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ThinkRank AI SEO – AI SEO Plugin for WordPress: Schema, XML Sitemaps, Meta Tags, Search Console & Local SEO / 1.30.0
ThinkRank AI SEO – AI SEO Plugin for WordPress: Schema, XML Sitemaps, Meta Tags, Search Console & Local SEO v1.30.0
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thinkrank / readme.txt

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1 === ThinkRank – AI SEO Plugin: Keywords, Metadata, Schema, llms.txt, MCP & Search Console ===
2 Contributors: wpdevteam, thinkrank, re_enter_rupok, rafinkhan, rudlinkon, mdnahidhasan
3 Tags: seo, ai seo, focus keyword, schema, llms.txt
4 Requires at least: 6.0
5 Tested up to: 7.0
6 Requires PHP: 8.0
7 Stable tag: 1.30.0
8 License: GPLv2 or later
9 License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html
10
11 AI SEO plugin with metadata, focus keywords, schema, XML sitemaps, llms.txt, MCP and Search Console insights.
12
13 == Description ==
14
15 **[ThinkRank](https://thinkrank.ai/) is an AI SEO plugin for WordPress built for the new agentic SEO workflow.** Optimize WordPress SEO with AI-generated meta titles and meta descriptions, real-time content analysis, keyword optimization, schema markup, XML sitemaps, robots meta, canonical URLs, Open Graph social previews, Google Search Console insights, GA4 analytics, llms.txt — and a built-in **MCP server** that lets Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other compatible AI assistants help manage SEO directly from your site.
16
17 ThinkRank is not just another SEO plugin. It is an **agentic AI SEO platform for WordPress** — built for the way SEO work is moving: from manual checklists to AI-assisted action. Instead of switching between dashboards, browser tabs, SEO checklists, and AI chat windows, you can ask your AI assistant to help configure and improve your SEO in plain language.
18
19 It works where you already build: **Gutenberg, Elementor, Divi, Oxygen/Breakdance, and the Classic Editor** — and on multilingual sites running **WPML, Polylang or TranslatePress**.
20
21 = Watch: Ranking in AI Search =
22
23 SEO creator Tin Rovic breaks down how to get your brand surfaced by AI search engines and LLMs:
24
25 https://youtu.be/TEzfS2dAMC8
26
27 = Agentic AI SEO with MCP for Claude, ChatGPT and Cursor =
28
29 ThinkRank ships a self-contained **Model Context Protocol (MCP) server** built right into the plugin — no companion plugin, no external libraries, no terminal. It turns your AI assistant into an **SEO operator, not just an SEO copywriter**.
30
31 * **Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor** or any MCP-compatible AI assistant to your WordPress site.
32 * **Ask for SEO in plain language:**
33 * "Write an SEO title and meta description for this post."
34 * "Which posts are missing SEO metadata?"
35 * "Add FAQ schema to this page."
36 * "Generate an llms.txt file for my website."
37 * "Review this page and suggest on-page SEO improvements."
38 * "Check Search Console opportunities for pages with high impressions and low CTR."
39 * **35+ SEO tools** exposed to your assistant — metadata, schema, site identity, sitemaps, robots.txt & robots meta, image SEO, social meta, instant indexing, llms.txt, SEO scores, insights and opportunities.
40 * **Connection health check** — a "Test connection" button makes a real call and tells you exactly which step failed: HTTPS, authentication, permissions, or ability discovery.
41 * **Safe imports** — connected assistants can preview an SEO import as a dry run before anything is written.
42
43 = Easy Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor and MCP Client Setup =
44
45 * **One-click Claude connection** via a guided OAuth 2.1 flow with PKCE — no API key to copy, no config file.
46 * **Application Password fallback** for ChatGPT, Cursor, and other MCP-compatible clients, with ready-made configuration details.
47 * **No companion plugin required** and **no terminal setup**.
48 * **Admin-controlled and off by default** — enable it under ThinkRank → MCP whenever you're ready.
49 * **Revocable in one click** — delete the connected Application Password and access is removed immediately.
50
51 = AI SEO Metadata Generator for Titles and Meta Descriptions =
52
53 * Generate SEO title suggestions for posts, pages, products, and custom post types.
54 * AI meta descriptions written for search snippets and click-through rate.
55 * Live SERP preview before you publish.
56 * Apply suggestions with one click — no copy-pasting.
57 * Fully editable fields with manual override.
58
59 = SEO Content Analysis, Focus Keywords and Keyword Optimization =
60
61 * Real-time content analysis with a 13-factor SEO score.
62 * Focus keyword tracking and usage (up to 5 keywords per post) with cannibalization warnings.
63 * Actionable recommendations for title, meta description, headings, links, readability, and structure.
64 * One-click "Apply" for AI-suggested fixes — not just generic advice.
65 * **"Explain with AI"** on any suggestion — a short, post-specific explanation of why it matters and how to fix it.
66 * **Bulk SEO Optimization** — review and fix titles, descriptions, and keywords across many posts from one screen.
67
68 = Site SEO Analyzer — a Whole-Site Audit With No Google Connection =
69
70 * A crawl-free, whole-site SEO audit with a **0–100 score and letter grade**.
71 * Checks across **Basic SEO, Advanced SEO, Content, Performance & Technical, and Security**.
72 * Per-category results with "how to fix" guidance, plus deep links straight to the relevant setting.
73 * Runs without connecting Google — useful on staging, new sites, and client audits.
74
75 = Schema Markup and Structured Data for Rich Snippets =
76
77 Output valid JSON-LD structured data so search engines can show rich results:
78
79 * Organization, Website, Article, FAQ, HowTo, VideoObject, Review, Local Business, and Breadcrumb schema.
80 * Out-of-the-box schema on posts, pages, CPTs, archives, and the homepage.
81 * **Import Schema From Any Website** to clone a competitor's structured data as a starting point.
82 * Deployment validation to catch structured-data errors before they reach Search Console.
83
84 = SEO Blocks: FAQ, HowTo and Table of Contents =
85
86 * **FAQ block** — inline Q&A rendered as an accordion that works with **no JavaScript**, and outputs FAQPage structured data automatically.
87 * **HowTo block** — step-by-step instructions with per-step images and total time, with automatic HowTo schema.
88 * **Table of Contents block** — builds its list live from your headings, adds anchor links that work without JavaScript, and emits SiteNavigationElement schema.
89 * **Elementor widgets** for all three, so Elementor-built pages get the same content patterns and structured data as Gutenberg.
90
91 = Works With Every Page Builder =
92
93 Page builders store their content outside `post_content`, which is why SEO plugins often report a 1,500-word page as empty. ThinkRank reads each builder's own stored content, so scoring, bulk optimization, the post-list SEO column, cron reports, and AI assistants all see the real words on the page.
94
95 * **Gutenberg / Block Editor** — a pinned "Configure SEO" launcher in the editor header with a live SEO score badge.
96 * **Elementor** — edit ThinkRank SEO fields without leaving the Elementor editor.
97 * **Divi** — a ThinkRank button in the Divi Visual Builder page bar opens the full SEO panel over the canvas.
98 * **Oxygen / Breakdance** — a floating launcher inside the builder opens the same SEO panel, with content read straight from the builder's node tree.
99 * **Classic Editor** — the full ThinkRank metabox with a bottom drawer and live SEO pattern previews.
100
101 = Multilingual SEO for WPML, Polylang and TranslatePress =
102
103 * **SEO fields in the WPML Translation Editor** — SEO title, meta description, social titles/descriptions, and focus keyword are exposed as translatable strings, so translators no longer need to open every language by hand.
104 * **Correct `og:locale` and `og:locale:alternate`** — each translated page advertises its own language and links to its alternates for social crawlers.
105 * **hreflang without duplicates** — ThinkRank emits hreflang tags **only** when WPML or Polylang isn't already printing them, so you never end up with two competing sets.
106 * **Language-aware XML sitemaps** — the sitemap covers every language, instead of only the one that was active when it was generated.
107 * **Sensible per-field behaviour** — copy for indexing intent and imagery, translate for copy, and never copy an explicit canonical onto a translation (which would point it back at the source language).
108 * Detected automatically, and completely inactive on monolingual sites.
109
110 = XML Sitemap Generator and Indexing Tools =
111
112 * Multiple sitemap modes: Basic, Complete, E-commerce, and Segmented.
