9.1-RC4

• Fixes a bug where a console error was thrown when closing the snippet editor.
• Remove SEO book menu item from the Admin bar Keyword Research menu and use shortlinks for Google Ads and Google Trends.

9.1-RC3

• Fixes a bug where a console error is thrown in Gutenberg editor. #11439

9.0.3

Release Date: October 30th, 2018

Bugfixes:

• Fixes a bug where the metabox was broken when using the classic editor plugin.
• Fixes a bug where the Chrome browser tab would crash on Windows when a French or Italian text contains sentences in passive voice, props CarloCannas.
• Fixes a bug where the Yoast SEO analysis would error if used together with the DelightfulDownloads plugin.

9.1-RC2

No changes compared to RC1

9.1-RC1

Enhancements:

• Improves keyword recognition in the first paragraph on texts which start with images and captions.
• Adds a warning notification to the permalink settings page, linking to a KN article. Props to valtlfelipe
• Corrects spelling of the words "plug-in" and "set-up", resulting in less text needing translations. Props to pedro-mendonca
• Adds an additional string in the sidebar to the translatable strings. Props to pedro-mendonca
• Adds the filter wpseo_opengraph_is_valid_image_url that allows custom image url validation. Props to petenelson
• Updates the font size of the snippet title measure element to correctly mimic Google desktop snippet title. Props to ol0lll
• Removes non-functioning eye-markers from the link keyphrase assessment.

Bugs:

• Fixes a bug where a dependency wasn't loaded for the SEO -> Tools page.
• Fixes a faulty reference to the old SEOAssessor class.
• Fixes a bug where the featured image was not recognized in the SEO analysis when using Gutenberg.
• Fixes an accessibility issue where focus would be lost when removing an uploaded image in the configuration wizard.
• Fixes a bug where notices were being thrown when quick editing a post and no post type object could be found.
• Fixes the copy of the date archives help text which contains faulty information. Props to mkronenfeld
• Fixes a bug where a type error is thrown when the posts or terms focus keyword isn't of the type WP_Post as this can collide with third-party plugins.
• Fixes a bug where the Chrome browser tab would crash on Windows when a French or Italian text contains sentences in passive voice. Props to CarloCannas

Other

• Changes the reference in the admin bar menu from "AdWords External" to "Google Ads".

9.0.2

Release Date: October 24th, 2018

Bugfixes:

• Fixes a bug where it was impossible to change the profile in the Search Console integration step in the configuration wizard.
• Fixes a bug where the primary taxonomy picker was not shown in Gutenberg (v4.1).

9.0.1

Bugfixes:

• Fixes error with using $ in wp-seo-admin-media.js. Now we use jQuery instead.

9.0

Release Date: October 23rd, 2018

Bugfixes:

• Fixes a bug where the keyword would not be found in the slug when containing punctuation, for example the keyphrase apples & pears in the slug apples-pears.
• Fixes a bug where the buttons to change the How-to steps and FAQ questions order would be only partially visible in mobile view.
• Fixes a bug where an 'undefined index' notice would be given when an OpenGraph image URL didn't have a correct path. Props to @Julian-B90
• Fixes a bug where the home description can contain HTML, resulting in unexpected characters on the Facebook social settings page.
• Fixes a bug where author sitemap caches would be attempted to be invalidated despite not all conditions being met.
• Fixes a bug where a fatal error on Yoast settings pages was thrown because they did not have a dedicated option class.

