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2.2.9 – Robotic XML Sitemaps

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Updated

Changelog

For everyone:

  • Added: Sitemaps! Read more about this change below.
  • Added: Sitemaps options. The output is defaulted to ‘disabled’ for existing users. It’s defaulted to ‘enabled’ for new users of this plugin.
  • Added: Robots.txt adjustment – Sitemaps support through the robots_txt filter. If you have a static robots.txt file in your document root, read this: Make your sitemap available to Google
  • Added: Blocked query strings from search index through robots.txt. This will be adjustable in a future update.
  • Added: Blocked wp-admin and wp-includes from search index through robots.txt. This will be adjustable in a future update.
  • Added: The sitemap’s output is cached in the database when it’s called, when a post is deleted or published, the sitemaps are updated and Google, Yahoo and Bing are pinged (optional).
  • Added: Pinging of search engines. This is configurable and can occur normally at maximum once per hour.
  • Added: Generic-Admin icons on General Settings tabs.
  • Added: Icons on the Robots Meta Settings tabs, something to easier familiarize yourself with.
  • Added: Sitemaps flush on SEO settings change.
  • Changed: (textual) The “add my logo from customizer” title in the Knowledge Graph metabox has been changed from a question to a statement.
  • Changed: (layout) The extra information about noodp and noydir has been moved above the checkboxes.
  • Changed: The Robots metabox has been moved down a few places on new installations.
  • Changed: The link relationship urls no longer use the canonical url option.
  • Changed: This plugin has acquired maximum priority within the document head tags, this is to counter SEO mistakes some “SEO friendly” themes make. This doesn’t affect Genesis themes.
  • Changed: Sanitation calls are now only run on the SEO Settings page and nowhere else (previously everywhere in the dashboard).
  • Changed: Removed the brackets around the Home Page “Checked in Page” warning message to improve RTL support.
  • Updated: .POT file.
  • Updated: Dutch Translation Files.
  • Fixed: Search script markup caused by sanitation.
  • Fixed: Various typos in Dutch translation.
  • Fixed: Shortlink URL for post page if front page is static.
  • Note: This update has been thorougly tested on both single and multisite. If however your sitemap doesn’t show up:
    • Either: Try to save the SEO settings again.
    • Or: Please go to the Permalink Settings of your site and save the settings (no need to adjust them). This will force a flush.
  • Note: If you’re running your WordPress installation within a subdirectory, the sitemaps will not work unless you have a .htaccess file located in the subdirectory root.

For developers:

  • Added: New filters.
  • Added: New plugable functions. Be sure to compare to 2.2.9 as shown in Generator – The SEO Framework example plugin.
  • Added: The the_url() now accepts the canonical parameter, to fetch the url from options or not.
  • Added: Fetching the url externally through the_url() or the_url_from_cache() where the page id is home, will now give the canonical home url.
  • Changed: The the_url_from_cache() function now accepts parameters.
  • Fixed: PHP notice in ld_json_knowledge().
  • Cleaned up code.
  • Note: I’m lagging behind on updating the API docs, but don’t worry: It’ll be updated within a week!
  • Other: Version 2.3.0 of this plugin will focus more on the API and pure code optimalizations and less on new features. Since we’re all moving to PHP7 this year (I hope!) we can focus more on making programming easier for everyone.