Pro features
Category SEO Editor Pro is a separate add-on from brainrune.com. It needs the free plugin, version 2.2.0 or newer. Once it is installed, Products > Category SEO has four tabs:
- Category editor: the free editor, unchanged.
- Products & categories: bulk changes across products and the category tree.
- Primary category audit: finds and fixes wrong primary categories.
- Licence: where you paste your key.
The two Pro tabs work while the licence on the site is active. Without an active licence they describe what they do and take no action, and the free editor keeps working as before. To install Pro and activate the key, see Install.
Products & categories
Section titled “Products & categories”At the top, one box with two halves picks the job: Products (add, move, set primary, add attributes) or Category tree (move categories under another parent). The header pill shows your SEO plugin, which is where the primary category is stored.
Products
Section titled “Products”The screen opens on All products, so there is something to work on right away.
- On the left, every category as a tree, with its product count. Click one to see its products. Filter categories narrows the list as you type.
- On the right, the products of that category, with the name and count above them and Search product titles next to them.
The table lists published, draft and private products. In the Its categories column, the category with the star is the product’s primary category: the one that drives the breadcrumb and the Product schema. Each row has Edit with: the WordPress logo opens the product in WooCommerce, the Brainrune logo opens its primary category in a side panel on the same screen (see Quick edit).
Up to 200 products show at a time. With more, the line under the title says “First 200 of N. Search to narrow it down.”
Apply a change
Section titled “Apply a change”Tick products, or tick the box in the header to select every row on screen. A bar appears at the bottom with the number selected and the actions as buttons:
Add to a category. Pick the Destination category. The products keep their categories and are added to the destination. The primary category is left alone.
Move to a category. Shows only when a category is open on the left, because a move needs a category to leave. Pick the Destination category. The products leave the open category and join the destination. Their other categories stay. If a product’s primary was the category it left, the primary follows it.
Set primary. Pick the Primary category; the open category is chosen for you. By default, products that are not in that category are skipped, so no product gets a primary it does not belong to. Tick Add the category if a product is not in it to add it first. Shows only when Rank Math, Yoast SEO or SEOPress is active.
Add attribute. Pick a global attribute and one or more Values. The values are added; values already on a product are kept. Show on the product page sets visibility, but only for products that did not have that attribute before. Shows only when your store has global attributes (Products > Attributes).
A note under the bar says what the chosen action will do. Click Apply. Clear selection unticks everything. After each run a notice says how many products changed, and how many were skipped.
Category tree
Section titled “Category tree”This view changes the hierarchy itself. Products are not touched, but a category’s URL can change with its parent.
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Open Category tree at the top. The whole tree is listed, with each category’s slug and product count. Filter categories narrows it as you type.
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Tick the categories to move.
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In the bar at the bottom, pick the new parent in Move under, or Top level, no parent.
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Click Move.
A category cannot be moved under itself or under one of its own children. Those rows are skipped, and the notice counts them.
Quick edit
Section titled “Quick edit”The Brainrune logo next to Edit with, on a product or on a category in the tree or the audit, opens a side panel without leaving the screen. It loads the category (for a product, its primary category, or its first one) with the Google preview and every field: name, slug, SEO title, meta description, description and robots.
Click Save to save that category. The panel says “Saved.”, or warns that the old URL needs a 301 if you changed the slug. Open in the category editor jumps to the full editor on the same category. Esc closes the panel.
Primary category audit
Section titled “Primary category audit”A product in several categories has one primary category. Your SEO plugin uses it for the breadcrumb and the Product schema. Nothing in WooCommerce warns you when it points somewhere wrong, and that usually happens after a bulk recategorisation.
The audit needs Rank Math, Yoast SEO or SEOPress, because that is where the primary category is stored. The header pill shows which one it reads, for example “Reading Rank Math”.
The three problems
Section titled “The three problems”The audit looks at published products and sorts what it finds into three cards:
| Problem | What it means |
|---|---|
| Promotional primary | The primary is a sale or promotion category. The breadcrumb and schema advertise the sale aisle instead of the real category. |
| No primary set | The product is in several categories and has no primary. The SEO plugin picks one on its own, which can be any of them. |
| Primary no longer assigned | The primary points at a category the product was removed from. |
A product that is both promotional and stale is listed once, under Promotional primary.
When nothing is wrong, the screen says “Nothing to fix. Every published product has a sensible primary category.”
Promotional categories
Section titled “Promotional categories”The audit needs to know which categories are promotional. On the first run it guesses from each category’s slug and name, using common words for sale, outlet, clearance, Black Friday and similar in many languages.
Open the line “N categories treated as promotional” above the cards to see the list. Tick or untick categories and click Save list. From then on your list is used instead of the guess. A primary category is never allowed to point at a category on this list, and suggestions skip them.
Fixing products
Section titled “Fixing products”The table lists each product with its Problem (in red or amber text with an icon), its Primary now and a Suggested primary. Edit with on each row opens the product in WooCommerce, or its category in the quick edit panel. The suggestion is the deepest non-promotional category the product is already in: the specific category, not the umbrella one. You can pick a different category from the menu in that row.
- Apply on a row fixes that product alone.
- Tick several rows and click Apply to ticked rows to fix them together.
A fix is only saved if the product is actually in the category you chose. The notice then says how many products were updated.
The list shows up to 300 rows per problem. After a round of fixes, open the tab again to see the next batch.
Licence
Section titled “Licence”The Licence tab shows one card:
- At the top, the state in words: “Active on this site”, “No licence on this site”, “Not active on this domain”, or “Could not reach brainrune.com lately”.
- Four boxes: Pro screens (on or off), Updates (on or off), Valid until, and This site (the domain the licence is checked against).
- Without a licence, paste the key into Licence key and click Activate.
- With a licence, the key shows half hidden, and you can Check again or Deactivate this site.
One key covers as many sites as your plan allows. To move it to another site, use Change domain in your Brainrune account; the link Open your account is at the bottom of the card. See Licence keys.
When the plan ends
Section titled “When the plan ends”What happens depends on the plan. On a plan that keeps working after it lapses, the Pro screens stay on and updates pause. On a plan that locks, the two Pro tabs go back to describing what they do until you renew. In both cases the free editor and every change you already made stay as they are. The plugin page says which applies to each plan.