Troubleshooting

Most problems with Signocore SEO come down to caching, URL rules that need refreshing, or another plugin doing the same job. Start with the section that matches what you see.

Changes show up late

Signocore SEO caches what it prints, so pages stay fast. It clears the cached copies when content or settings change, whether the change comes from the editor, Quick Edit or Bulk Edit, the REST API, WP-CLI or scheduled publishing.

Output	Kept for up to	Cleared automatically when you
Meta description, canonical URL, social tags and structured data of a page	A week	Save, trash or delete the post, term or profile, save any Signocore SEO settings page, or update the plugin
XML sitemaps	A day	Save, trash or delete any post or term, save an author's profile, save any Signocore SEO settings page, or update the plugin
Breadcrumbs	An hour	Save the post or term, or update the plugin
llms.txt (Pro)	A day	Save any post or any Signocore SEO settings page, or update the plugin

Site-wide changes clear the cached copies that show them: menus, the logo and the theme, the site title and tagline, the site icon, the permalink settings, the front page and posts page settings, and the site language. Deleting an image clears the pages that use it. In WooCommerce, a change to a product's price, stock or catalog visibility clears that product.

The title in the browser tab is not cached by Signocore SEO; it is built on every visit.

Two kinds of change can still take a while to show:

A custom field that another plugin updates without saving the post. The page shows it once its cache expires or someone updates the post.
A renamed category or other term. The term's own page updates at once, while the posts in it are refreshed shortly after by a WordPress background task (WP-Cron). If WP-Cron does not run on your site, those posts keep the old name until their cache expires.

To see a change right away:

For one page, open it in the editor and click Update (or Save).
For all pages, open any Signocore SEO settings page, such as Signocore SEO → General, and click Save Changes. This clears the cached head output, the sitemaps and llms.txt for the whole site.
To clear everything, including breadcrumbs, deactivate Signocore SEO on the Plugins screen and activate it again.

A caching plugin, your host's server cache or a CDN can also keep whole pages. Clear that cache after the steps above.

Note: While Settings → Reading is set to discourage search engines, Signocore SEO does not cache the head output at all.

The sitemap returns a 404 page

Open the sitemap from the link at the bottom of the XML Sitemap card on Signocore SEO → Visibility, then work through these checks.

Refresh the URL rules. The sitemap addresses are registered in a background task after activation. If that has not run yet, go to Settings → Permalinks and click Save Changes without changing anything. Saving any Signocore SEO settings page does the same.
Check the address. With plain permalinks (Settings → Permalinks set to Plain), the sitemap lives at https://example.com/?wpsseo-xml-sitemap=true instead of a .xml address.
Check your noindex rules. A sitemap for a post type, taxonomy or archive you have set to noindex returns a 404 page on purpose. For example, when author archives are set to noindex on Signocore SEO → Visibility, author-sitemap.xml is not available. The same goes for a sitemap page past the last one, such as page 3 of a sitemap with two pages. The sitemap index only lists sitemaps that have content.
Look for a file with the same name. If a real file such as sitemap-index.xml sits in the root folder of your site, the server shows that file instead. Signocore SEO warns you about it with a notice, see the notice table at the end of this page.
Check the server. The sitemap is created by WordPress, not stored as a file. If your server answers requests for .xml files itself instead of passing them on to WordPress, you get the server's 404 page. Ask your host to send requests for files that do not exist to WordPress's index.php.

For all sitemap settings, see Sitemaps, indexing and robots.txt.

WordPress's own sitemap redirects

Signocore SEO switches off the sitemaps built into WordPress. Unless you gave your own sitemap one of these names, visits to /wp-sitemap.xml and /sitemap.xml are sent to the Signocore SEO sitemap index with a permanent (301) redirect, so an old address you submitted to a search engine keeps working. Submit the new address when you get the chance.

There is no structured data on your pages

Signocore SEO prints its structured data on every page except 404 pages, as one <script type="application/ld+json"> in the head, together with the other Signocore SEO tags. It does not wait for your company details: until you save Signocore SEO → Company, it names your organization after the site title. If the script is missing:

Clear your page cache. A caching plugin, your host's server cache or a CDN can still serve copies made before Signocore SEO was installed or updated.
Check the page source, not only a testing tool. Open the page, view its source and search for application/ld+json. If none of the Signocore SEO tags are there either, your theme probably does not call WordPress's wp_head() function. Ask the theme's developer.
Check for custom code. A theme or plugin can remove parts of the graph with the wpsseo_schema_graph filter.

See Structured data for what the graph contains.

Another SEO plugin is active

While Yoast SEO, Rank Math, SEOPress, All in One SEO or Slim SEO is active, Signocore SEO shows administrators the warning "We have detected that ... is active. To avoid conflicts, we highly recommend disabling it." You can dismiss it; it comes back when a different SEO plugin becomes active. Both plugins print titles, descriptions, canonical URLs, social tags and structured data, so search engines see everything twice.

