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SEO Playground (WordPress On-Site SEO Toolkit)

Tier: Core/Free (base) + Pro (advanced modules) | Status: Shipped | Type: User-Facing UI + Integration

!!! tip "Key Insight" This is what makes the plugin worth installing even without the AlmaSEO dashboard. Sitemaps, schema, Evergreen auditing, meta management, and a robots.txt editor give it standalone credibility against Yoast and AIOSEO — then the dashboard connection unlocks AI rewrite, keyword intelligence, and automated publishing that no competitor offers. The Evergreen content auditing system alone (detect aging content, alert, refresh, republish) is a workflow no single competing plugin provides end-to-end.

Overview

SEO Playground is the on-site SEO toolkit built into the AlmaSEO WordPress Connector Plugin. It adds a full-featured SEO management layer directly inside WordPress — sitemaps, schema markup, content freshness auditing, metadata editing, health scoring, redirects, 404 tracking, and more — without requiring the AlmaSEO dashboard for core functionality.

When connected to the AlmaSEO dashboard, the plugin gains AI-powered optimization: content rewriting, keyword intelligence, content brief generation, FAQ suggestions, and re-optimization alerts for aging posts.

What It Adds to WordPress

Admin Menu ("SEO Playground" in the WP sidebar):

  • Overview — Connection status and feature summary
  • Connection — API authentication and dashboard sync
  • Sitemaps — Multi-tab sitemap management (10+ sitemap types)
  • Evergreen — Content freshness dashboard with trend charts
  • Post Optimization — Keyword intelligence sidebar
  • Redirects — 301/302 redirect manager (Pro)
  • 404 Logs — 404 error tracking and redirect conversion (Pro)
  • Bulk Metadata — Mass title/description editor (Pro)
  • Robots.txt — Virtual and physical robots.txt editor

Post/Page Editor Controls:

  • SEO Playground meta box — Tabbed interface with SEO title, meta description, focus keyword, character counters, live Google snippet preview, and optimization suggestions
  • Schema Settings meta box — Sidebar dropdown for 9 schema types with per-post enable/disable
  • Evergreen Status meta box — Sidebar badge showing Evergreen/Watch/Stale status with reasons and last-calculated timestamp

Dashboard Widget:

  • At-a-glance Evergreen content health stats on the WP admin dashboard

Core Features (Standalone — No Dashboard Required)

Sitemap Engine

Generates 10+ sitemap types automatically:

Sitemap Type File Pattern Details
Post Sitemaps /sitemap-posts-*.xml Paginated, configurable URLs per file (default 1,000)
Page Sitemaps /sitemap-pages-*.xml Hierarchical page structure
Category Sitemaps /sitemap-tax-category-*.xml Category taxonomy
Tag Sitemaps /sitemap-tax-tag-*.xml Tag taxonomy
Custom Post Type /sitemap-{cpt}-*.xml Auto-detects registered CPTs
Custom Taxonomy /sitemap-tax-{name}-*.xml Auto-detects registered taxonomies
Author Sitemaps /sitemap-users-*.xml Author archive pages
Image Sitemaps Embedded in post sitemaps Attached images per post
Video Sitemaps /sitemap-video-*.xml YouTube/Vimeo URL detection
News Sitemaps /sitemap-news.xml 48-hour rolling window for Google News
Delta/Change Sitemaps /sitemap-delta.xml Ring buffer of recently changed URLs
HTML Sitemaps [almaseo_html_sitemap] shortcode Human-readable sitemap page
Sitemap Index /sitemap.xml Master file listing all sub-sitemaps

Configuration options: Per-content-type enable/disable, URLs per sitemap limit, static (cached) vs dynamic (on-request) mode, GZIP compression, exclusion rules, priority and frequency customization, news sitemap settings (categories, publisher name, keyword source).

IndexNow integration: Instant submission to Bing and Yandex when content changes. API key management, manual/automatic submission toggle, delta tracking for incremental updates.

Sitemap health monitoring: Build statistics (duration, file count, URL count), conflict detection with Yoast/AIOSEO/RankMath, hreflang validation (WPML/Polylang), media URL validation.

Schema / Structured Data

Automatic JSON-LD generation with 9 supported schema types:

  • Article, BlogPosting, NewsArticle, WebPage, Product, Review, Recipe, HowTo, FAQPage

Auto-generated properties: headline, description, datePublished, dateModified, author (Person), publisher (Organization), url, image (with multi-level fallback: featured image > first content image > site logo > domain placeholder).

Safety features:

  • Schema Scrubber — Detects and removes duplicate JSON-LD from AIOSEO, Yoast, or RankMath to prevent rich result penalties
  • AIOSEO auto-detection — Automatically disables AlmaSEO schema output when AIOSEO is active
  • Exclusive Schema Mode — Optional override to take full control of schema output
  • Image fallback chain — Ensures valid image URLs in every schema block

Evergreen Content Auditing

Automated content freshness scoring that tracks whether posts are healthy, aging, or stale.

