Joost de Valk

Yoast

Jip Moors

Anton Timmermans

Taco Verdonschot

Omar Reiss

<p>The purpose of this SEO plugin is to purge attachment URLs out of Google’s index as fast as possible. This helps sites<br />
that might have suffered from having too many thin content pages in the search index by removing them in the fastest<br />
way possible.</p>
<h3>What does this plugin do?</h3>
<p>This plugin makes all your attachment URLs return an HTTP 410 status. It then creates an XML sitemap with a recent last<br />
modified date, containing all those URLs. The XML sitemap with recent post modified date makes Google spider <em>all</em> those<br />
URLs again. The 410 status code makes sure Google takes them out of its search results in the fastest way possible.</p>
<p>With a nice trick, we also show end users the actual attachment image, so the user experience is not as poor as when<br />
they see an error page.</p>
<h3>Yoast SEO required</h3>
<p>This plugin is an extension to <a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/" rel="ugc">Yoast SEO</a>. It requires it to work.</p>
<h3>How long should you run this plugin?</h3>
<p>After 6 months the attachment URLs should be gone from the search results. If you then remove the plugin, and keep<br />
Yoast SEO’s redirect setting on “Yes”, you have the best long term behavior for attachment URLs: to redirect to the<br />
actual attachment.</p>
<h3>Does Google condone this?</h3>
<p>This method has been discussed with and OK’d by Google.</p>
<h3>From within WordPress</h3>
<ol>
<li>Visit ‘Plugins > Add New’</li>
<li>Search for ‘Yoast SEO: Search Index Purge’</li>
<li>Activate Yoast SEO: Search Index Purge from your Plugins page.</li>
<li>Go to “after activation” below.</li>
</ol>
<h3>Manually</h3>
<ol>
<li>Upload the <code>yoast-seo-search-index-purge</code> folder to the <code>/wp-content/plugins/</code> directory</li>
<li>Activate the Yoast SEO: Search Index Purge plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress</li>
<li>Go to “after activation” below.</li>
</ol>
<h3>After activation</h3>


Yoast SEO: Search Index Purge

Remove attachment URLs from Google's index as fast as possible to prevent thin content penalties.

Alin Marcu

<h3>Google Search Console site verification</h3>
<p>Search Engine Insights adds your website to Google Search Console and helps you verify site ownership:</p>
<ul>
<li>Detects your default WordPress Site URL and gives you the option to add it to Search Console. </li>
<li>Automatically insert Google Search Console metatag to verify site ownership.</li>
</ul>
<h3>View Google Search Console stats on your WordPress dashboard</h3>
<p>Search Engine Insights will help you understand your site’s search engine traffic and performance, by displaying key stats in a widget, on your WordPress dashboard.</p>
<p>In addition to a set of general Search Console reports, per Page and Post statistics will allow further segmentation of your search engine data, providing search engine insights for your web pages.</p>
<h4>Google Search Console stats on your admin dashboard</h4>
<ul>
<li>Four reports with overview stats about Impressions, Clicks, Position and Click Through Rate </li>
<li>Location statistics with insights about your search engine performance by country   </li>
<li>Page stats which will show you how your web pages are performing</li>
<li>Keywords report useful for your keywords research and strategy on search engines</li>
</ul>
<h4>In-depth Google Search Console stats for your web pages</h4>
<p>Individual reports for each web page on your site with per page details as:</p>
<ul>
<li>Impressions and Clicks stats</li>
<li>Position and Click Through Rate reports</li>
<li>Location, Pages, and Keywords statistics</li>
</ul>
<p>In addition, you can control who can view specific search console reports by setting permissions based on user roles.</p>
<h4>Further reading</h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/clicky-analytics/" rel="ugc">Clicky Analytics</a> – An easy to use and cookie-free analytics service for website tracking.</li>
<li><a href="https://wordpress.org/plugins/analytics-insights/" rel="ugc">Analytics Insights</a> – Connects Google Analytics with your WordPress site.</li>
</ul>


Search Engine Insights for Google Search Console

Verify site ownership on Google Search Console! Analyze the Google Search Console stats, to see your site's performance on Google Search.

Yoast SEO: Search Index Purge vs Search Engine Insights for Google Search Console