Description
ACS SEO Plus covers the on-page basics without asking you to connect an account, install a wizard or learn a new vocabulary. Open a post, fill in the fields you care about, and leave the rest empty: every field falls back to something WordPress already knows.
It also counts page views on your own server, so you can see which entry is being read without adding a third party script to your pages.
What it does
- SEO title, meta description and canonical URL for every public post type.
- noindex and nofollow checkboxes per entry. Marking an entry noindex also removes it from the sitemap.
- Open Graph and Twitter Card tags, with a share image chosen per entry, then the featured image, then a site wide fallback.
- JSON-LD structured data: a WebSite graph with a search action on the front page, and BlogPosting on every post (on by default for new installs), or WebPage on the other entries you opt in.
- A title and description for the front page, used for the page head and the share tags, so a static front page is shared as your site rather than as a page called “Home”.
- Site verification tags for Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, printed on the front page.
- An optional Google Analytics 4 tag, loaded only when you enter a measurement ID.
- An XML sitemap at its own address, so it never takes over the sitemap WordPress or another plugin already publishes. You choose which post types it covers.
- Page view counts per entry: today, yesterday, this month and all time, in the editor, in the post list and on an overview screen.
About the view counting
It runs entirely on your site. There is no cookie, no stored IP address and no request to any outside service. To recognise a repeat visit within the same day the plugin keeps a one way hash of the visitor address and browser string in the site cache for 24 hours; the hash is discarded after that and cannot be turned back into the original values. Only totals per entry are stored, never a log of individual visits. Views by logged in editors and by obvious crawlers are skipped.
Because the count happens in PHP, a full page cache will hide some views from it. That is expected, and it is the trade-off for not loading a tracking script.
No strings attached
This plugin is complete on its own. Nothing in it is locked, metered, time limited or reserved for a paid tier, it never asks for a licence key or an account, and by default it makes no outside requests at all. The only outside service it can load is the optional Google Analytics 4 tag, and only after the site owner enters a measurement ID. Longer range traffic reports, referrer and device breakdowns, automatic image alt text and redirect management are sold separately as an add-on at ACS Developer (https://acs-developer.com/acs-seo-plus/). The add-on is not included here and this plugin does not check for it.
External services
This plugin can load one outside service, and only when the site owner explicitly sets it up.
Google Analytics 4 (Google tag) — When a measurement ID is entered under ACS SEO Plus > Settings > Site verification and analytics, the front end of the site loads https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js in the visitor’s browser. Google then receives the page address, referrer, browser and device details and an identifier cookie set by Google, as described in Google’s documentation. Nothing is loaded while the field is empty, and by default nothing is loaded for logged in editors. The site owner is responsible for telling visitors about it in the privacy policy and for any consent their law requires.
Terms of service: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/us/
Privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
The Search Console and Bing verification fields only print a meta tag with the value you enter. They do not contact any service.
Screenshots
Installation
- Upload the plugin folder to
/wp-content/plugins/, or install it from the Plugins screen. - Activate the plugin.
- Open ACS SEO Plus > Settings to choose what is printed in the page head and which post types belong in the sitemap.
- Edit any post or page and fill in the SEO panel under the editor.
FAQ
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Does this replace the sitemap WordPress already has?
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No. WordPress keeps serving its own sitemap at /wp-sitemap.xml and this plugin serves its own at a separate address, so neither one interferes with the other. If you would rather have only one, there is a checkbox on the settings screen that turns the built in sitemap off. It is unticked by default.
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Can I use it alongside another SEO plugin?
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It will not break anything, but two plugins writing the same tags means duplicate output. Turn off the overlapping parts on the settings screen, or pick one plugin for the head tags.
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Does it send any data anywhere?
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By default, no. The plugin makes no outgoing HTTP requests from your server. The only exception is the optional Google Analytics 4 tag: if, and only if, you type a measurement ID on the settings screen, your visitors’ browsers load the Google tag and send visit data to Google. Leave the field empty and nothing is loaded. See “External services” below.
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Why are my view counts lower than my analytics service?
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Views are counted in PHP. A page served from a full page cache never reaches PHP, so it is not counted. Repeat visits within a day count once, and logged in editors and obvious crawlers are skipped, so the figure is deliberately conservative.
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Where are the view counts stored?
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In post meta on your own database, as a daily counter plus a lifetime total per entry. Daily counters older than about thirteen months are trimmed automatically; the lifetime total is kept. Deleting the plugin removes all of it.
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Will it change my theme output?
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Only the page head. The plugin adds meta tags there and nothing to the visible page. An optional HTML comment naming the plugin can be switched on, and it is off by default.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“ACS SEO Plus” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “ACS SEO Plus” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.4
- Fix: sites set up before 1.0.3 keep their per entry JSON-LD choice after updating. JSON-LD on every post is on by default only for new installs; existing sites can tick it on the settings screen.
1.0.3
- New: site verification fields for Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
- New: optional Google Analytics 4 measurement ID. The Google tag is sent to visitors only when the site owner explicitly enters an ID; nothing is loaded while the field is empty, and it is skipped for logged in editors by default.
- New: front page title and description for the page head and the share tags.
- New: JSON-LD (BlogPosting) is printed on every post by default. Untick “Output JSON-LD on every post” on the settings screen to go back to per entry opt-in.
- Fix: a static front page is now shared as the website instead of an article named after the page.
- Fix: a static front page is no longer listed twice in the sitemap.
- Japanese translation updated for the new settings.
1.0.2
- Japanese translation: spacing between English words and Japanese text now follows the WordPress core Japanese style.
1.0.1
- Japanese translation added.
1.0.0
- First release.