113 * Real sitemap index with paginated child sitemaps, automatic splitting of oversized sitemaps, and per-post-type controls.
114 * Memory-efficient generation that stays fast on large sites.
115 * AI-optimized robots.txt with automatic sitemap discovery.
116 * **Instant Indexing** — submit new and updated URLs straight to search engines (IndexNow) for faster indexing, in the background via WP-Cron.
117
118 = llms.txt Generator for LLM SEO, GEO and AI Search Visibility =
119
120 * Generate and maintain an llms.txt file for your WordPress site.
121 * Built for **LLM SEO**, **generative engine optimization (GEO)**, and AI search readiness.
122 * Machine-readable summaries so AI assistants and AI search engines can discover and cite your content.
123
124 = Google Search Console, GA4 and SEO Insights =
125
126 * Google Search Console: clicks, impressions, queries, and keyword opportunities inside WordPress.
127 * **Website Insights dashboard widget** — your last 30 days of Search Console traffic, top queries, and headline metrics right on the WordPress dashboard.
128 * Google Analytics 4: traffic and organic performance.
129 * PageSpeed Insights and Core Web Vitals monitoring.
130 * AI-powered, natural-language explanations, trends, and scheduled email SEO reports.
131
132 = On-Page & Technical SEO: Robots Meta, Canonical URLs, Robots.txt, Breadcrumbs =
133
134 * Canonical URL controls to manage duplicate-content signals.
135 * Robots meta settings (noindex, nofollow) per post and globally.
136 * Robots.txt management with sitemap linking, kept in sync with the live file.
137 * Schema-enabled breadcrumb navigation, with context-aware titles and an optional border.
138 * Site identity and title-format management, including Tag and Archive title formats with context-aware variable buttons.
139
140 = Open Graph and Social Meta =
141
142 * Open Graph metadata, social titles, and descriptions.
143 * Twitter/X card support.
144 * Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest previews with real-time editing.
145 * Social profile fields validated before they're published as verification tags.
146
147 = AI Content Brief Generator =
148
149 * Generate a full content brief — outline, headings, entities, and content gaps — from a target keyword.
150 * Competitor analysis so you can see what's already ranking.
151 * Generate a **complete article draft**, not just an outline, in a tabbed layout.
152 * Save briefs and export them in multiple formats.
153
154 = Image SEO, Local SEO & WooCommerce =
155
156 * **Image SEO** — automated alt text written to the Media Library record itself, so it works everywhere (not just in rendered content). Bulk-fill every image missing alt text, auto-fill new uploads, and optionally overwrite existing alt text.
157 * **Local SEO** — business information, opening hours, location data, Local Business schema, and a local sitemap.
158 * **WooCommerce** — product metadata and E-commerce sitemap support (advanced product SEO is available in ThinkRank Pro).
159
160 = Role Manager: Team and Client Access Control =
161
162 * Control which roles can access Essential SEO, AI Tools, and Settings areas.
163 * A role × capability matrix, so editors, authors, contributors, and custom roles get exactly the SEO access you intend.
164 * Access rules are enforced on the REST API too, not just hidden in the menu.
165
166 = Migrate from Rank Math, Yoast SEO, AIOSEO or SEOPress =
167
168 A guided Setup Wizard detects your current SEO plugin and imports your metadata, schema settings, sitemap settings, image SEO data, templates, and related SEO settings from **Rank Math SEO, Yoast SEO, All in One SEO (AIOSEO), and SEOPress** — then deactivates the old plugin once its data is safely migrated.
169
170 The importers go well past basic post meta: title formats per page type, Knowledge Graph and organization identity, author archive settings, role permissions, IndexNow keys and submission history, per-post sitemap exclusions, breadcrumb settings, social defaults, News/Video sitemap post types, and local business details all carry over where the source plugin has them.
171
172 If you're looking for a **Rank Math alternative, Yoast SEO alternative, AIOSEO alternative, or SEOPress alternative** with stronger AI SEO and MCP-based agentic workflows, ThinkRank is built for that transition.
173
174 = Bring Your Own AI Provider Key =
175
176 ThinkRank works with **OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, OpenRouter, and compatible custom endpoints** — you bring your own key, so you keep direct control over model selection, cost, and privacy.
177
178 * **No AI key needed for:** metadata fields, schema controls, XML sitemaps, robots meta, canonical URLs, breadcrumbs, Open Graph, Search Console/GA4 connections, the Site SEO Analyzer, multilingual output, page-builder integrations, and most dashboard controls.
179 * **AI key required for:** AI metadata generation, content briefs, AI insights, "Explain with AI", and the generative MCP tools.
180
181 = ThinkRank Pro =
182
183 Upgrade to **ThinkRank Pro** for advanced, agentic-ready SEO automation:
184
185 * **Redirect Manager & 404 Monitor** — create and manage redirects (301/302/307/308/410/451) and log 404s with one-click "create redirect from 404".
186 * **AI Internal Linking** — relevance-ranked internal-link suggestions with one-click insertion, in bulk by post type.
187 * **Broken Link Checker** — scan content, verify links, and fix, unlink, or dismiss broken URLs.
188 * **Rank Tracker** — track keyword positions over time with daily Search Console snapshots and per-keyword history charts.
189 * **Custom Schema & Display Conditions** — add any JSON-LD schema type and control exactly where it outputs, with live validation.
190 * **Advanced WooCommerce SEO** — product identifiers (GTIN/MPN/ISBN), variation offers, and product Open Graph.
191 * **Multi-location Local SEO** — a locations table, per-location LocalBusiness schema, and the `[thinkrank_locations]` shortcode.
192 * **Publisher Sitemaps** — News and Video sitemaps — plus additional focus keywords.
193 * **Advanced Analytics** — GA4 users overview, traffic channels, top content, and URL index status inside WordPress.
194 * Pro features are exposed to connected AI assistants through the MCP server too.
195
196 = Perfect For =
197
198 * WordPress site owners who want AI-powered SEO
199 * Bloggers and publishers producing content at scale
200 * SEO professionals and agencies managing client sites
201 * WooCommerce stores and local businesses
202 * Elementor, Divi, and Oxygen/Breakdance site builders
203 * Multilingual sites running WPML or Polylang
204 * Content teams, developers, and AI power users
205 * Any site preparing for AI search, LLM SEO, and GEO
206
207 = Why Choose ThinkRank? =
208
209 * An AI SEO plugin with real on-page and technical SEO — not just an AI writer
210 * A built-in MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and compatible clients
211 * AI-generated meta titles and descriptions with SERP preview
212 * SEO content analysis and keyword optimization with one-click fixes
213 * A whole-site SEO Analyzer that needs no Google connection
214 * Accurate scoring on Elementor, Divi, and Oxygen/Breakdance pages
215 * WPML and Polylang support with correct hreflang and per-language sitemaps
216 * Schema markup and structured data for rich snippets, plus FAQ/HowTo/TOC blocks
217 * XML sitemap generator, robots.txt, instant indexing, and llms.txt
218 * Search Console and GA4 insights inside WordPress
219 * Role Manager for team and client access control
220 * One-click migration from Rank Math, Yoast, AIOSEO, and SEOPress
221
222 == Installation ==
223
224 **Minimum Requirements**
225 * WordPress 6.0 or higher
226 * PHP 8.0 or higher
227 * An OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, or OpenRouter API key (for AI-powered features)
228
229 **Automatic Installation**
230 1. Go to Plugins → Add New in your WordPress admin.
231 2. Search for "ThinkRank".
232 3. Click "Install Now", then "Activate".
233 4. Run the ThinkRank Setup Wizard.
234
235 **Setup Workflow**
236 1. Open the ThinkRank Setup Wizard.
237 2. Import existing SEO data from Rank Math, Yoast SEO, AIOSEO, or SEOPress if needed.
238 3. Choose your AI provider and enter your API key for AI features.
239 4. Configure metadata, schema, XML sitemaps, robots meta, canonical URLs, social meta, Search Console, GA4, and llms.txt.
240 5. (Optional) Enable the MCP server under ThinkRank → MCP and connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor.
241
242 **Connect the MCP Server**
243 * *Claude:* enable the MCP server, copy your site's MCP URL, add it in Claude, and approve the connection through the guided OAuth 2.1 flow — no manual API key required.