Import your data first, see Switch from another SEO plugin.
Deactivate the other plugin.

The Table of Contents block is missing

The Table of Contents block, the [signocore-toc] shortcode and four SEO Health checks need the PHP dom extension. The checks are Secondary keywords in H2-H6 headlines, Primary keyword in introduction, Alt text on images and Internal link in content. Without the extension:

the block is not in the inserter, and the shortcode shows up as plain text,
the four checks are not measured,
administrators see a notice about the missing extension.

Everything else in Signocore SEO works normally.

Ask your host to enable the dom extension for PHP.

The title does not end with your company name

Append To Title adds " • " and your company name only when:

the full title stays within 60 characters,
the title does not already contain the company name, and
the title does not come from a template.

To show your brand on every page, add %%sitetitle%% or the name itself to your templates. See Titles, descriptions and templates.

A placeholder shows up as text or prints nothing

Check the spelling between the double percent signs. Upper and lower case both work, so %%Title%% is fine.
Check that the placeholder works on that kind of page. %%title%% prints nothing on category and tag archives; use %%term_title%% there.
Placeholders only work in title and description fields. In other fields, such as Breadcrumb Title, they stay as text.

The full list is in Template placeholders.

SEO Health or the Dashboard looks out of date

SEO Health analyzes the saved version of a post. Save or update the post to refresh it.
The Thin Content card and the Fewer than 240 words filter (Fewer than 160 words for products) only count posts saved since the word count was added. If the SEO Dashboard shows a Count words for button, click it to count the older posts. Only administrators see the button.
With Pro, the Orphaned Pages check needs every post in the link index. Click Index internal links for on the SEO Dashboard when it appears.

The page's language code has no country

By default, Signocore SEO shortens the language code in your pages' <html lang="..."> attribute, for example from en-US to en. Bing reads the country as the region a page is meant for, so a country you do not mean can keep your pages out of other markets. The country stays for Chinese, and when two of your site's languages share a language, such as British and American English.

To keep the full code, go to Signocore SEO → General and switch off Remove Country Code in the Language card.

Pro features stay locked

Check that Signocore SEO License Email and Signocore SEO License Key on Signocore SEO → General match your purchase, then click Verify license. See Installation and license.
If an update on the Plugins screen says "To enable Pro features, please enter a valid license key here.", the update came without a download while a license key is saved. Verify the license, then click Check again on Dashboard → Updates.
If the AI buttons show a lock although you have Pro, add an API key on Signocore SEO → Integrations. See AI generation.

Admin notices

Notice	What it means	What to do
"Signocore SEO requires PHP ... or higher"	The server runs a PHP version that is too old, so the plugin has paused itself.	Ask your host to update PHP. See platform support.
"Signocore SEO could not load its dependencies"	Some of the plugin's files are missing.	Delete the plugin and install it again from a fresh download. Your settings are kept.
"We detected a ... file in the root of your website. Our dynamic sitemap will not work until you delete this file."	A real sitemap file with the same name hides the one Signocore SEO builds.	Make a backup, then click Delete file. Click Remove this warning if you want to keep the file.
"We detected a robots.txt file in the root of your website."	A real robots.txt file hides the one Signocore SEO builds.	The same as for the sitemap file.
"We were unable to remove the ... file"	WordPress could not delete the file.	Delete it yourself through your host's file manager or FTP, from the folder the notice names.
"Your site is currently hidden from search engines."	Discourage search engines from indexing this site is ticked under Settings → Reading.	Untick it when the site is ready to go live.
"We have detected that ... is active."	Another SEO plugin is running.	See "Another SEO plugin is active" above.
"The license key seems invalid."	A key is saved, but the license server did not accept it.	See "Pro features stay locked" above.
"Signocore SEO has detected ... on this site."	A supported SEO plugin is active and its data can be imported.	Click Open import, or dismiss the notice.
"... the PHP "dom" extension is not enabled"	The Table of Contents block and four SEO Health checks are unavailable.	See "The Table of Contents block is missing" above.
"Signocore SEO: new content types found"	Another plugin or your theme added a post type or taxonomy, such as events or courses. It is indexable and listed in the sitemap until you decide otherwise. Only administrators see the notice.	Click Review visibility settings and check the new types under Noindex Settings, or dismiss the notice. See Sitemaps, indexing and robots.txt.
"Removed content left an address that leads nowhere" (Pro)	You trashed or deleted published content or a term, so its address now returns a "page not found" error. Shown to administrators on the next screen outside the block editor.	Click Create redirect to send visitors to another page, or Serve 410 Gone to tell search engines the content is gone for good. Restoring a post from the trash removes the 410 again. See Redirects and the 404 manager.
"Signocore SEO: planned platform requirements"	The next major version will need a newer PHP version than your site runs. Your site stays on its current release and keeps working.	Plan a PHP update with your host. You can dismiss the notice.

If you are stuck, contact Signocore with a description of the problem and what you have tried.