The Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin was updated to version 3.0.0 on the 20th November 2016 including detailed Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Documentation.

Version 3.0.0 is a major update, adds new features including new WordPress SEO Plugin Warning Pages Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Warnings, Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin Warnings and All In One SEO Plugin Warnings.

Yoast SEO Warnings

ALL Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Yoast SEO Warnings

ALL Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Yoast SEO Warnings

The Stallion WordPress SEO Plugins includes a feature to list all Yoast SEO Noindex settings which are potentially SEO damaging. Noindex wastes PageRank/link benefit and in general should NOT be used.

SEO > Search Appearance – Content Types : Posts
Show Posts in search results? “NO” Selected : Yoast Noindex Posts SEO Warnings.

SEO > Search Appearance – Content Types : Pages
Show Pages in search results? “NO” Selected : Yoast Noindex Pages SEO Warning.

SEO > Search Appearance – Media : Media & attachment URLs
Show Media in search results? “NO” Selected : Yoast Noindex Media SEO Warning.

SEO > Search Appearance – Taxonomies : Categories
Show Categories in search results? “NO” Selected : Yoast Noindex Categories SEO Warnings.

SEO > Search Appearance – Taxonomies : Tags
Show Tags in search results? “NO” Selected : Yoast Noindex Tags SEO Warnings.

SEO > Search Appearance – Taxonomies : Format
Show Formats in search results? “NO” Selected : Yoast Noindex Custom Taxonomies SEO Warnings.

SEO > Search Appearance – Archives : Author Archives
Show author archives in search results? “NO” Selected : Yoast Noindex Author Archives SEO Warnings.

SEO > Search Appearance – Archives : Date Archives
Show date archives in search results? “NO” Selected : Yoast Noindex Date Archives SEO Warnings.

All In One SEO Warnings

ALL Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin All In One SEO Warnings

ALL Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin All In One SEO Warnings

For Yoast and All In One SEO, the new SEO warning pages list which plugin features (section wide noindex and nofollow features) are potentially causing serious SEO damage. Even if you don’t want to use the Stallion SEO Plugin features, install/activate Stallion, check your Yoast/All In One SEO options, fix any problems, deactivate Stallion.

Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Download

The Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin is hosted at the WordPress Plugin Repository at Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Download: I removed the SEO plugin from the repository.

Install Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin

Install Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin

Also see my other free WordPress SEO Plugins: Display Widgets SEO Plus Plugin and the WordPress SEO Comments Plugin.

What Is the Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin?

I’m sure you are aware of the basic title tag and meta tag features built into SEO plugins like Yoast and All In One SEO. The Stallion SEO Plugin version 3.0.0 does NOT manipulate title tags or meta tags: I plan to add more SEO features to the Stallion plugin including support for Yoast and All In One SEO title tags and meta tags (similar to what’s built in to the Stallion WordPress SEO Theme) in the future.

Version 3.0.0 includes an SEO feature called Not Index, Not Index is based on canonical URLs which recover link benefit (PageRank : PR) which would be lost if noindex robots meta tags were used. The Stallion Not Index SEO feature is a replacement for the SEO damaging noindex robots meta tag features (noindex wastes link benefit) built into SEO plugins like Yoast SEO and All In One SEO.

Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Not Index Options

Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Not Index Options

When Yoast/All In One SEO noindex options are replaced by Stallion Not Index options, most of the wasted link benefit is recovered.

Not only does the Stallion Not Index options replace the damaging noindex features of Yoast and All In One SEO, Not Index can also be used to concentrate link benefit and rankings on the first page of Categories, Tags (all important WordPress Archives) and the first page of multiple comment paged Posts and Static Pages.

See the screenshot above and below, specifically options like:

WordPress Category Archives : Index First Categories Only : Block Paged 2,3,4…^^

Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Index First Category Page

Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Index First Category Page

When set Pages 2,3,4,5…. of a Category Archive set will include a canonical URL to the first page of the Category archive set. This suggests to Google etc… that Pages 2,3,4,5…. of the Category should be spidered (Google will follow the links to pages 2,3,4,5 etc… and to the Posts linked from those Category pages), BUT only index (index means the webpage can be found with relevant Google searches) Category Page 1 AND pass most of the SEO link benefit AND ranking benefit (from Pages 2,3,4,5….) to the first Page.

In SEO terms it’s like having a single huge webpage for each Category Archive with most of the SEO benefit concentrated on that one webpage. The reason for doing this is Categories when optimized can gain SERPs (direct Google traffic) in their own right, BUT it tends to be Page 1 in the set which gains the SERPs: Pages 2,3,4,5…. tend to gain no direct SERPs/traffic (no point indexing them).

This can also be true for other archives: Tags, Search Results, Custom Taxonomies, Custom Post Type Archives and even Author Archives: the dated archives are never going to gain SERPs, best SEO practice is don’t use dated archive widgets.