244 * *ChatGPT, Cursor & other MCP clients:* use the Application Password fallback and the ready-made configuration details ThinkRank provides.
245
246 **Getting API Keys**
247 * OpenAI: https://platform.openai.com/api-keys
248 * Anthropic Claude: https://console.anthropic.com/
249 * Google Gemini: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/api-key
250 * OpenRouter: https://openrouter.ai/
251
252 == Frequently Asked Questions ==
253
254 = What is ThinkRank? =
255
256 ThinkRank is an AI SEO plugin for WordPress that helps manage metadata, on-page SEO, technical SEO, schema markup, XML sitemaps, robots meta, canonical URLs, Open Graph social meta, Google Search Console insights, GA4 analytics, llms.txt, and AI-powered SEO recommendations. It also includes a built-in MCP server so AI assistants like Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor can help run SEO tasks in plain language.
257
258 = What is the ThinkRank MCP server? =
259
260 The ThinkRank MCP server is a built-in Model Context Protocol server that lets compatible AI assistants connect to your WordPress site and work with ThinkRank's SEO tools. After authorization, your AI assistant can help generate metadata, review SEO opportunities, work with schema, manage llms.txt, inspect SEO scores, and guide optimization workflows — without constant dashboard switching.
261
262 = How do I connect ThinkRank to Claude? =
263
264 Enable the MCP server in ThinkRank, copy your site's MCP URL, add it to Claude, and approve the connection through the guided authorization flow. ThinkRank uses an OAuth 2.1 flow with PKCE protection, so you don't need to manually copy API keys into Claude for the standard connection.
265
266 = Does ThinkRank work with ChatGPT, Cursor and other MCP clients? =
267
268 Yes. ThinkRank is designed for MCP-compatible clients. Claude has a guided one-click-style setup, and ChatGPT, Cursor, and other compatible tools can connect using the Application Password fallback and ready-made configuration details provided by ThinkRank.
269
270 = Is the MCP connection secure? =
271
272 Yes. The MCP server is off by default, admin-controlled, and designed for authorized users only. Connections are tied to WordPress authorization and Application Passwords. If you delete the connected Application Password, access is revoked immediately.
273
274 = Does ThinkRank work with Elementor, Divi and Oxygen? =
275
276 Yes. ThinkRank adds a native SEO panel inside the Elementor editor, the Divi Visual Builder, and the Oxygen/Breakdance builder, alongside the Gutenberg launcher and the Classic Editor metabox. Just as importantly, ThinkRank reads the content those builders store outside `post_content`, so SEO scoring, bulk optimization, the post-list SEO column, and AI assistants analyze the real page content instead of reporting a builder page as empty.
277
278 = Does ThinkRank support WPML, Polylang and TranslatePress? =
279
280 Yes. ThinkRank detects WPML and Polylang automatically. SEO fields appear in the WPML Translation Editor, each translated page advertises its own `og:locale` and links to its alternates, XML sitemaps cover every language, and hreflang tags are only added when your multilingual plugin isn't already printing them — so you don't end up with two competing sets. On monolingual sites the integration stays completely inactive.
281
282 = What is the Site SEO Analyzer? =
283
284 The Site SEO Analyzer is a crawl-free, whole-site audit that gives your site a 0–100 score and a letter grade without requiring a Google connection. It runs checks across Basic SEO, Advanced SEO, Content, Performance & Technical, and Security, and shows per-category results with "how to fix" guidance that deep-links to the relevant setting.
285
286 = Can I control which team members access ThinkRank? =
287
288 Yes. The Role Manager lets you decide which roles can access Essential SEO, AI Tools, and Settings, using a role × capability matrix. The rules are enforced on ThinkRank's REST API as well as in the admin menu, so access is genuinely restricted rather than just hidden.
289
290 = Do I need an AI API key to use ThinkRank? =
291
292 You don't need an AI key for every core SEO feature. Metadata fields, schema controls, XML sitemaps, robots meta, canonical URLs, breadcrumbs, Open Graph, the Site SEO Analyzer, multilingual output, page-builder integrations, and Search Console/GA4 connections work without AI generation. AI-powered features — AI metadata generation, content briefs, AI insights, and generative MCP tools — require your own OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, OpenRouter, or compatible provider key.
293
294 = Which AI providers and models does ThinkRank support? =
295
296 ThinkRank supports OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, OpenRouter, and compatible custom endpoints. Model availability depends on your provider account and configured API key.
297
298 = Does ThinkRank generate SEO titles and meta descriptions? =
299
300 Yes. ThinkRank can generate SEO titles and meta descriptions with AI and lets you edit them before publishing, across posts, pages, products, and supported custom post types.
301
302 = Does ThinkRank include SEO content analysis and focus keywords? =
303
304 Yes. ThinkRank includes real-time SEO content analysis and focus keyword optimization so you can see how well your content targets important search terms and improve title, description, headings, structure, and keyword usage before publishing.
305
306 = Does ThinkRank generate schema markup? =
307
308 Yes. ThinkRank generates JSON-LD schema markup and structured data for Organization, Website, Article, FAQ, HowTo, VideoObject, Review, Local Business, and Breadcrumb schema, and includes Gutenberg blocks for FAQ, HowTo, and Table of Contents that output FAQPage, HowTo, and SiteNavigationElement structured data. Schema markup helps search engines understand your content and can support rich snippets.
309
310 = Does ThinkRank create XML sitemaps? =
311
312 Yes. ThinkRank includes an XML sitemap generator with Basic, Complete, E-commerce, and Segmented modes, plus a real sitemap index with paginated child sitemaps, controls for post types, and sitemap discovery through robots.txt.
313
314 = What is llms.txt and why does ThinkRank support it? =
315
316 llms.txt is an emerging file format that helps AI systems, AI search engines, and large language models discover and understand important website content. ThinkRank can generate and maintain llms.txt for WordPress, helping prepare your content for LLM SEO, generative engine optimization (GEO), and AI search visibility.
317
318 = Does ThinkRank work with Google Search Console and GA4? =
319
320 Yes. ThinkRank connects with Google Search Console to show clicks, impressions, queries, and keyword opportunities inside WordPress — including a dashboard widget with your last 30 days of traffic — and supports GA4 for traffic and organic-performance insights.
321
322 = Does ThinkRank support Open Graph, canonical URLs and noindex? =
323
324 Yes. ThinkRank includes Open Graph and social meta controls for Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and X/Twitter, plus canonical URL controls and robots meta settings such as noindex and nofollow.
325
326 = Is ThinkRank a Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO or SEOPress alternative? =
327
328 Yes. ThinkRank can be used as a Rank Math or Yoast SEO alternative for sites that want core SEO — metadata, schema, XML sitemaps, robots meta, canonical URLs, Search Console and GA4 insights, and llms.txt — plus AI-powered generation and an MCP server for Claude, ChatGPT, and Cursor. The Setup Wizard imports your existing Rank Math, Yoast, AIOSEO, or SEOPress data.
329
330 = Can I migrate from AIOSEO or SEOPress? =
331
332 Yes. ThinkRank's Setup Wizard imports supported SEO data from All in One SEO (AIOSEO) and SEOPress, along with Rank Math and Yoast SEO — including title formats, Knowledge Graph details, role permissions, author archive settings, IndexNow keys, breadcrumb settings, and social defaults.
333
334 = Does ThinkRank include a redirect manager, 404 monitor, or internal linking? =
335
336 Redirect management, 404 monitoring, the broken link checker, and AI internal linking are available in ThinkRank Pro. The free plugin shows these sections with an option to upgrade.
337
338 = Does ThinkRank help with WooCommerce and Local SEO? =
339
340 Yes. The free plugin supports product metadata, an E-commerce sitemap mode, Local Business schema, business information, and a local sitemap. Advanced WooCommerce product SEO and multi-location Local SEO are available in ThinkRank Pro.
341
342 = Will ThinkRank conflict with my current SEO plugin? =
343
344 For best results, use only one primary SEO plugin at a time — running two can create duplicate meta tags, duplicate schema, conflicting robots meta, and sitemap confusion. ThinkRank's migration workflow imports supported data and can deactivate the previous SEO plugin when migration is complete.
