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Yoast News SEO changelog

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13.1

Enhancements

  • Huge performance improvement: moves the XML News sitemap to be based on our Indexables architecture.
  • Removes images from the XML News sitemap as they serve no purpose here and this further improves performance.

Other

  • Excludes attachments and non-indexed post types from the possible post types to include in the News Sitemap.

13.0

Enhancements

  • Adds Schema Article News subtypes: ReviewNewsArticle, AnalysisNewsArticle, AskPublicNewsArticle, BackgroundNewsArticle, OpinionNewsArticle, and ReportageNewsArticle.

12.9

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where a duplicate News section would be shown in the Yoast sidebar in the post editor when Yoast SEO Premium is active in combination with WP 5.8.

12.8

Enhancements

  • Adds key/value pairs of all News SEO meta tags to our REST API.
  • Improves the performance of the news sitemap. Props to archon810.

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where a database query including duplicate column names would fail on certain database systems.

Other

  • Adds a filter to override the decision to omit an item from the news sitemap. Props to joneslloyd.
  • Sets the minimum WordPress version to 5.6.

12.7

Enhancements

  • Adds News to the Yoast SEO sidebar in the Elementor editor and the block editor.
  • Merges the Exclude from News sitemap and the Googlebot-News index settings from the News meta box into one setting: Exclude this post from Google News. Because both settings served the same purpose, to exclude your content from the News sitemap.
  • Removes the Default genre setting from the News sitemap and settings because Google no longer supports Genres for articles in Google News.

Other

  • Sets the WordPress tested up to version to 5.7 and minimum supported WordPress version to 5.6.

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where certain conditions (e.g. using a different admin language) would result in an endless loop.
  • Fixes "mixed content" warnings on the News SEO options page.

12.6

Enhancements

  • Adds 'Article' as @type to articles that are set to be included in the news sitemap. This results in a @type array with at least 'Article' and 'NewsArticle'.

Other

  • Enables tracking when activating the plugin. It can be disabled in the Yoast SEO configuration wizard.
  • Sets the minimum supported WordPress version to 5.4.

12.5

Other

  • Sets the minimum WordPress version to 5.3.

12.4.1

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where a large number of WordPress terms or post types would cause significant slowdowns and possible crashes on admin pages.

Other

  • Removes the code tags from the term and post type names on the News SEO settings page.

12.4

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where the sitemap could be invalidated twice on multisite with MultilingualPress.

Other

  • Show dates in UTC+0 format everywhere.

12.3

Enhancements

  • Replaces the HelpScout Beacon 1.0 on the News SEO admin page with the Beacon 2.0.

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where the News sitemap would contain the SEO title instead of the post title.

Other

  • Sets the minimum required WordPress version to 5.2, the minimum PHP version to 5.6.20, and the minimum required Yoast SEO version to 12.6.1.

12.2

Enhancements

  • Shows a floating Save changes button on the Yoast SEO News admin page when the normal button is not visible in the browser window.

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where the copyrightHolder schema piece would not stitch on Windows because of a missing slash.

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 12.2

12.1

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 12.1

12.0

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 12.0

11.9

Enhancements

  • This add-on now has its own tab in the Yoast SEO metabox, even if you have multiple Yoast SEO add-ons installed.

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where the @type in the schema output would be NewsArticle instead of Article for articles which were excluded from the news sitemap.
  • Fixes a bug where news article pages and custom post types included in the news sitemap would not receive an author in their schema output.

Other

  • Sets the minimum required Yoast SEO version to 11.9.

11.8

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.8

11.7

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.7

11.6

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.6

11.5

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.5

11.4

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.4

11.3

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.3

11.2

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.2

11.1

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.1

11.0

Enhancements

  • Schema: Adds Schema.org NewsArticle markup to all post types that you've selected as News.

Bugfixes

  • Fixed Sitemap image URLs to use href instead of guid to prevent relative URLs in the Sitemap. Props to ChristophKnopf

Other

  • Sets the minimum required Yoast SEO version to 11.0.

10.1

Other

  • Sets the minimum required Yoast SEO version to 10.1.
  • Removes the deprecated methods ( < 6.1 ).

10.0

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where the news sitemap would show a blank page due to an internal server error.

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 10.0

9.7

Enhancements

  • Changes the titles in the news sitemap to default to the SEO title, with a fallback to the post title. (props: @timnolte)

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where it was possible the 48 hour selection range for posts in the news sitemap was slightly off. (props: @timnolte)

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 9.7

9.6.1

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 9.6.1

9.6

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 9.6

9.3

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 9.3

9.2

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 9.2

9.1

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where a PHP warning would be displayed when php_uname has been disabled for security reasons.

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 9.1

9.0

Enhancements

  • Allows term based exclusion in the news sitemap for all taxonomies connected to enabled post types.

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where terms with show_ui set to false would be shown in the list of terms to be excluded from the news sitemap.

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 9.0

8.4

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where the changelog would not show up when the plugin was updated.

Enhancements

  • Makes it possible to exclude posts with post type 'post' from the the news sitemap.

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 8.4

8.3

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where the XML of the news sitemap would contain an incorrect publication time when the user would use a location-based timezone.
  • Fixes a bug where posts with the post type of Post would always be included in the sitemap.

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 8.3

8.2

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 8.2

8.1

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 8.1

8.0

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 8.0

7.9.1

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 7.9.1

7.9

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where news posts set to no-index would still appear in the XML News Sitemap.

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 7.9

7.8

Other

  • Removes functionality for original-source as Google has confirmed they're no longer using it.
  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 7.8

7.7

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 7.7

7.6

Enhancements

  • Removes support for standout tag.
  • Removes support for editor's pick RSS.

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where the news image sitemap did not correctly handle protocol relative URLs.

7.5

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 7.4

7.4

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 7.4

7.3

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 7.3

7.2

Enhancements

  • Removes the use of meta news keywords everywhere as Google no longer supports them.
  • Renews compatibility with the Plugin Dependencies plugin.

Bugfixes

  • Fixes a bug where the page link was missing on the plugin settings page.

Other

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 7.2
  • Adds warnings for deprecated functions.
  • Security hardening.

7.1

  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 7.1

7.0

  • Requires Yoast SEO 7.0 or higher to be installed.
  • Moves each sitemap class to its own file instead of having multiple classes in one single file.

6.3

  • Load the XSL stylesheet from a static file when home and site URL are the same.
  • Compatibility with Yoast SEO 6.3