Signocore SEO can copy the per-page SEO data from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO and SEOPress: titles, descriptions, focus keywords, canonical URLs, noindex settings and more. With Pro, it also imports redirects from those plugins and from the Redirection plugin. The import reads the other plugin's data straight from your database and never changes it there.
What gets imported
| From | Posts, pages and other post types | Categories, tags and other terms |
|---|---|---|
| Yoast SEO | SEO title, meta description, focus keyphrase, related keyphrases (Yoast SEO Premium), canonical URL, noindex, breadcrumb title, social image, primary category, primary product category | SEO title, meta description, focus keyphrase, related keyphrases (Yoast SEO Premium), canonical URL, noindex, breadcrumb title, social image |
| Rank Math | SEO title, description, focus keywords, canonical URL, noindex, breadcrumb title, Facebook image, primary category, primary product category | SEO title, description, focus keywords, canonical URL, noindex, breadcrumb title |
| All in One SEO | SEO title, description, focus keyphrase, additional keyphrases (All in One SEO Pro), canonical URL, noindex, custom social image | Not imported |
| SEOPress | SEO title, description, target keywords, canonical URL, noindex, breadcrumb title, Facebook image, primary category | SEO title, description, target keywords, canonical URL, noindex |
The focus keyword lands in the Primary Keyword field, and any further keywords, such as Yoast's related keyphrases or the second and later keywords in Rank Math and SEOPress, land in Secondary Keywords. Social images are imported when the image is in your media library.
Plugin-wide settings, such as title templates, company details, social profiles and verification codes, are not imported.
Redirects
Pro: Importing redirects needs a Signocore SEO Pro license. Without it, the import page shows how many redirects it found, with a Pro badge, but only imports posts and terms.
Redirects go into the Redirect Manager from these sources:
| From | Redirects that are imported |
|---|---|
| Yoast SEO | The redirects of Yoast SEO Premium |
| Rank Math | The redirections of Rank Math's Redirections module, except the ones in its trash |
| Redirection | The redirects of the Redirection plugin |
| All in One SEO | The redirects of the All in One SEO Redirects addon |
SEOPress redirects are not imported. Recreate them in the Redirect Manager, or bring them in as a CSV file in the format described under Import and export.
The Redirect Manager matches exact addresses, so the import brings in rules for one exact address and leaves out the rest:
- Only 301, 302, 307 and 410 redirects are imported. A 308 becomes a 301.
- A redirect that is switched off in the old plugin is imported switched off. For Redirection, that includes redirects in a disabled group.
- A redirect to one of your posts or pages is stored as that post, so it keeps working if the post's address changes later.
- An address that already has a redirect in Signocore SEO keeps it. An address that is only in the 404 log becomes the imported redirect.
- When several plugins have a redirect for the same address, the first one you import wins.
When the import is done, the page shows "Redirects imported:" with the number, and "Addresses that already had a redirect, kept as they were:". Rules that could not be imported are listed by reason, with a few examples each, under "Some redirects could not be imported, because the Redirect Manager only matches exact addresses. Recreate the ones you still need by hand:". The reasons are regular expressions, rules that match addresses containing, starting with or ending with a text, conditional and other special rules, status codes the Redirect Manager does not use (such as 451), source addresses longer than 255 characters, and rules with a missing source or target or a target that leads back to the source.
Before you start
- Keep the old plugin installed until the import is done. It does not need to be active, but its data must still be in the database.
- Signocore SEO never overwrites a value you already have. A field that already holds a Signocore SEO value keeps it, so you can run the import more than once and it only fills in what is empty. The one exception: a Primary Keyword that still holds a whole keyword list from an earlier Rank Math or SEOPress import is split into Primary Keyword and Secondary Keywords when you import again.
- While Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO or SEOPress is active, administrators see a notice that says Signocore SEO has detected it, with an Open import button. The notice goes away after an import or when you dismiss it. The Redirection plugin does not trigger this notice, so open the import page yourself.
Run the import
- Go to Signocore SEO → Import.
- Wait for the page to detect your plugins. It lists each supported plugin that is active or has left data in the database, with the number of posts, terms and redirects it can import.
- Click Import on the plugin you are moving from.
- Keep the page open while the progress bar runs. Posts are imported first, then terms, then redirects, in batches of 50.
- When the import finishes, the page shows how many items were imported and whether any failed, and for redirects, what was left out and why.
A card that says "No SEO data to import yet." has nothing to import, and its Import button is disabled. So is the button on a card that only has redirects when you do not have Pro.
Template variables become plain text
Other SEO plugins let you write titles with variables, such as %%title%% %%sep%% %%sitename%% in Yoast. The import fills these in with the values they have at the moment of the import, using the old plugin's separator. The result is fixed text: if you later rename the post, the imported title does not change with it.
Variables that Signocore SEO does not recognize are removed in titles from Yoast and SEOPress. In titles from Rank Math and All in One SEO they are kept as they are, so check a few imported titles in the Bulk Editor for leftover variables.
If you would rather keep titles dynamic, clear the imported values and set a template with placeholders instead.
After the import
- Deactivate the old SEO plugin. While Yoast SEO, Rank Math, SEOPress, All in One SEO or Slim SEO is active, Signocore SEO shows a warning, because both plugins would print titles, descriptions and structured data. You can dismiss the warning, but it comes back when a different SEO plugin is active.
- If you imported redirects from the Redirection plugin, deactivate Redirection too. Signocore SEO does not warn about it, and while both are active, both handle the same addresses.
- Open a few pages and compare their titles and descriptions with what you had before.
- Set up what the import does not cover:
- Title and description templates, see Titles, descriptions and templates.
- Company details and social profiles, see Structured data.
- Verification codes and tracking scripts, see Analytics, verification and scripts.
- Redirects the import left out, see Redirects and the 404 manager.
- Delete the old plugin once you are happy with the result.