SEO plugins
Category SEO Editor has no SEO storage of its own. The SEO title, meta description and robots you type are written straight into the fields of your SEO plugin, the same fields its own category screen uses. If you later open a category, tag or brand in Rank Math, Yoast SEO or SEOPress, you see the same values.
Detection
Section titled “Detection”There is no setting to pick. On every page load the plugin looks for, in this order:
- Rank Math
- Yoast SEO
- SEOPress
The first one found is used, and its name shows in the pill at the top of the editor, for example “Yoast SEO detected”. With Rank Math the pill also carries its logo. If more than one is active, the first in that list wins.
With none of them active, the pill reads “No SEO plugin detected”, and the SEO title, meta description and robots fields are disabled. Names, slugs and descriptions are WooCommerce’s own fields and work without an SEO plugin.
What each plugin supports
Section titled “What each plugin supports”| SEO plugin | SEO title and meta | Robots |
|---|---|---|
| Rank Math | Yes | index, noindex, nofollow |
| Yoast SEO | Yes | index, noindex |
| SEOPress | Yes | noindex, nofollow |
Yoast SEO has no per-category nofollow, so the nofollow box is hidden when Yoast is active rather than pretending to save.
With SEOPress, Index and Default (index) save the same thing: SEOPress only stores a noindex flag per category.
Where the values are stored
Section titled “Where the values are stored”Rank Math
Section titled “Rank Math”Term meta on the category, tag or brand:
| Field | Meta key |
|---|---|
| SEO title | rank_math_title |
| Meta description | rank_math_description |
| Robots | rank_math_robots |
Rank Math keeps all robots flags for a category in one list. The editor only changes index, noindex and nofollow in it. Other flags you set in Rank Math, such as noarchive or nosnippet, are kept.
Yoast SEO
Section titled “Yoast SEO”Yoast keeps term SEO data in one option, wpseo_taxonomy_meta, under the taxonomy (product_cat, product_tag or product_brand) and the term ID:
| Field | Key |
|---|---|
| SEO title | wpseo_title |
| Meta description | wpseo_desc |
| Robots | wpseo_noindex |
Default (index) removes the wpseo_noindex key, which is how Yoast stores its own “default” choice.
SEOPress
Section titled “SEOPress”Term meta on the category, tag or brand:
| Field | Meta key |
|---|---|
| SEO title | _seopress_titles_title |
| Meta description | _seopress_titles_desc |
| Noindex | _seopress_robots_index (yes means noindex) |
| Nofollow | _seopress_robots_follow (yes means nofollow) |
Empty values
Section titled “Empty values”Saving an empty SEO title or meta description deletes the value from the SEO plugin instead of storing an empty string. Your SEO plugin then falls back to its global template for that taxonomy.
Primary category (Pro)
Section titled “Primary category (Pro)”The Pro screens read and write the primary category of each product. That value also belongs to the SEO plugin:
| SEO plugin | Product meta key |
|---|---|
| Rank Math | rank_math_primary_product_cat |
| Yoast SEO | _yoast_wpseo_primary_product_cat |
| SEOPress | _seopress_robots_primary_cat |
Switching SEO plugins
Section titled “Switching SEO plugins”Values live in the SEO plugin, so they do not move when you switch from one SEO plugin to another. Use your new SEO plugin’s import tool for that. Category SEO Editor picks up the new plugin on its own once it is active.