The option:

WordPress Paged Comments on Posts and Pages : Index Main Post/Page Only : Block Paged Comments 2,3,4…

Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Index First Paged Comment

Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Index First Paged Comment

Is for sites with Posts/Pages with a lot of comments and you’ve set under “Settings” > “Discussion” : “Other comment settings” – “Break comments into pages with #”.

This setting results in Posts/Pages with Paged Comments which with most WordPress themes tend to have almost identical title tags. Having identical title tags isn’t best SEO practice : the Stallion Responsive Theme includes a feature to give the Paged Comments unique title tags.

If your Paged Comments have almost identical title tags set the option above. This concentrates the SEO benefit in the same way as described for Category Archives: the first page of the Post/Page will gain most of the link benefit and SEO rankings generated by the entire Paged Comments set.

Performance SEO Plugin Features

For performance SEO reasons it is advisable on heavily commented sites to set the “Settings” > “Discussion” : “Other comment settings” – “Break comments into pages with #” option to break Posts/Pages with lots of comments into small chunks.

If you have a Post for example with 100 comments, you do NOT want them all loading on one webpage, this can be a significant performance hit. A good example of how NOT to setup a WordPress site for best SEO performance is the yoast.com site.

Yoast WordPress Post (October 9th 2014).

This is the URL to the live Google PageSpeed Insights Tool Test: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=yoast.com%2Fopinion-on-sliders%2F

Mobile Page Speed Insights Yoast SEO Post

Mobile Page Speed Insights Yoast SEO Post

Mobile 27/100
Desktop 54/100
User Experience 98/100

Mobile and Desktop is in the red, not good! I was shocked when I saw 27/100 for mobile, that’s awful!

Update: November 2016 results
Mobile 44/100
Desktop 51/100
User Experience 99/100

The above are still awful performance SEO results for a site that sell SEO services and develops one of the most widely used WordPress SEO plugins!!!

Why you shouldn’t use WordPress SEO Plugins that use Nofollow

WordPress SEO plugins like Yoast SEO, All In One SEO and Squirrly SEO should not be used because nofollow deletes link benefit, it’s as simple as that.

Google changed the way nofollow works some years ago (2008), unfortunately many WordPress SEO experts either don’t keep up to date with changes in SEO techniques or they don’t care: it’s an easy way to gain traffic touting a WordPress SEO plugin even if it is flawed/SEO damaging: see Is Yoast the Best WordPress SEO Plugin? for details.

Don’t believe nofollow deletes link benefit, do some research and find what Matt Cutt’s (he works for Google) had to say about Google’s change to nofollow back in June 2009:

So what happens when you have a page with “ten PageRank points” and ten outgoing links, and five of those links are nofollowed? Let’s leave aside the decay factor to focus on the core part of the question. Originally, the five links without nofollow would have flowed two points of PageRank each (in essence, the nofollowed links didn’t count toward the denominator when dividing PageRank by the outdegree of the page). More than a year ago, Google changed how the PageRank flows so that the five links without nofollow would flow one point of PageRank each.
Source: Matt Cutt’s PageRank sculpting

Still not convinced watch this YouTube video by Matt Cutts.

Note Matt Cutts says the PageRank that goes through nofollow links “evaporates or disappears”. Nofollow deletes link benefit, never use it!!!

That’s straight from Google, nofollow deletes link benefit, DO NOT use NOFOLLOW.

Quick SEO Tip Nofollow Deletes Link Benefit

Quick SEO Tip Nofollow Deletes Link Benefit

Or what about from Rand Fishkin at Moz:

This is a disappointing move from Google on many fronts:

It allows malicious operators to actively hurt a site by adding nofollowed links in comments, forums and other open submission arenas.

It removes the protection webmasters thought was afforded by nofollowing links (you may not get hurt for linking to spam or paid links directly, but you’re now indirectly hurting your site’s PageRank flow)
Source: Google Says: Yes, You Can Still Sculpt PageRank. No You Can’t Do It With Nofollow

Note how Rand Fishkin (respected SEO expert) considers adding nofollowed links a malicious SEO act!!! Yes, you could actively damage your competitors rankings by commenting on their WordPress driven sites if the comment links are nofollow!

Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Tutorials

Stallion Not Index Tutorials

Stallion SEO Warnings Tutorials

Stallion WordPress SEO Plugin Warnings

Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin Warnings

All In One SEO Plugin Warnings

David Law

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David Law : Technical SEO Expert with 20+ years Online Business, SEO, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing experience... Creator of multiple WordPress SEO Themes and SEO Plugins. Interests: wildlife, walking, environmental issues, politics, economics, journalism, consumer rights.

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