345
346 = Is ThinkRank free? =
347
348 Yes, ThinkRank is a free WordPress SEO plugin with bring-your-own-key AI features — your AI provider usage is billed by the provider you choose, giving you direct control over model, cost, and privacy. ThinkRank Pro adds advanced automation such as the redirect manager, 404 monitor, internal linking, and rank tracker.
349
350 == Screenshots ==
351
352 1. Agentic AI SEO — connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor to your WordPress SEO with the built-in MCP server.
353 2. Your AI assistant generating and updating WordPress SEO metadata in plain language via ThinkRank's MCP tools.
354 3. AI Metadata Generator — SEO title and meta description with a live SERP preview.
355 4. SEO content analysis dashboard — 13-factor score, focus keyword, and one-click apply suggestions.
356 5. Schema Manager — choose Article, FAQ, Local Business, or Review schema with validation.
357 6. XML Sitemap generator — Basic, Complete, E-commerce, and Segmented modes with post-type controls.
358 7. llms.txt generator for LLM SEO and AI search visibility.
359 8. Google Search Console & GA4 insights with Core Web Vitals inside WordPress.
360 9. AI Content Brief Generator with competitor analysis and content gaps.
361
362 == Changelog ==
363
364 = 1.30.0 =
365 Release Date: 2026-08-13
366
367 - New: AI alt text for images — ThinkRank can now look at the picture and describe it, instead of only rewriting the filename. Choose it under Image SEO; the filename template stays the default because AI costs you money per image, and AI runs are capped at 10 images per click
368 - New: One-click fixes in the Site SEO Audit. Where an issue is safely fixable — search visibility, XML sitemap, structured data, missing image alt text — a button applies it and the audit is re-scored on the spot. Fixes with consequences warn you before you click, and things that are your call (your titles, your permalinks, your server) are deliberately left alone with an explanation
369 - New: A warning when WordPress is set to discourage search engines from indexing your site, so the setting that quietly undoes all your SEO cannot sit there unnoticed
370 - Fixed: Opening the editor could hammer your site with repeated SEO requests until pages took 30-40 seconds to load, or failed outright. The panel now makes one request at a time, and only keeps checking while ThinkRank is actually writing metadata in the background
371 - Fixed: SEO data imported from another plugin did not appear in an editor that was already open until you reloaded the page
372 - Fixed: Saved content briefs could not be listed, exported or deleted on sites with no AI key configured — the screen failed with a server error, even though none of those actions need AI
373 - Fixed: On some hosts ThinkRank's settings tables were never created, so every save in Site Identity, Sitemap, Social and Schema silently failed and the setup wizard dead-ended after a migration. The tables now fit the stricter index limit on those servers, and existing sites are migrated
374 - Fixed: A settings save that fails now records why in the error log, instead of leaving you with "Failed to update settings" and nothing to act on
375 - Fixed: The one-click sitemap and schema fixes reported success while saving nothing, and the audit's sitemap check could never fail no matter what your settings said
376 - Fixed: Author archives printed two meta descriptions, ended their title in a stray space, ignored your chosen title separator, and would not let you clear the title or description templates — a cleared field came back on the next load
377 - Fixed: The alt-text coverage panel could claim "6 of 5 images have alt text" by counting trashed images on one side only, and the bulk alt fill could spin forever on sites with private images, turning one click into thousands of requests
378 - Fixed: The Alt text source setting accepted any value, so an unrecognised value silently fell back to the template and the AI batch limit stopped applying
379 - Fixed: Saving Schema settings could white-screen the site on WordPress 6.0, after the settings had already been written
380 - Fixed: Email reports — the Save button disappeared when you toggled the feature off, so turning it off never stuck; changing the frequency did not move the next send; a failed send still consumed the whole reporting period; the report described three different date ranges at once; "Next report" showed the wrong time outside UTC; pages and keywords that lost all their clicks were dropped from the Top Losing sections; and a report with no sections could be configured and sent empty
381 - Fixed: Deleting ThinkRank with "Delete all data on uninstall" enabled while ThinkRank Pro was active silently reinstalled the free plugin and recreated all of its data
382 - Fixed: Data Management could not be saved on sites without an AI API key
383 - Fixed: An author or contributor granted Schema Manager access could deploy structured data onto other people's posts
384 - Fixed: Alt text beginning with an accented character was corrupted
385 - Changed: AI Visibility data is now removed when you delete the plugin with data deletion enabled, and old probe transcripts are aged out after 90 days instead of accumulating forever
386 - Changed: The Integrations tab no longer displays or re-saves settings it has no control over, and a partial save now leaves untouched settings exactly as they were
387
388 = 1.29.0 =
389 Release Date: 2026-08-11
390
391 - New: Show/hide your API key while typing it, and a Replace control so a saved key can be swapped without clearing it first. Saved keys are now only ever sent back to your browser masked, never in full
392 - New: A social card on the dashboard with the ThinkRank community and channels in one place
393 - Fixed: Content briefs that came back as "Unable to parse AI response", or saved a brief full of raw API output. When the AI refuses, is cut off at its token limit, or answers in an unexpected shape, ThinkRank now tells you what happened instead of saving the failure as a brief
394 - Fixed: Short, Medium and Long content briefs all asked the AI for the same output budget, so a Long brief could be truncated while a Short one paid for room it never used. Each length now requests a budget that fits it
395 - Fixed: Briefs on GPT-5 models ran at maximum reasoning effort by default — the slowest and most expensive setting, with much of the budget spent on hidden reasoning before any text was written
396 - Fixed: A request that ran past the time ThinkRank allows was retried twice more, each attempt near-certain to time out again — multiplying the wait while the abandoned requests kept running, and billing, on your AI provider. A timed-out request now fails once, straight away, instead of being retried
397 - Fixed: "X days ago" counts on sites outside UTC were off by the site's time offset
398 - Fixed: Saving settings could send your API key back to the browser in the clear, and re-saving a form that displayed a masked key could overwrite the real key with the mask
399 - Fixed: Importing SEO data from another plugin read serialized values from that plugin's tables in a way that could be abused to create PHP objects on your site; those values are now parsed without ever instantiating an object
400 - Fixed: Fetching a schema or competitor URL could be pointed at private, internal or cloud-metadata addresses, including addresses disguised as IPv6. All outbound fetches now share one check, applied again on every redirect hop
401 - Fixed: Dismissing a ThinkRank admin notice, importing or resetting the whole configuration, and adding database indexes no longer accept requests from users without the capability for them
402 - Changed: Brand Visibility is temporarily hidden while it is reworked. Nothing is deleted — recorded runs, history and settings are kept, and the feature returns in a later release
403
404 = 1.28.0 =
405 Release Date: 2026-08-10
406
407 - New: AI Insights — see how much of your traffic comes from AI assistants and AI crawlers, first-party. AI platforms strip referrers so Google Analytics files those visits under "Direct"; ThinkRank reads them as they arrive. Daily totals only — no IPs, no cookies, no per-visit tracking
408 - New: Brand Visibility measures whether AI assistants mention your brand — asking each question several times for a real mention rate instead of a one-shot yes/no, ranking you against named competitors as share of voice, and scoring everything into a 0–100 Visibility Index
409 - New: Brand Visibility uses its own API key and model per AI platform, so measuring visibility never means switching the provider that writes your metadata. Adds Perplexity, which searches the web live — the closest thing to what a person actually sees
410 - New: Auto AI writes a missing SEO title or description when you publish, in the background, so publishing never waits on an AI call. It fills empty fields only and never overwrites what you wrote
411 - New: Quick Edit SEO on the posts list — edit the SEO title, meta description and focus keywords straight from the posts table, without opening the post. Cleared fields fall back to your Global SEO patterns
412 - New: Traffic Recovery tab on the AI Tools screen, which finds published pages losing search traffic and writes a refresh brief for each
413 - New: A Migration screen for moving SEO data in from another plugin, with a re-scan control that re-detects what is installed
414 - New: Social platform verification is now one tab per network, with per-card saving and masked verification codes
