68
Yoast SEO – Advanced SEO with real-time guidance and built-in AI
The SEO giant that loves a good sales pitch.
HealthyGrowingPoor rating
68/100
It is a reliable SEO staple that suffers from intrusive upsells and occasional compatibility issues with modern builders.
Active installs
~16 million
our estimate · wp.org shows 10M+
Rating
4.8★
27,816 ratings
Trend · vs a year ago
+12%
Growing
96,367 → 107,726 installs/day
What to watch out for
- MINORverified rating is 3.65★
Downloads over time
real new installs per day · release spikes shown separately from the trend2025-04-302025-08-082025-11-162026-02-232026-06-03
organicrelease spikerelease tailorganic trend · 14d rolling median
Growing · +12% in the last year
96,367/day a year ago→107,726/day today
Reviews
what people actually sayYoast SEO is a well-established and broadly trusted SEO plugin valued for its ease of use and practical guidance, but it draws recurring criticism for feeling outdated, pushing premium upsells, and failing to correctly analyse content built with third-party page builders like Divi.
What people like
- +Real-time SEO analysis and scoring system helps users catch and fix on-page SEO issues before publishing×6
- +Readability checks provide useful writing guidance alongside SEO recommendations×2
- +Sitemap generation and meta/title management work reliably out of the box×2
- +Free version is considered sufficient for core SEO needs×2
- +Beginner-friendly interface that reduces the complexity of on-page optimisation×4
Common complaints
- −Frequent prompts and ads pushing the Premium upgrade feel intrusive×3
- −Poor compatibility with the Divi page builder — plugin incorrectly reports no content, no links, etc., worsening after the Divi 4-to-5 upgrade
- −Compatibility issue with WordPress 6.9 changes to shortcode and do_shortcode() attribute handling
- −Perceived as outdated and not keeping pace with how modern SEO has evolved
Review trustReviews look organic
- 3.65★Verified rating — holds steady vs the raw 4.80★
- 14%One-shot reviewers — most reviewers are active community members
Reviews per month · 5★ vs lower
2025-01-102025-10-072026-06-04
5★ reviews1–4★ reviews
All-time ratings · 27,816 total
Latest reviews · 90 analyzed
- 2026-06-04★★★★★Helpful but Pushydenise751-shot
- 2026-06-03★★★★★Brakes other plug-ins abouve WP 6.8.3Thomas Fodor
- 2026-06-03★★★★★Does Its Job, Mostlykerstin251-shot
- 2026-06-02★★★★★Outdatedofficemichael
- 2026-06-01★★★★★Ranks Up Fastleroy561-shot
- 2026-06-01★★★★★One of the Best SEO Plugins for WordPress Websitessinghamritwp
- 2026-05-25★★★★★Green Dots = Real Trafficjairo7
- 2026-05-25★★★★★Still Using Itcarine69
- 2026-05-25★★★★★Finally Rankingmikala65
- 2026-05-18★★★★★SEO Made EasyNadine Frank
Releases
recent versions from WordPress.org SVNAlternatives to Yoast SEO
Top SEO plugins, ranked by score.For developers & the curious
the raw signals behind the grade — none of this is on the friendly summary aboveDownload signals
Baselines are computed on organic days only — release spikes and their tails are excluded, so they're not inflated by the auto-update wave.
121,828
Baseline · median of last 7 organic days
106,577
Prior 7-day baseline
105,983
Floor · 25th percentile over 14 days
2,147,987
Mean release-day peak (30d)
148,025
Latest day · 2026-06-03(organic)
+14.3%
Week-over-week organic trend
Review signals
Concentration and drive-by metrics drive the review-burst and fake-review flags. 30–40% solo reviewers is normal; we only flag the extremes.
17%
Max month share · biggest single 30-day window
0.77
Distribution CV · <0.6 even, >1.5 bursty
49%
5★ share in analyzed sample
14%
Solo reviewers · only this one wp.org activity
+87%
Volume velocity · last 6mo vs prior 6mo
3.61 → 3.65★
Sample avg · raw → solo-filtered