This software package is bundled with the Extension Manager.

Activate Transport

First, you’ll need to activate the Transport extension.

Transport screen

Underneath the extension description, you should see a settings-link appear. You can also find the link to “Transport” under “SEO” in the admin sidebar, but you may need to refresh the admin page first.

On the Transport screen, you can start importing metadata.

Importing

First, select the plugin you want to import from. Transport will then present you with the types of data you can import. Hit “Import,” and Transport will take care of the rest.

The importer keeps track of how many database items are found per data type; it will recount from 0 when it moves to the next data type. You can see this in real-time at the logger.

Logger

The logger will display in real-time the progress of all data transactions.

Because web browsers become slow at about 32 000 characters (18 book pages), the logger trims chunks of old log data to stay beneath that number. You can hit “Copy log” to grab what’s in the logger.

If you find an issue, please send us a support email with the log attached.

Supported plugins for import

The importer currently supports Yoast SEO, Rank Math, and SEOPress. Support for AIOSEO is coming soon™.

Should I create a backup before transporting?

Yes.

Really?

Yes. Transport will irreversibly alter and irretrievably delete metadata; both are intended features.

We recommend transporting only when you’re sure you want to stay with The SEO Framework. Otherwise, you should keep a backup ready in case you want to go back (we cannot comprehend why anyone would, though).

What data is transformed?

All titles and descriptions pass through the transformer. This transformer takes syntax, such as %archive_title%, and transforms those as the plugin you’re migrating from would.

After transformation, repeating separators will be coalesced (text | | | text becomes text | text), and stray separators and spaces will be trimmed from either side of the title or description.

Not everything is transformed

Only syntax listed in the transformation tables below are transformed. Simple text is unaffected and transported as-is.

Some syntax in the tables below are treated as “(preserved)” because these types depend on their context. For example, %page% will stay %page%. We cannot set page 1 because that’d be wrong for page 2. The SEO Framework will hint you later via the SEO Bar so you can manually correct the preserved syntax.

Text that follows the transformation syntax rules of the plugin, but isn’t listed in its table, will be removed. So, if you put %not-exist% in your title, that text will be gone after transporting.

Post types or terms that don’t support syntax functionality will have the text removed as well. For example, categories do not support post dates; so, %post_date% will be removed if it’s is found in a category title.

When a meta title is transformed, the importer will check the “Remove site title” option for the post or term. This prevents some further augmentation from The SEO Framework.

To summarize, hello %sep% %not-exists% %sep% world %page% becomes hello | world %page%.

What data is transported?

Not all SEO plugins are alike. The SEO Framework (TSF) takes a straightforward approach to SEO, backed only by scientific data. It is why you find fewer features in our plugin, but each component is far more evolved and polished.

Yoast SEO

The following data is transported from Yoast SEO.

* When found, the importer will set a flag for TSF to remove appending of the site title. You can uncheck this flag via the post edit screen.
† To transport primary term IDs, the taxonomy must be active before Transport can detect the data. For example, WooCommerce must be active to transport Primary Product Category IDs for Products.
‡ This includes: title, description, Open Graph title, Open Graph description, Twitter title, Twitter description, Canonical URL, and Robots noindex.

Yoast SEO cleanup

Transporter will irretrievably delete the following data from your database, improving your website performance.

Yoast SEO transformations

Rank Math

The following data is transported from Rank Math.

* When found, the importer will set a flag for TSF to remove appending of the site title. You can uncheck this flag via the post edit screen.
† Conditional: Twitter metadata is only transported when enabled for the post or term in Rank Math.
‡ To transport primary term IDs, the taxonomy must be active before Transport can detect the data. For example, WooCommerce must be active to transport Primary Product Category IDs for Products.

Rank Math cleanup

Transporter will irretrievably delete the following data from your database, improving your website performance.

Rank Math transformations

SEOPress

It took us a month to comb through SEOPress’s massive spaghetti code. After making sense of it all, we concluded that SEOPress is dangerous software and we are glad you are deciding to make the switch. The documentation below is more accurate than theirs.

The following data is transported from SEOPress.

* When found, the importer will set a flag for TSF to remove appending of the site title. You can uncheck this flag via the post edit screen.
† Conditional: Redirection is only transported when you activate the extraneous checkbox in SEOPress, and when the redirection is for everyone (both logged in and logged out visitors).
‡ SEOPress haphazardly supports only native Categories and WooCommerce Product Categories, and allows you to assign non-existing terms. TSF supports all taxonomies and has safeguards built-in against the broken data from SEOPress.

SEOPress cleanup

SEOPress stores much data it doesn’t even use itself. Their developers do not know how to abstract simple concepts; instead, they duplicated their metadata code over five times, acting a little differently every time you interact with it.

Transporter will irretrievably delete the following data from your database, improving your website performance.

SEOPress transformations

Many duplicated tags, some of which don’t work reliably in SEOPress.

1.1.1

Release date: June 22nd, 2023

• Note: This extension is still in beta and will still delete data from other plugins.
• Fixed: Transports now won’t stop when the connection drops.
• Fixed: A readable transport log is now sent when the browser doesn’t support event streams.
• Fixed: Yoast SEO’s plugin name is now correctly spelled. Props Joost de Valk.

1.1.0

Release date: February 7th, 2023

• Second beta release.
• Added: SEOPress transport support. Including:
  • Migration of titles, descriptions, visibility options, Open Graph, Twitter, redirections, and primary terms.
  • Support for all posts, pages, custom post types, and all terms like categories and tags.
  • Transformation of titles and descriptions; faster and more accurate than their developers can ever promise.
  • Cleanup of useless data.
• Fixed: Added missing title and description syntax transformations for Rank Math.
  • Among these are: categories, post_author, seo_title, seo_description, tags, and term.
  • Documented at FAQ.
• Fixed: Added missing title and description syntax preservation for Rank Math.
  • Among these are: group_desc, group_name, keywords, post_thumbnail, primary_taxonomy_terms, url, categories(*), customterm_desc(*), date(*), modified(*), tags(*).
  • Documented at FAQ.
• Fixed: When an existing post title is already present of The SEO Framework, a title present in another plugin will no longer cause Transport to check the blogname removal option.
• Fixed: The number of transformations and deletions in titles are now correctly added to the totals in the log.
• Fixed: Term cache clearing now works during title and description transformation. This feature is redundant, but the bug caused PHP notices being logged after term data was requested.

1.0.0

Release date: October 4th, 2022

• Initial extension beta release.