There’s no WordPress dipstick to check SEO levels.

If you’ve seen a reduction in page rank, the estimated time for Google purge is 6 months after correction. Yoast SEO has a plugin-addition fix (extra plugin) to accelerate correction with Google. We doubt anyone needs it. But who know what the truth is since there is no “future history” to analyze?

Can you switch to another plugin without disrupting SEO? No one can promise SEO performance. And if they do, they’re selling a wish. But switching SEO plugins is apparently less of a risk than past Yoast weirdness. So migration is possible to another SEO plugin.

Some ideas from those affected by the Yoast 2018 bug is Yoast enhanced page-rank was artificial fragility at best. It set users up for disappointment. Removing the Yoast “benefits” reduced the site ranking to it’s real position. There is no proof. But it’s like saying, “You can cheat but eventually all tricks will be ineffective or eliminated.” There is a plugin to help migrate the Yoast SEO database when changing to select alternative SEO plugins. The next most popular plugin after Yoast is All in One SEO Pack.

REFERENCE: https://roots.io/weve-migrated-from-yoast-seo/

We’ve documenting why not to use Yoast SEO plugin. No SEO plugin provides provable benefit. Have you ever seen benchmarks ranking improvement? We haven’t. How do you measure SEO reduction caused by competition or change in market needs? Impossible. It’s about consumer behavior.

MYTH: I’ve installed Yoast, so I’m all set

Sometimes, this statement makes me want to spit out my coffee and laugh; other times, it makes me sad that new bloggers can be so gullible and clueless.

Why?

Because this is an utterly ridiculous statement.

First, some newer bloggers mistakenly think that Yoast “gives them SEO.” And, of course, it doesn’t. In fact, there is no plugin that “gives you SEO.” There is no such thing. Rather the blog posts you write and the activities you do for a post will get you organic traffic. There is no silver bullet and no easy way around this.

Rather, Yoast attempts to measure your SEO. It uses some basic formulas that “check off” some of the boxes. Notice how I say “attempts.” This is because it’s very formulaic. And, also, it’s not very accurate nor predictive. In fact, often it gives you bad advice because it will direct you to do things that will lead to keyword stuffing (which is very bad for SEO) as well as poor writing, and that is bad for user experience. And, if it’s a bad user experience, it’s bad for SEO.

Many people mistakenly think that if they get a green light that their post is SEO optimized and will rank well. This simply isn’t true. Far from it. It’s all based on the keyword phrase that you enter. It does not tell you if that’s a highly searched term nor your chances of ranking for it. And, it’s simply garbage in/garbage out.

–Debbie Gartner

SEO is now controlled by a machine learning algorithm called RankBrain. RankBrain is smarter at identifying patterns and penalizes unscrupulous actors attempting to game Google.

RankBrain is an algorithm learning artificial intelligence system (AI), used by Google since October 2015. It helps Google process search results and provide more relevant search results for users. RankBrain is the third most important factor in the ranking algorithm after links and content. RankBrain interprets the relationships between words. I suspect it has more importance to Google than we know.

RankBrain allowed Google to speed up the algorithmic testing for keyword categories. They now choose the best content for any particular keyword search. This means old methods of gaming rankings with false signals are less and less effective. The highest quality content from a human perspective is being ranked higher by Google.

Content frequency, recency and relevance were previously rewarded with good ranking. This isn’t the case anymore. Search engine users and search engines are now trying to find amazing content with great value.

Gaming with plugins has negative, detrimental value for future SEO.

OFFSITE LINK: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yoast-seo-19-7-fatal-error/