Status categories:

  • Evergreen — Healthy, regularly maintained content
  • Watch — Content aging, needs attention within 30-90 days
  • Stale — Outdated, requires immediate refresh (>90 days without update)

What it analyzes:

  • Content age (days since publication)
  • Update frequency (days since last modification)
  • Traffic trends (90-day vs previous 90-day clicks/impressions via GSC, when connected)
  • Seasonal content detection (regex patterns for holidays, months, year references)
  • Explicit dates embedded in content body

Schedule:

  • Weekly full recalculation via cron (batches of 50 posts to avoid timeouts)
  • Daily snapshots for trend tracking
  • Manual one-click recalculation per post

Where results appear:

  • Evergreen Dashboard — Overview cards with percentages, trend charts (4/8/12 week rolling averages), sortable at-risk content table, CSV/PDF export
  • Post editor sidebar — Status badge with reasons and last-calculated timestamp
  • WP Dashboard widget — At-a-glance stats and at-risk count
  • Email reminders — Per-post opt-in content refresh notifications via cron

SEO Health Scoring

Weighted scoring across 15+ signals displayed as a 0-100 gauge in the post editor:

  • Title quality (presence, length, keyword inclusion)
  • Description quality (presence, length, keyword optimization)
  • Content quality (word count, readability, keyword density)
  • Focus keyword usage and variations
  • Internal link count and quality
  • Image optimization (alt text, featured image presence)
  • Schema markup validation
  • Color-coded status: Red (<50), Yellow (50-79), Green (80+)

Meta Management

Per-post controls for:

  • SEO title with character counter
  • Meta description with length indicator
  • Focus keyword tracking
  • Meta robots (noindex, nofollow, noarchive)
  • Canonical URL
  • Open Graph tags (title, description, image)
  • Twitter Card data

Metadata Version History

Every meta field change is logged with SHA1 deduplication:

  • Full change timeline with user attribution and timestamps
  • One-click rollback to any previous version
  • Side-by-side diff viewer
  • Bulk restore for multiple fields
  • Notes system for documenting changes

Robots.txt Editor

  • Virtual mode — WordPress filter-based (no file writes needed)
  • Physical mode — Direct file editing with permission fallback
  • Syntax-highlighted editor with live preview
  • Recommended defaults with sitemap URL injection

Redirects Manager (Pro)

  • Create 301 (permanent) and 302 (temporary) redirects
  • Source path normalization and redirect loop detection
  • Enable/disable toggles per redirect
  • Test redirect URL functionality
  • Bulk operations

404 Tracker (Pro)

  • Captures 404 errors via template_redirect hook
  • Logs: URL, referrer, user agent, IP, timestamp
  • Quick-convert any 404 to a redirect
  • Filter by date range, search term, referrer
  • Ignore list for known non-issues

Bulk Metadata Editor (Pro)

  • Mass update titles, descriptions, and canonical URLs
  • Filter by post type, status, or category
  • Character limit warnings (65 chars title, 160 chars description)
  • Reset to defaults option

Dashboard-Connected Features (Require AlmaSEO)

When the plugin is connected to the AlmaSEO dashboard, these AI-powered features become available:

Feature What It Does
AI Rewrite Generates AI-optimized title and description for any post
Content Brief Generator Creates a structured optimization brief for writers
FAQ Generation Auto-generates FAQ schema content for a post
Re-Optimization Alerts Flags aging posts that need content refresh
Keyword Intelligence Intent analysis, difficulty scoring, and keyword suggestions via GSC data
Post Intelligence AI-generated content summary and analysis
Automated Publishing Dashboard pushes generated articles to WordPress via REST API

Plugin Compatibility

Plugin Behavior
Yoast SEO Coexists. Sitemap conflict detection; user chooses which plugin manages sitemaps
AIOSEO (Free + Pro) Detected automatically. AlmaSEO disables its own schema when AIOSEO is active. Schema Scrubber removes duplicate JSON-LD
Rank Math Sitemap conflict detection with user choice. No auto-disable
WPML Automatic hreflang tag generation, language-aware sitemaps
Polylang Language detection support, compatible with language switching

System Requirements

Requirement Minimum
WordPress 5.6+ (Application Passwords required)
PHP 7.4+
Tested up to WordPress 6.6
Plugin version 6.4.8
Multisite Supported (per-site options, no network-wide settings panel)

Why It Matters

Gives every WordPress site a full SEO management layer — sitemaps, schema, meta, content freshness monitoring — that works standalone and gets significantly more powerful when connected to the AlmaSEO dashboard for AI-driven optimization and automated publishing.

Requirements

  • Integrations: WordPress API
  • Compatibility: WordPress 5.6+
  • AI: OpenAI (via AlmaSEO dashboard, for connected features only)

Target Audience

Agencies, DIY Business Owners, Freelancers, Solo Practitioners