415 - Fixed: The AI Traffic and Brand Visibility tables were never created, so AI traffic went unrecorded and every brand check spent a paid AI call without saving any history
416 - Fixed: Brand Visibility failed to start on upgraded sites with "Could not start the analysis run". A missing table is now detected and repaired on load, instead of going unnoticed until a deactivate/reactivate
417 - Fixed: Brand checks reported "not mentioned" for questions that could not plausibly omit your brand — the AI never actually returned an answer, and the blank was saved as a clean negative. A probe with no answer now fails visibly and is never stored
418 - Fixed: A Brand Visibility run could sit at 0% forever, and progress never advanced while it was running
419 - Fixed: A site that configured Brand Visibility on Pro and then lapsed to free kept running the larger Pro batch on the user's own paid API keys
420 - Fixed: The SEO Overview column showed "Not Analyzed" forever on sites that never ran an analysis, even right after editing a post's SEO title and description
421 - Fixed: Saving in the editor could wipe an SEO title or description that Auto AI, bulk optimization or an import had just written, and the editor kept showing the old empty value until a manual reload
422 - Fixed: Google Analytics, Search Console and PageSpeed were reported as "not configured" on sites connected through Google sign-in, and a site with a perfectly working GA4 tag was told its tracking was unverified
423 - Fixed: Reconnecting a different Google account kept showing the previous account's Search Console properties for up to 30 minutes, and domain properties could not be found by searching
424 - Fixed: The ThinkRank data stream picker in Pro went blank on every reload
425 - Fixed: ThinkRank's styles leaked into the WordPress admin and page builders
426
427 = 1.27.0 =
428 Release Date: 2026-08-06
429
430 - New: Connected Apps page for MCP — see every AI app connected to your site, when it last used the connection, and disconnect any of them in one click
431 - New: AI now writes in your site's language. Titles, descriptions and content briefs came back in English on non-English sites; they now follow the post's language, or the site language, and can be overridden with a filter
432 - New: Instant Indexing checks that your IndexNow key file is actually reachable and tells you what is wrong before you submit a single URL
433 - New: The MCP connection test detects hosts that block AI clients by User-Agent — the "couldn't register with the sign-in service" failure that no other check could see
434 - Fixed: MCP could connect successfully and offer no tools at all, with nothing reporting a problem — the most common cause was another plugin's copy of the Abilities API loading first
435 - Fixed: A connector still using an old token could lock itself out of your site permanently by retrying. The lockout window no longer extends on every retry, and the plugin now shows when clients are locked out
436 - Fixed: ChatGPT rejected some sites with "MCP server does not implement OAuth" — the sign-in handshake itself was tripping the rate limiter
437 - Fixed: Every IndexNow submission returned 403 on hosts with a read-only web root, because the key file could never be written. The key is now served directly by WordPress, and the error message names the file and what to check
438 - Fixed: Importing from Rank Math (and Yoast, AIOSEO, SEOPress) could fail outright on a single unexpected setting value
439 - Fixed: The "ThinkRank SEO" metabox was hidden by a leftover style rule — Classic Editor users never saw it, and the block editor's panel toggle appeared to do nothing
440 - Fixed: Missing borders in the SEO drawer inside the Divi Visual Builder
441 - Improved: The plugin package now installs as an upgrade rather than a second copy, and ships the WPML config file that earlier packages left out
442
443 = 1.26.0 =
444 Release Date: 2026-08-04
445
446 - New: Search Console's Property field is now searchable — type to filter instead of scrolling a long site list
447 - New: TranslatePress support — translated URLs now advertise their own language to social networks instead of the site's default
448 - Improved: SEO scoring now uses the title and description your site actually outputs, so posts that inherit the Global or Bulk pattern are no longer scored as if they had no title or description
449 - Improved: Suggestions that only offer guidance now read "How to fix" instead of "Apply", so a button never promises an edit it will not make
450 - Fixed: Saving from the ThinkRank panel silently did nothing on posts with no other edits — SEO fields were never written and no error was shown
451 - Fixed: The SEO score kept showing the old value for several minutes after changing the title or description, then appeared to update on its own
452 - Fixed: The "ThinkRank SEO" metabox rendered empty — it now shows the current score with a way into the panel
453 - Fixed: Schema edits could be lost when navigating away right after editing
454 - Fixed: A focus keyword typed but not yet added was lost when saving, and the typed text lingered in the box after it was added
455 - Fixed: Sites in a formal locale (such as German formal) emitted an invalid hreflang language code that search engines discard
456
457
458 = 1.25.0 =
459 Release Date: 2026-08-03
460
461 - New: Redesigned AI Metadata Generator — generated title and description now come with a live Google preview, character-length indicators, one-click copy, and a result card that carries the metadata straight to the next step
462 - New: Press Enter to add a keyword in the Content Brief generator instead of reaching for the mouse
463 - Improved: Refreshed styling across the Content Brief generator, top navigation and form controls
464 - Fixed: Signing in with Google failed on sites using Plain permalinks — the callback now completes on any permalink setting
465 - Fixed: The dashboard could still show the old connection state right after finishing Google sign-in
466 - Fixed: WordPress hover fly-out submenus were mispositioned and lost their pointer arrow on ThinkRank's full-page screens
467 - Fixed: Posts and pages without their own social image now correctly inherit the site-wide default in every context
468 - Fixed: Social meta tags and image schema no longer output zero width and height for images WordPress has no dimensions for
469 - Fixed: Several crashes on unusual or malformed data — sitemap generation, custom schema validation, saving settings, Local SEO business hours, importing from another SEO plugin, and unexpected responses from AI or Google APIs
470
471
472 = 1.24.0 =
473 Release Date: 2026-08-02
474
475 - New: Website Insights dashboard widget — see your last 30 days of Google Search Console traffic, top queries and headline metrics right on the WordPress dashboard
476 - New: ThinkRank now works inside the Oxygen/Breakdance and Divi visual builders — a launcher button in the builder's top bar opens the full ThinkRank panel without leaving the canvas
477 - New: Content briefs can now generate a complete article draft, not just an outline, in a cleaner tabbed layout
478 - New: MCP Server screen has a connection health card and a "Test connection" button that makes a real call and tells you exactly which step failed — HTTPS, authentication, permissions or ability discovery
479 - New: Connected AI assistants can preview an SEO import as a dry run before anything is written, and score and save many posts in a single request
480 - Improved: ThinkRank's abilities are now always registered, so any AI connector can discover the plugin — the MCP switch now only controls the MCP server itself
481 - Improved: Redesigned Settings page with tabs and independent saving per tab, and a card-based AI provider picker
482 - Improved: Content briefs on OpenAI reasoning models no longer time out before finishing
483 - Fixed: Pages built with Oxygen, Breakdance, Divi or Elementor were scored as having no content at all — a client reported published pages with over 1,000 words scoring in the 40s. ThinkRank now reads the real page content everywhere: bulk optimization, the post list SEO column, cron reports, AI assistants and the live analysis panel in the editor
484 - Fixed: The SEO score shown by AI assistants is now saved, so the post list no longer keeps saying "Not Analyzed"
485 - Fixed: Social profile fields accepted invalid values (like a malformed YouTube channel ID) and published them as broken verification tags — invalid values are now rejected with a clear message
486 - Fixed: Homepage social sharing — the share title now matches your SEO title, your logo is used as the share image with a large card, and the share URL matches your canonical URL
487 - Fixed: Search Console errors on the dashboard widget now explain what to fix instead of showing raw Google error text
488 - Fixed: Divi's layout library and Theme Builder templates no longer appear in SEO screens
489 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
490
491 = 1.23.0 =
492 Release Date: 2026-07-29
493
494 - New: WPML and Polylang support — your SEO fields now appear in the WPML Translation Editor, each translated page advertises its own language to search engines and links to its alternates, and the XML sitemap covers every language instead of only the one active when it was generated. hreflang tags are added only when WPML or Polylang isn't already printing them, so you never end up with two competing sets
