Rank Math completely destroyed my site..

shabushabu

shabushabu

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I never liked using SEO plugins for my wordpress sites because I've been extremely successful without them (and you'll find out why). About 6+ years ago I installed Yoast on my site and it destroyed my rankings, can't remember exact specifics but I uninstalled and never used it again, event single handedly begun my dislike for these plugins.. site eventually recovered and that was that.

Now, 2 months ago I needed more control over meta descriptions on Google, theme was displaying a mess for most articles, after some research, decided to install Rank Math, and low and behold, after just a week, my traffic was cut in half(literally). No idea why, but had a feeling these demonic plugins were the culprit.. A month later(mid Dec) I noticed that Rank Trash by default, adds a no index to your tag pages, I didn't notice this change for about a week until I checked Google Search Console's "Coverage" tab. I had 1000+ tag pages and they were all no indexed from Google search.. wtf. Fast forward... It's been 2 months now and Google still hasn't indexed my 1000+ tag pages and my traffic has dropped about 70% ever since installing Rank Trash.. monthly $ earnings dropped by the same amount..

Now, I did re-index all tag pages, and uninstalled Rank Trash but seems Google it's taking its sweet time to re-index my pages.

ravaged..
 
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You have to know what you are doing especially when doing changes on an already earning website. If you don't put out a lot of content daily, then you can, in fact, control a website even without an SEO plugin. But if you do want to install one, first install it on a small site and check out all customizations. You are one of the happy cases where indexed tag pages actually help, but for most, they are a plague on their SEO score. That's why not rank math, but most SEO plugins would add a noindex tag to tag pages. Also, make sure the traffic drop had no connection to the november update, because it seems more likely.
 
I have been using Rank Math for more than 6 months and have no issues with Google indexing. Maybe you configured it wrong somewhere.
 
I don't side with RM, but noindexing tag pages is not bad. Your rage is unjustified in my opinion, I have tag pages indexed for several sites and not a single one of those tags brings in 1 measly visitor. NONE! Besides, I don't think that I've ever clicked on a single tag page in google in the last 10 years or so, actually I don't think I've seen a tag page ranking at all :)

But in general, the less plugins you use the better, and many SEO plugins are bad indeed. Personally, I use The SEO Framework (and just because I like having my tag pages automatically set to noindex and an SEO plugin is great for that) and I'm pretty happy with it. It's simple, clean, fast, and does exactly what SEO plugins are supposed to do. I can't vouch for Yoast and AIOSEO, though...
 
tazarbm said:
I don't side with RM, but noindexing tag pages is not bad. Your rage is unjustified in my opinion, I have tag pages indexed for several sites and not a single one of those tags brings in 1 measly visitor. NONE! Besides, I don't think that I've ever clicked on a single tag page in google in the last 10 years or so, actually I don't think I've seen a tag page ranking at all :)

But in general, the less plugins you use the better, and many SEO plugins are bad indeed. Personally, I use The SEO Framework (and just because I like having my tag pages automatically set to noindex and an SEO plugin is great for that) and I'm pretty happy with it. It's simple, clean, fast, and does exactly what SEO plugins are supposed to do. I can't vouch for Yoast and AIOSEO, though...
Click to expand...
Yup.
You can no index tags and categories to avoid possible over optimisation/keyword cannibalisation, depending on your site structure.
 
shabushabu said:
I never liked using SEO plugins for my wordpress sites because I've been extremely successful without them (and you'll find out why). About 6+ years ago I installed Yoast on my site and it destroyed my rankings, can't remember exact specifics but I uninstalled and never used it again, event single handedly begun my dislike for these plugins.. site eventually recovered and that was that.

Now, 2 months ago I needed more control over meta descriptions on Google, theme was displaying a mess for most articles, after some research, decided to install Rank Math, and low and behold, after just a week, my traffic was cut in half(literally). No idea why, but had a feeling these demonic plugins were the culprit.. A month later(mid Dec) I noticed that Rank Trash by default, adds a no index to your tag pages, I didn't notice this change for about a week until I checked Google Search Console's "Coverage" tab. I had 1000+ tag pages and they were all no indexed from Google search.. wtf. Fast forward... It's been 2 months now and Google still hasn't indexed my 1000+ tag pages and my traffic has dropped about 70% ever since installing Rank Trash.. monthly $ earnings dropped by the same amount..

Now, I did re-index all tag pages, and uninstalled Rank Trash but seems Google it's taking its sweet time to re-index my pages.

ravaged..
Click to expand...
Why not post this in Rank Math's Facebook group?
 
i think you should contact Rank Math Support to figure out what's the reason.
I am using the Rank Math with default configure and no see the issue
 
Recently I am also facing rank math issues. Previous to this without having a plugin I was totally fine.

nSnoopy said:
I had a similar experience with Yoast, i moved on to The SEO Framework and never looked back; it provides exactly what i need, meta description/title length and sitemap. No bloated trash.
Click to expand...

I think I am gonna try this plugin. how is this? Is it simple or complex settings?
 
xlighter said:
Recently I am also facing rank math issues. Previous to this without having a plugin I was totally fine.



I think I am gonna try this plugin. how is this? Is it simple or complex settings?
Click to expand...
It is not complex, very user friendly.
The main difference between yoast/rank math and TSF is that yoast/rank math will give you an insight on what to do (regarding on-page optimization) while TSF can do such thing only on the PRO version, the free one is just like a said above: Will tell you the accepted title and meta description length and provide you with a sitemap and options to noindex tags/archived pages/author archive/etc..
If you know the basic Onpage optimization, TSF is all you need.
 
nSnoopy said:
It is not complex, very user friendly.
The main difference between yoast/rank math and TSF is that yoast/rank math will give you an insight on what to do (regarding on-page optimization) while TSF can do such thing only on the PRO version, the free one is just like a said above: Will tell you the accepted title and meta description length and provide you with a sitemap and options to noindex tags/archived pages/author archive/etc..
If you know the basic Onpage optimization, TSF is all you need.
Click to expand...
Thanks buddy
 
I've got some sites with tag rankings, they don't have this SEO plugin installed, but now I know not too change over without checking the settings, if it is possible to use it now after all?
 
Sounds like user error in not configuring the plugin.

Whatever you choose to use - my only reco is not to use Yoast.

There's so many things wrong with Yoast - from injecting ads and trash into sites, adding unnecessary footprints in the code, intentionally breaking other plugins to encourage adoption of their own tools/services (XML sitemaps) and so many other shady practices.
 
I second that, no-indexing tag pages.
I don't even add tags, let alone indexing or no indexing, after knowing it only hurts your seo.
I am done with that crap.
I Also keep number of categories under control, use them as little as possible.
What else is your complaint?
 
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