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Quick Edit and Posts List SEO Bar

SEOvault AI adds SEO capabilities to WordPress’s post and page list tables. You can edit SEO titles, descriptions, and robots directives without opening the full editor, and see real-time SEO scores for each post.

Posts list SEO bar

Section titled “Posts list SEO bar”

The SEO column appears in your posts, pages, and taxonomy list tables. It shows a color-coded badge with the overall SEO status for each item.

Badge statuses

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  • Good (green): All SEO checks pass
  • Okay (yellow): Some checks need attention but no critical issues
  • Needs Work (orange): Critical SEO issues exist
  • Not Set (gray): No SEO data configured
  • Noindex (red): The post or term is set to noindex

Hover over any badge to see a detailed tooltip with individual check results like title length, description presence, keyword usage, and more.

Where it appears

Section titled “Where it appears”

The SEO column appears on:

  • Posts list (edit.php)
  • Pages list
  • Custom post types (products, portfolio items, etc.)
  • Categories and Tags lists
  • Custom taxonomies (product categories, etc.)

To exclude specific post types or taxonomies from the SEO column, use the seovaultseo_excluded_post_types and seovaultseo_excluded_taxonomies filters.

Column position

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By default, the SEO column appears after the date column (position 4). Change this with the seovaultseo_seo_bar_column_position filter for posts, or seovaultseo_seo_bar_column_position_taxonomy for taxonomies.

Quick Edit

Section titled “Quick Edit”

Quick Edit lets you modify SEO fields directly from the posts list without opening the full editor.

How to use Quick Edit

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  1. Go to Posts > All Posts (or any post type list)
  2. Hover over a post title and click Quick Edit
  3. The inline editor opens with WordPress fields plus SEOvault AI fields
  4. Edit the SEO fields:
    • SEO Title: Custom title for this post
    • SEO Description: Custom meta description
    • Noindex: Check to prevent search engine indexing
    • Nofollow: Check to tell search engines not to follow links
  5. Click Update to save changes

Quick Edit pre-populates with your existing SEO values, so you’re editing current data rather than starting from scratch.

Quick Edit fields

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  • SEO Title: Text input for the custom SEO title
  • SEO Description: Textarea for the meta description
  • Noindex: Checkbox to set the noindex directive
  • Nofollow: Checkbox to set the nofollow directive

These match the fields in the full post editor SEO meta box.

Bulk Edit

Section titled “Bulk Edit”

Bulk Edit lets you apply SEO changes to multiple posts at once.

How to use Bulk Edit

Section titled “How to use Bulk Edit”
  1. Go to Posts > All Posts
  2. Select the posts you want to edit using the checkboxes
  3. Choose Edit from the Bulk Actions dropdown
  4. Click Apply
  5. The bulk editor opens with SEOvault AI fields
  6. Fill in the fields you want to change:
    • SEO Title: Enter a title to apply to all selected posts (leave empty to keep existing)
    • SEO Description: Enter a description to apply to all selected posts (leave empty to keep existing)
    • Set Noindex: Check to apply noindex to all selected posts
    • Set Nofollow: Check to apply nofollow to all selected posts
  7. Click Update to save changes

Bulk Edit behavior

Section titled “Bulk Edit behavior”
  • Empty text fields: Leave existing values unchanged
  • Filled text fields: Apply the new value to all selected posts
  • Unchecked checkboxes: Do not change existing robots settings
  • Checked checkboxes: Apply the directive to all selected posts

This lets you, for example, set noindex on 50 old posts without touching their titles or descriptions.

Post states

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The posts list shows labels next to post titles when robots directives are set:

  • Noindex: Appears when the post is set to noindex
  • Nofollow: Appears when the post is set to nofollow

These labels help you quickly identify posts with special robots directives without opening the SEO column tooltip.

Performance optimization

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The SEO bar uses meta caching to prevent performance issues on large sites:

  • Post lists: Prefetches post meta in a single query when loading the posts list
  • Taxonomy lists: Prefetches term meta in a single query when loading taxonomy lists

This ensures the SEO column loads quickly even with hundreds of posts or terms.

Notes and edge cases

Section titled “Notes and edge cases”
  • Disabled mode: When SEOvault AI is disabled, the SEO column and Quick Edit fields do not appear
  • Permissions: Users must have the edit_posts capability to use Quick Edit, and edit_post for specific posts
  • Character limits: Quick Edit doesn’t show character counters. Use the full editor for length guidance
  • Taxonomy Quick Edit: Quick Edit for categories and tags uses WordPress’s built-in fields only. Edit the full term screen for full SEO control
  • Bulk Edit limits: Bulk Edit only supports the four core SEO fields. For focus keywords, canonical URLs, or social tags, use the full editor
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