495 - New: All in One SEO import now matches the coverage of Rank Math's own AIOSEO importer — sitemap exclusions, per-post-type robots settings, Twitter card defaults, Facebook App ID, default social share image, Pinterest verification, breadcrumb prefix, and AIOSEO Pro data such as term SEO, News/Video sitemap post types, image SEO formats and local business details
496 - New: Breadcrumbs can show a border, and breadcrumb titles now reflect the section you're in
497 - New: With ThinkRank Pro active, its features are available to connected AI assistants through the MCP server too
498 - Improved: "Content SEO" is now called Bulk SEO Optimization, and author archives moved to their own section
499 - Improved: The usage-tracking opt-in notice uses the same clean, branded card design as the welcome notice
500 - Fixed: SEOPress import never actually imported your settings — it read option names that don't exist. Settings, keyword lists (297 posts lost their extra keywords in our test migration), Knowledge Graph, IndexNow key, title formats, author archives, image alt settings and SEOPress Pro breadcrumbs now all carry over, and cleanup removes the right options
501 - Fixed: All in One SEO import — every post was given a robots override that switched off search snippets and previews, 226 primary categories were dropped, 295 posts lost their extra keyphrases, and site-wide settings such as title formats, Knowledge Graph, archive settings and breadcrumbs were never read at all
502 - Fixed: Import screen — redirects and 404 logs weren't counted, so Rank Math Pro redirects, the 404 Monitor, Yoast Premium redirects and SEOPress 404s were never offered for import; a SEOPress site with settings but no post data wasn't detected at all; and All in One SEO cleanup left most of its data behind
503 - Fixed: The Social Media Preview card rendered unstyled and looked broken
504 - Fixed: The welcome notice's Dismiss link did nothing outside ThinkRank's own pages, and the notice kept reappearing on sites using Gemini or OpenRouter as their AI provider
505 - Fixed: Content brief section icons showed as empty blue squares
506 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
507
508 = 1.22.0 =
509 Release Date: 2026-07-28
510
511 - New: Yoast SEO import now matches the Rank Math importer — per-page-type title formats, alternate name, Knowledge Graph entity, author archive settings, IndexNow key, role permissions, News/Video sitemap post types (into Publisher Sitemaps with Pro), and link suggestion preferences all carry over
512 - New: Setup Wizard now includes an MCP Server step, so you can connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor during onboarding, and the final step offers a free onboarding call booking link
513 - New: MCP abilities for Email Reporting and Social Platforms — connected AI assistants can now read and update your email report settings, send a test report email, and manage your social platform profiles
514 - Improved: The Setup Wizard has a refreshed design — new onboarding canvas, smoother step transitions, clearer error messages, and better small-screen layouts
515 - Improved: The welcome and SEO plugin conflict notices have a cleaner, branded card design
516 - Improved: The Setup Wizard is shorter — the social profiles step was removed, and the last step's button now reads "Continue" instead of "Finish"
517 - Fixed: Reinstalling ThinkRank could lock administrators out with "Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page" — access is now restored automatically, including on sites already affected
518 - Fixed: Yoast import — your organization name and logo were silently skipped on any Yoast version from the last several years; they now migrate correctly
519 - Fixed: Yoast import — leftover Rank Math variables in a site that had previously moved from Rank Math to Yoast are now translated to ThinkRank variables instead of being dropped
520 - Fixed: Long AI content briefs generated with Gemini failed with "Error: Unable to parse AI response" — the token limit is raised and a cut-off reply now reports the real reason
521
522 = 1.21.0 =
523 Release Date: 2026-07-26
524
525 - New: Rank Math import now covers everything ThinkRank has added since the importer was written — your title separator, per-page-type title formats (posts, pages, categories, tags, search, archives, authors), author archive settings, Instant Indexing post types, per-post sitemap exclusions, email report schedule, alternate name, and Knowledge Graph entity all carry over
526 - New: Rank Math role permissions are migrated — editors, authors, contributors and custom roles keep their SEO access instead of losing it the moment Rank Math is deactivated
527 - New: Rank Math's IndexNow submission history is migrated, so the Instant Indexing history screen isn't empty after switching
528 - New: With ThinkRank Pro active, Rank Math redirect rules and 404 logs are migrated too, keeping their match types, hit counts and dates; News/Video sitemap post types carry over to Publisher Sitemaps
529 - New: Toast notifications for site analysis, so errors and successes are actually visible
530 - Improved: Sitemap generation uses far less memory and is much faster on large sites — big sites no longer risk running out of memory while generating
531 - Improved: Bulk Instant Indexing submissions run in the background instead of blocking the admin screen
532 - Improved: The Image SEO alt text settings now appear above the "Fill missing alt text" button, since they change what the fill does
533 - Fixed: A fatal error (white screen) on 404 pages and on any page whose social share image had known pixel dimensions
534 - Fixed: Posts were scored as if no focus keyword was set, costing around 14 points on posts that did have one; the SEO score now reads the post's saved focus keyword
535 - Fixed: Saving a title format containing variables like %category_title% or %date% corrupted them — the variables are now preserved exactly as typed
536 - Fixed: XML sitemap overhaul — "Use Sitemap Index" now produces a real sitemap index with paginated child sitemaps, the homepage appears only once, oversized sitemaps split automatically, no more invented "last modified" dates, tag archives are included in index mode, and changing your inclusion rules rebuilds the sitemap instead of leaving a stale file
537 - Fixed: Scheduled sitemap regeneration silently never ran; it now works on schedule
538 - Fixed: Turning the sitemap off now deletes the generated sitemap files instead of leaving them on your site
539 - Fixed: The sitemap "Validate" button flickered and never updated the row status
540 - Fixed: Instant Indexing — network failures record the real error, history is paginated and cleaned up after 90 days, failed rows show in red, the submitted count reflects what was actually sent, and URLs from other domains are dropped before submission
541 - Fixed: llms.txt — the file is removed when you disable the feature or deactivate the plugin, a failed removal is reported instead of showing a false success, and each Key Feature line renders as its own bullet
542 - Fixed: Robots.txt — turning off "Allow Search Engines" (or WordPress's own "Discourage search engines" setting) now genuinely blocks crawlers even with custom robots.txt content saved, and changing that setting updates the live file
543 - Fixed: Social media — disabling Open Graph or Twitter Cards now removes those tags completely, saving social meta no longer errors, and the Twitter card type and language tag are detected correctly
544 - Fixed: Schema — importing schema from a URL can no longer be pointed at internal server addresses, bulk operations check per-post permissions, rate limiting actually works, and special characters in schema fields are safely escaped
545 - Fixed: Bulk SEO Optimization — page-builder helper post types no longer clutter the list, a failed save reports an error instead of a false success, and the title/description counters match the search preview
546 - Fixed: Role Manager — Pro features are now covered by role permissions, and saving one role no longer strips permissions from other roles
547 - Fixed: AI-generated titles and descriptions respect their length limits and show accurate character counts
548 - Fixed: The Setup Wizard's "Connect with Google" button now works and returns you to the wizard
549 - Fixed: Image SEO — the "Fill missing alt text" button no longer wraps, an empty Media Library shows a clear message, and the button is disabled when there's nothing to fill
550 - Fixed: Empty business or organization details no longer emit blank values into structured data, which invalidated Local Business rich results
551 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
552
553 = 1.20.0 =
554 Release Date: 2026-07-22
555
556 - New: Media Library alt text — save generated alt text onto the image record itself so it works everywhere (not just in rendered content), bulk-fill every image missing alt text, auto-fill new uploads, and optionally overwrite existing alt text
557 - New: Hero section — render the Site Identity hero (title, subtitle, CTA button, background image) anywhere with the [thinkrank_hero] shortcode or the thinkrank_hero theme hook
558 - New: Title formats for Tag and Archive pages, with context-aware variable buttons under every title field so each format only suggests variables that work in that context
559 - New: 11 new MCP abilities for AI assistants — publish llms.txt, run and read the Site SEO Analyzer, fetch performance data and integration status, generate content briefs, read and update pillar content, and detect, run, and monitor SEO imports from other plugins
560 - Changed: Connecting Google now runs through a secure ThinkRank-hosted flow — Google app credentials no longer ship inside the plugin and access tokens never pass through the browser; previously connected sites will be asked to reconnect once
