & Remove Parent slug options where an extra slash was getting added into the product’s category URL. Though, the canonical URL was printing correctly
Fixed: An error related to SEO Score Shortcode in the frontend
Fixed: Quick edit save breaking Rank Math columns
Fixed: The Schema data is not updating unless the default value is changed in the Block Editor options
Fixed: How To Section of the Recipe Schema not saving the data in the block editor
Fixed: wp_rank_math_internal_meta related error appearing in the Query Monitor on some installations
Fixed: Sitemap showing a blank page if Query Monitor and Debug is enabled
Fixed: A PHP Error on the Help & Support Page
Fixed: Small visual issue related to the Search form in the Add Link popup
