Easy custom title & description migration from Yoast SEO.

[sybrew]

Users moving from Yoast SEO or SEOPress will find that their custom titles and descriptions have transformed into odd syntaxes, including %%title%% and %%sep%%.

We could transform this (example code below), but it's better to convert the titles into something more usable and transitional. So, we want to warn the user on the posts which still have the old syntax.

The proposal:

1. We want to ease (and maintain) this transition.
2. We want to show which posts are still to be transformed in the post overview tables.

This snippet covers a part of the title transformation:

add_filter( 'the_seo_framework_title_from_custom_field', function( $title, $args ) {

	$tsf = the_seo_framework();

	// Add the title. This is a bit heavy, so we test for it, first.
	if ( false !== strpos( $title, '%%title%%' ) ) {
		$title = str_replace( '%%title%%', $tsf->get_raw_generated_title( $args ), $title );
	}

	// Change separators.
	$title = str_replace( '%%sep%%', $tsf->get_title_separator(), $title );

	// Remove the sitename and pagination. TSF adds this out of the box.
	$title = str_replace( [ '%%sitename%%', '%%page%%' ], '', $title );

	return $title;
}, 10, 2 );

> Where do I place the snippet?

[sybrew]

We might wish to warn users on these snippets for titles and descriptions via the SEO Bar.

[riffster]

Most folks that use TSF aren't very 'cody'. This might be a nice 'check-box' item for TSF with a strong warning? Just a thought :D

[sybrew]

I don't like advertising TSF in the admin dashboard, even less so towards other plugins.

This project will most likely be pushed into a plugin which I'd like to make available via WordPress.org. I'd also like to add an informative knowledge-base entry pointing towards it. There, it should state why you'd want the plugin & why it's only to be used as temporarily patch-work.

[sybrew]

Here's a list of current, deprecated, and removed variables: https://kb.yoast.com/kb/yoast-wordpress-seo-titles-metas-template-variables/

[sybrew]

In b0046b7:

**Added:**
* Title and description related SEO Bar tests for unsupported transformative syntax. Mainly detecting syntax from Yoast SEO and SEOPress, making your migration to the better plugin more manageable.
	* The test runs after your filters do. So, if you've added transformative syntax filters to the right hook, you shouldn't receive any SEO Bar related errors.

The "easy" toggle will be considered for a future release.

[sybrew]

I don't want to integrate this feature in The SEO Framework: It's messy, and it'll enable users to implement an archaic system we'll need to support indefinitely. I'll face those facts in #140.

For this issue, I prefer to have the transaction take place during migration. See #548.

Doing this via migration only will not retroactively fix the titles for users that have migrated to TSF via other means. However, I believe we've been proactive about that on our migration page.

[skullo27]

Hello, we are planning to move from Yoast so this snippet is mandatory for us to be able to move to TSF as we have 6.6k products in woocommerce! I tried the snippet and it worked fine for the <title> attribute, it does nothing for any other meta elements that were using these syntax markups from Yoast, for example: Meta Description, og:description...

Is there a way to adapt it for these as well?

[sybrew]

Hi @skullo27, I just released the data migration extension called "Transport." It can recognize and transform Yoast SEO syntax. To learn what's transformed, please see this FAQ entry.

[skullo27]

Hi @sybrew this is great news. You mention in that FAQ that SEOPress is coming soon, do you have an ETA? We moved from Yoast to SeoPress in the end, but it turns out that SEOPress is just as bloated : (

We would certainly move ASAP when your tool is ready for that?

thanks

[sybrew]

Hi @skullo27,

Development fatigue kicked in, so I felt that launching an incomplete beta version was better than pushing myself.
I hope to have SEOPress and AIOSEO support implemented before the end of this year.

[skullo27]

Hey Sybrew, I can understand that.

I wondered if you had any update on the SEOPress migration? Also, if there is a way to do it manually with something like WP All Import?

I guess as a workaround I could migrate from SeoPress to RankMath and then from RM to TSF. It would leave a lot of post meta to clean up though!!

... or just wait!

thanks

[sybrew]

I have already started programming the migration from SEOPress. This might take another week or two (or three).

In the meantime, you could use Yoast SEO to import from SEOPress, and then use our transporter to import from Yoast SEO. We both feature cleaning up of metadata (Yoast SEO has a feature to clean up after you migrate, TSF does this without prompt).