561 - Improved: AI title optimization analyzes each title context separately (posts, pages, categories, and more), and AI site-identity optimization only requires a site name — an empty description or tagline is generated instead of rejected
562 - Fixed: Robots.txt editing overhauled — saving keeps the physical robots.txt file in sync so the live file always matches the editor, the View button shows the content actually being served, line breaks are preserved, and the editor no longer shows the auto-generated header
563 - Fixed: Google connection reliability — the token refresh now runs on schedule in the background, a revoked Google account prompts a reconnect instead of retrying forever, and credentials that can no longer be read (for example after a site migration) show a clear reconnect prompt instead of failing silently
564 - Fixed: Copying MCP connection details now works on non-HTTPS sites and older browsers
565 - Fixed: A fatal error that could occur when calculating sitemap statistics on the Sitemap settings screen
566 - Fixed: The Search title format uses the correct %search_term% variable, so the searched term actually appears in search results page titles
567 - Fixed: The SEO metabox drawer keeps its left navigation fixed while only the content area scrolls
568 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
569
570 = 1.19.0 =
571 Release Date: 2026-07-19
572
573 - New: Site SEO Analyzer — a whole-site SEO audit with a 0–100 score and letter grade, no Google connection required; checks span Basic SEO, Advanced SEO, Content, Performance & Technical, and Security, with a dashboard card and a full SEO Analyzer tab including per-category results and "how to fix" guidance
574 - New: HowTo block — step-by-step instructions with per-step images, total time, and automatic HowTo schema markup
575 - New: Table of Contents block — builds its list live from your headings, adds anchor links that work without JavaScript, and emits SiteNavigationElement schema
576 - New: Elementor widgets for FAQ, HowTo, and Table of Contents — Elementor-built pages get the same content patterns and structured data as the Gutenberg blocks
577 - Improved: Traffic Overview on the Analytics dashboard redesigned with clearer metric cards, per-metric icons, and trend badges (bounce rate correctly treats lower as better)
578 - Improved: Google Services settings screens redesigned and load faster — settings load in parallel, and Google account lists (Search Console sites, Analytics accounts/properties) are cached for 30 minutes instead of fetched on every visit
579 - Improved: Core Web Vitals collection uses your own PageSpeed API key or Google login first and re-measures automatic collections at most once a week, so measurements stay within Google's quota (the Refresh button still forces a fresh run)
580 - Fixed: Blank admin screen crash in production builds ("cannot access lexical declaration before initialization")
581 - Fixed: The Opportunities screen could fail with a server error (500) due to a data-format mismatch in the opportunity prioritizer
582 - Fixed: The "Configure SEO" launcher could appear twice in the block editor on sites where the editor loads slowly
583 - Fixed: Inserting a FAQ, HowTo, or Table of Contents block no longer makes the whole post render unstyled in the editor
584 - Fixed: The free Analytics dashboard no longer shows a "requires ThinkRank Pro" notice for features already presented as Pro previews
585 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
586
587 = 1.18.0 =
588 Release Date: 2026-07-16
589
590 - New: "Explain with AI" on SEO score suggestions — get a short, post-specific explanation of why a suggestion matters and how to fix it, right from the editor metabox or the SEO analysis screen (uses your configured AI provider)
591 - Improved: AI provider settings redesigned as tabs with a clear "Active" indicator; saved API keys now show as a masked preview with a Connected status and a Replace button
592 - Improved: Claude model list refreshed (Claude Sonnet 5, Opus 4.8, Haiku 4.5) — retired model IDs saved in settings are migrated automatically so AI requests keep working
593 - Improved: Google Services screens (Analytics dashboard, Core Web Vitals, Opportunities, Performance) load much faster — Lighthouse data now comes from a single shared PageSpeed run and admin screens reuse cached responses instead of refetching on every visit
594 - Improved: Site Health Audit "Configure" actions now deep-link straight to the relevant settings section
595 - Fixed: PageSpeed measurements no longer fail with rate-limit (429) errors — requests now run keyless or with your own Google API key instead of a shared quota
596 - Fixed: Empty Core Web Vitals and Opportunities screens caused by failed Google responses being cached — transient failures now retry instead of blanking the screens, and a performance score stuck at "collecting" now surfaces the actual reason
597 - Fixed: Fatal error from a class autoloader mis-mapping when loading the PageSpeed integration
598 - Fixed: AI title/meta suggestions could fail on reasoning models due to truncated responses, and AI response caching now works as intended
599 - Security: AI endpoints now cap analyzed content length server-side to prevent oversized requests
600 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
601
602 = 1.17.0 =
603 Release Date: 2026-07-14
604
605 - New: Agentic AI SEO with the built-in ThinkRank MCP server — connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other MCP-compatible AI assistants to manage SEO in plain language (35+ SEO tools; one-click OAuth 2.1 connect for Claude, Application Password fallback for other clients; off by default, admin-only)
606 - Improved: "View Generated Sitemaps" links are enabled only after the sitemap files have actually been generated, and applying a sitemap template now prompts you to regenerate
607 - Fixed: Content brief generation no longer times out on large briefs — AI requests for briefs now allow up to 120 seconds
608 - Fixed: WebSite schema was silently skipped when regenerating schema after site settings changed
609 - Fixed: SEO score heading analysis now counts the post title as the page H1, so titled posts are no longer flagged as missing an H1
610 - Fixed: The "Configure SEO" launcher is reliably pinned in the block editor header on WordPress 6.6+ and always shows the SEO score badge
611 - Fixed: Instant Indexing history now respects Role Manager permissions instead of a generic capability check
612 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
613
614 = 1.16.1 =
615 Release Date: 2026-07-12
616
617 - Improved: Instant Indexing now submits URLs in the background via WP-Cron, so publishing or updating a post no longer waits on the IndexNow request
618 - Improved: Expanded the Privacy section and added an "External services" section documenting every third-party request ThinkRank can make
619 - Fixed: AI features (content brief, metadata, SEO score) no longer time out with a 502 on slower hosts — the PHP time limit is raised for blocking AI requests
620 - Fixed: Saved Briefs panel is capped to the form height and scrolls internally instead of overflowing
621 - Fixed: Removed a stray breadcrumb reference from schema output
622 - Security: Hardened REST API permission and capability checks, added SSRF protection to sitemap and content-brief URL fetching, per-user AI rate limiting, and direct-access (ABSPATH) guards
623 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
624
625 = 1.16.0 =
626 Release Date: 2026-07-09
627
628 - New: FAQ Gutenberg block (`thinkrank/faq`) — inline Q&A rendered as a no-JavaScript accordion with FAQPage schema
629 - New: Migration Tools — opt-in setting that reveals a dedicated Migration page to re-run SEO data imports after setup
630 - New: Setup Wizard Ecosystem auto-detects already-active plugins; migrated SEO plugins are deactivated automatically once their data is imported
631 - New: Editable permalink slug in the metabox, and a "You have already used this Focus Keyword" warning
632 - New: Out-of-the-box schema on posts, pages, CPTs, archives, and the homepage (WebSite + SearchAction, CollectionPage), plus canonical URLs and meta descriptions on archive pages
633 - New: Local business sitemap (`local-sitemap.xml`), and fuller Rank Math local-business migration (address, geo, price range, opening hours)
634 - Changed: Migration page and SEO conflict notice redesigned to match the ThinkRank/native WordPress look; sidebar navigation regrouped
635 - Fixed: XML sitemap no longer drops short/"demo" content or lists non-viewable CPTs; 404/search/date-archive robots directives corrected
636 - Fixed: robots.txt no longer blocks render-critical CSS/JS paths
637 - Security: Hardened REST API permission and capability checks
638 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
639
640 = 1.15.0 =
641 Release Date: 2026-07-06
642
643 - New: Role Manager — control which roles can access Essential SEO, AI Tools, and Settings sections
644 - New: Elementor integration — edit ThinkRank SEO fields directly inside the Elementor editor, plus a Classic Editor sidebar widget
645 - New: AI providers — OpenRouter support, custom-model entry for any provider, and Gemini 3.x models
646 - New: SEO Score — one-click "Apply" for AI-generated title, meta description, link, keyword, and schema fixes
647 - Changed: Per-post SEO scoring now aligns with other SEO plugins. Segmented sitemaps now paginate based on the Links per Sitemap setting.