Enhancements:

• Introduces two new principles for keyword recognition:
  • Makes keyphrase recognition flexible with regards to word order. This means that the keyphrase SEO WordPress plugin will be found in the sentence This is the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress. In order to use exact matches, the keyphrase can be enclosed in quotation marks.
  • When matching keyphrases for the various assessments, the analysis only targets content words and ignores function words (e.g., the or and). This functionality is available in English, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian and Polish.
• The analysis of the following assessments incorporates the new keyword recognition principles:
  • Image alt attributes: checks whether there’s at least one image with an alt tag that contains words from the keyphrase. An exact match isn’t required anymore.
  • Keyphrase in introduction: checks whether words from the keyphrase are matched within one sentence in the introduction or, if not, whether they are present in the first paragraph at all. An exact match isn’t required anymore.
  • Keyphrase in title: still checks whether an exact match of the keyphrase is found in (the beginning of) the title, but now also recommends improvement if all words from the keyphrase are found in the title.
  • Keyphrase length: has new boundaries to check whether the keyphrase is not too long. For languages that have support for function word stripping (see above), only content words are taken into account.
  • Keyphrase in meta description: checks how often all words from the keyphrase are matched within the meta description.
  • Keyphrase in subheading: now checks whether at least one subheading contains more than half of the words from the keyphrase. An exact match isn’t required anymore.
  • Keyphrase in slug: checks whether a sufficient number of words from the keyphrase is used in the slug. The number of words required depends on the length of the keyphrase.
  • Keyphrase density: checks whether there are enough keyphrase matches; a match is defined as a sentence that contains all words from the keyphrase.
  • Link focus keyphrase: the assessment that checks whether you’re using your keyphrase to link to a different article doesn't require an exact match anymore.
• Improves the feedback texts for all SEO and readability assessments.
• Improves the consistency of the SEO and readability results by showing them in a fixed order.
• Adds target="_blank" to the "How to connect to GSC" link to open the link a new tab. Props to @zkan
• Changes all mentions of 'keyword' to 'keyphrase'. Read more about the transition from 'keyword' to 'keyphrase'.
• Optimizes and caches WPSEO_Option_Titles::enrich_defaults(). Props to @soulseekah
• Introduces a Features tab in the network admin, which allows disabling all site-specific features for the entire network.
• Improves the tab order within the structured data blocks in Gutenberg and make it consistent between the FAQ and How-To block.
• Improves sitemap performance by disabling the caching by default.
• Adds target="_blank" to the "How to connect to GSC" link to open a new tab when clicked.
• Adds an assessment that checks whether your keyword consists only of function words.
• Changes OpenGraph image handling to always use an image from the media library. This makes the performance of the OpenGraph image handling much better.
• Improves performance by no longer using images from the content as a fallback for the OpenGraph and Twitter images.

Other:

• Deprecates the WPSEO_Cornerstone class.
• Deprecates the assessment that checks if stopwords are used within the keyphrase.

9.0-RC5

• Fix upsell button line height #11334
• Fix Go Premium button flexbox in IE11 #11340
• Only show default opengraph image when content doesn't contain images #11346
• Check if the query strings with tracking information (introduced here: Yoast/YoastSEO.js#1877) still appear for the short links in the assessment results (there has been an internal refactoring; functionality should be the same Yoast/YoastSEO.js#1888)
• Fixed a bug where cornerstone functionality wouldn’t work for the keyphrase in slug assessment Yoast/YoastSEO.js#1893
• Changes the meta description keyphrase assessment to only look at the amount of matches in the full description instead of counting sentences with matches Yoast/YoastSEO.js#1890

9.0-RC4

• Updated styling of button to match design #11283
• Fix title keyphrase assessment with exact match keyphrases Yoast/YoastSEO.js#1882
• Fix URL keyphrase assessment with exact match keyphrases: Yoast/YoastSEO.js#1881
• Adds an assessment that that checks whether your keyword consists only of function words Yoast/YoastSEO.js#1885
• Adds query strings with tracking information for shortlinks in the plugin Yoast/YoastSEO.js#1877 + #11285 + #11304
• Changes OpenGraph image handling to always use an image from the media library. This makes the performance of the OpenGraph image handling much better.image #11292
• Hides the upsell for non supported (word form recognition) languages #11296
• Improves performance by no longer using images from the content as a fallback for the OpenGraph and Twitter images #11263