648 - Fixed: Duplicate robots/canonical meta tags removed; honor "Discourage search engines"; full og:title without truncation
649 - Improved: Import now migrates sitemap settings and Yoast title/description templates and author meta
650 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
651
652 = 1.14.0 =
653 Release Date: 2026-06-25
654
655 - New: 7-step Setup Wizard onboarding with migration and Site Setup pre-fill
656 - New: Native multiple focus keywords (up to 5), with extra keywords gated behind Pro
657 - New: Redesigned SEO metabox with logo launcher, bottom drawer, and live SEO pattern previews
658 - New: VideoObject and Review schema types with Rank Math import support
659 - Changed: Expanded SEO data import (Rank Math schema, sitemap, Image SEO, templates, pillar content & more)
660 - Fixed: Honor per-post OG title/description overrides; full-size featured image in social preview
661 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
662
663 = 1.13.0 =
664 Release Date: 2026-06-16
665
666 - New: Email Reporting — scheduled SEO email reports
667 - Changed: Refactored schema generation and settings components
668 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
669
670 = 1.12.0 =
671 Release Date: 2026-06-15
672
673 - Added: Redesigned admin interface built on Tailwind CSS with a new reusable UI component library
674 - Changed: Modernized loading states and navigation, and renamed "Usage Analytics" to "Usages"
675 - Fixed: Uninstall now preserves data by default, preventing accidental data deletion
676
677 = 1.11.0 =
678 Release Date: 2026-05-24
679
680 - Added: CSS design system with `tr-*` component classes and `--tr-*` design tokens
681 - Added: Pre-commit hooks (husky + lint-staged) for automated lint on commit
682 - Added: Auto DB migration on `plugins_loaded` — missing tables/columns are created automatically without requiring deactivation/reactivation
683 - Changed: WordPress 6.9+ component compliance (`__nextHasNoMarginBottom`, `__next40pxDefaultSize` props)
684 - Changed: Moved XSL sitemap stylesheets from `assets/` to `static/xsl/` (survives webpack clean builds)
685 - Changed: DB schema version bumped to 1.1.0
686 - Fixed: 63 dead JS imports removed across 22 files
687 - Fixed: `npm run release` zip now correctly includes `assets/` and `static/` directories
688 - Fixed: lint-staged no longer hangs on existing formatting mismatches
689 - Removed: Build artifacts from git tracking (12 files, 1.4MB) — now generated via `npm run build`
690
691 = 1.10.0 =
692 Release Date: 2026-05-05
693
694 - Added: New Feature | Google Analytics
695 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
696
697
698 = 1.9.0 =
699 Release Date: 2026-03-31
700
701 - Improved: Updated dashboard interface for better user experience
702 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
703
704
705 = 1.8.0 =
706 Release Date: 2026-03-11
707
708 - Added: New Feature | Import Schema From Any Website
709 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
710
711 = 1.7.0 =
712 Release Date: 2026-02-15
713
714 - Added: New Feature | Author Archives SEO
715 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
716
717 = 1.6.0 =
718 Release Date: 2026-02-09
719
720 - Added: New Feature | Pillar Content
721 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
722
723 = 1.5.0 =
724 Release Date: 2026-01-12
725
726 - Added: New Feature | Global Robot Meta
727 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
728
729 = 1.4.0 =
730 Release Date: 2026-01-06
731
732 - Added: New Feature | Image SEO
733 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
734
735 = 1.3.0 =
736 Release Date: 2025-12-29
737
738 - Added: New Feature | Instant Indexing
739 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
740
741 = 1.2.0 =
742 Release Date: 2025-12-11
743
744 - Added: New Feature | ThinkRank SEO Overview
745 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
746
747 = 1.1.0 =
748 Release Date: 2025-11-23
749
750 - Added: New Feature | Bulk SEO Optimization Settings
751 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
752
753 = 1.0.2 =
754 Release Date: 2025-10-30
755
756 - Fixed: Google Service integration issue for PageSpeed Insights
757 - Fixed: WooCommerce edit conflict with ThinkRank plugin
758 - Fixed: Version number inconsistency
759 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
760
761 = 1.0.1 =
762 Release Date: 2025-09-25
763
764 - Improved: Updated Database Schema
765 - Fixed: AI Content Brief not showing properly on Firefox
766 - Few minor bug fixes & improvements
767
768 = 1.0.0 =
769 Release Date: 2025-07-07
770
771 - Initial release
772 - AI Content Brief Generator with competitor analysis
773 - Real-time SEO Score Calculator (13-factor)
774 - AI Metadata Generation with SERP preview
775 - Competitor analysis insights
776 - Export content briefs in multiple formats
777 - Complete Site Identity management (Basic Info, Title Formats, Breadcrumbs, Hero & Branding, Business Info)
778 - Advanced Schema Manager for organization/website structured data
779 - Social Media Optimization (Open Graph, Twitter Cards)
780 - Performance Monitoring (Core Web Vitals, PageSpeed, diagnostics)
781 - Analytics Integration (GA4, Search Console) with insights
782 - Robots.txt management with AI optimization
783 - XML Sitemap generation: Basic, Complete, E-commerce, Segmented
784 - LLMs.txt for AI indexing
785 - SEO Analytics Dashboard with keyword opportunities
786 - AI-powered insights with natural language explanations
787 - Real-time diagnostics and improvement recommendations
788 - Intelligent reporting with automated alerts and trends
789 - Post/Page metabox integration with real-time optimization
790 - Multi-AI provider support (OpenAI GPT-4, Claude)
791 - Local SEO data management
792 - Secure API key management; your own keys
793 - React-based admin interface
794 - PHP 8.0+ with strict typing
795 - Custom tables and intelligent caching
796 - Error handling, logging, performance optimization
797 - WordPress 6.0+ compatibility
798
799 == Upgrade Notice ==
800
801 = 1.30.0 =
802 Adds AI alt text for images and one-click fixes in the Site SEO Audit, plus a warning when WordPress is hiding your site from search engines. Fixes editor loads that could stall or fail under repeated SEO requests, settings tables that were never created on some hosts (breaking every save and the setup wizard), duplicate meta descriptions on author archives, misleading alt-text coverage counts, and a batch of Email Reporting defects including a Save button that vanished when you turned the feature off. Recommended for all sites.
803
804 = 1.29.0 =
805 Security release. Closes an SSRF hole in URL fetching (including IPv6-disguised internal addresses), object injection when importing from another SEO plugin, API keys returned to the browser in the clear, and missing capability checks on notice dismissal, settings import/reset and index creation. Also fixes content briefs failing with "Unable to parse AI response" and ignoring the chosen content length. Brand Visibility is temporarily hidden while it is reworked; your data is kept. Recommended for all sites.
806
807 = 1.28.0 =
808 Adds AI Insights — AI referral traffic, Brand Visibility measurement across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity, and Auto AI metadata on publish — plus Quick Edit SEO on the posts list. Fixes two AI tables that were never created, brand checks that reported false negatives, SEO metadata wiped by a stale editor save, and Google integrations reported as unconfigured on sign-in-connected sites. Recommended for all sites.
809
810 = 1.27.0 =
811 Fixes MCP connections that succeeded while offering zero tools, connectors that could lock themselves out permanently, and ChatGPT rejecting sites with "does not implement OAuth". Also fixes IndexNow returning 403 on read-only hosts, AI writing English metadata on non-English sites, and a hidden ThinkRank SEO metabox. Recommended for all sites.
812
813 = 1.26.0 =
814 Fixes saving from the ThinkRank panel silently doing nothing on posts with no other edits, and SEO scores that stayed stale for minutes after a title or description change. Also scores inherited titles and descriptions correctly and adds TranslatePress support. Recommended for all sites.
815
816 = 1.24.0 =
817 Fixes page-builder pages (Oxygen, Breakdance, Divi, Elementor) being scored as empty everywhere outside the editor. Adds a Search Console dashboard widget, builder-native editing panels, and full-article content briefs. Recommended for all sites, especially page-builder sites.
818
819 = 1.23.0 =
820 Adds WPML and Polylang support. Fixes SEOPress import, which never imported settings at all, and several All in One SEO import defects that dropped keywords, primary categories and site-wide settings. Recommended for anyone migrating from another SEO plugin or running a multilingual site.
821
822 = 1.22.0 =
823 Fixes administrators being locked out of ThinkRank after a reinstall, plus Yoast import gaps (organization identity, title formats, roles) and Gemini content briefs failing on long output.
824
825 = 1.21.0 =
826 Fixes a fatal error that could white-screen 404 pages and posts with a social share image. Also fixes SEO scoring ignoring your focus keyword, corrupted title-format variables, and a large batch of XML sitemap defects. Update recommended for all sites.
827
828 = 1.17.0 =
829 ThinkRank now includes a built-in MCP server for agentic AI SEO — connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor to manage metadata, schema, sitemaps, llms.txt, and Search Console insights in plain language.
830
831 = 1.0.0 =
832 Initial release of ThinkRank. Welcome to AI-powered SEO optimization!
833