ThinkRank – AI SEO Plugin for WordPress: MCP, Metadata, Schema, XML Sitemaps, llms.txt & Search Console

Changelog

1.22.0

Release Date: 2026-07-28

• New: Yoast SEO import now matches the Rank Math importer — per-page-type title formats, alternate name, Knowledge Graph entity, author archive settings, IndexNow key, role permissions, News/Video sitemap post types (into Publisher Sitemaps with Pro), and link suggestion preferences all carry over
• New: Setup Wizard now includes an MCP Server step, so you can connect Claude, ChatGPT, or Cursor during onboarding, and the final step offers a free onboarding call booking link
• New: MCP abilities for Email Reporting and Social Platforms — connected AI assistants can now read and update your email report settings, send a test report email, and manage your social platform profiles
• Improved: The Setup Wizard has a refreshed design — new onboarding canvas, smoother step transitions, clearer error messages, and better small-screen layouts
• Improved: The welcome and SEO plugin conflict notices have a cleaner, branded card design
• Improved: The Setup Wizard is shorter — the social profiles step was removed, and the last step’s button now reads “Continue” instead of “Finish”
• Fixed: Reinstalling ThinkRank could lock administrators out with “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page” — access is now restored automatically, including on sites already affected
• Fixed: Yoast import — your organization name and logo were silently skipped on any Yoast version from the last several years; they now migrate correctly
• Fixed: Yoast import — leftover Rank Math variables in a site that had previously moved from Rank Math to Yoast are now translated to ThinkRank variables instead of being dropped
• Fixed: Long AI content briefs generated with Gemini failed with “Error: Unable to parse AI response” — the token limit is raised and a cut-off reply now reports the real reason

1.21.0

Release Date: 2026-07-26

• New: Rank Math import now covers everything ThinkRank has added since the importer was written — your title separator, per-page-type title formats (posts, pages, categories, tags, search, archives, authors), author archive settings, Instant Indexing post types, per-post sitemap exclusions, email report schedule, alternate name, and Knowledge Graph entity all carry over
• New: Rank Math role permissions are migrated — editors, authors, contributors and custom roles keep their SEO access instead of losing it the moment Rank Math is deactivated
• New: Rank Math’s IndexNow submission history is migrated, so the Instant Indexing history screen isn’t empty after switching
• New: With ThinkRank Pro active, Rank Math redirect rules and 404 logs are migrated too, keeping their match types, hit counts and dates; News/Video sitemap post types carry over to Publisher Sitemaps
• New: Toast notifications for site analysis, so errors and successes are actually visible
• Improved: Sitemap generation uses far less memory and is much faster on large sites — big sites no longer risk running out of memory while generating
• Improved: Bulk Instant Indexing submissions run in the background instead of blocking the admin screen
• Improved: The Image SEO alt text settings now appear above the “Fill missing alt text” button, since they change what the fill does
• Fixed: A fatal error (white screen) on 404 pages and on any page whose social share image had known pixel dimensions
• Fixed: Posts were scored as if no focus keyword was set, costing around 14 points on posts that did have one; the SEO score now reads the post’s saved focus keyword
• Fixed: Saving a title format containing variables like %category_title% or %date% corrupted them — the variables are now preserved exactly as typed
• Fixed: XML sitemap overhaul — “Use Sitemap Index” now produces a real sitemap index with paginated child sitemaps, the homepage appears only once, oversized sitemaps split automatically, no more invented “last modified” dates, tag archives are included in index mode, and changing your inclusion rules rebuilds the sitemap instead of leaving a stale file
• Fixed: Scheduled sitemap regeneration silently never ran; it now works on schedule
• Fixed: Turning the sitemap off now deletes the generated sitemap files instead of leaving them on your site
• Fixed: The sitemap “Validate” button flickered and never updated the row status
• Fixed: Instant Indexing — network failures record the real error, history is paginated and cleaned up after 90 days, failed rows show in red, the submitted count reflects what was actually sent, and URLs from other domains are dropped before submission
• Fixed: llms.txt — the file is removed when you disable the feature or deactivate the plugin, a failed removal is reported instead of showing a false success, and each Key Feature line renders as its own bullet
• Fixed: Robots.txt — turning off “Allow Search Engines” (or WordPress’s own “Discourage search engines” setting) now genuinely blocks crawlers even with custom robots.txt content saved, and changing that setting updates the live file
• Fixed: Social media — disabling Open Graph or Twitter Cards now removes those tags completely, saving social meta no longer errors, and the Twitter card type and language tag are detected correctly
• Fixed: Schema — importing schema from a URL can no longer be pointed at internal server addresses, bulk operations check per-post permissions, rate limiting actually works, and special characters in schema fields are safely escaped
• Fixed: Bulk SEO Optimization — page-builder helper post types no longer clutter the list, a failed save reports an error instead of a false success, and the title/description counters match the search preview
• Fixed: Role Manager — Pro features are now covered by role permissions, and saving one role no longer strips permissions from other roles
• Fixed: AI-generated titles and descriptions respect their length limits and show accurate character counts
• Fixed: The Setup Wizard’s “Connect with Google” button now works and returns you to the wizard
• Fixed: Image SEO — the “Fill missing alt text” button no longer wraps, an empty Media Library shows a clear message, and the button is disabled when there’s nothing to fill
• Fixed: Empty business or organization details no longer emit blank values into structured data, which invalidated Local Business rich results
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.20.0

Release Date: 2026-07-22

• New: Media Library alt text — save generated alt text onto the image record itself so it works everywhere (not just in rendered content), bulk-fill every image missing alt text, auto-fill new uploads, and optionally overwrite existing alt text
• New: Hero section — render the Site Identity hero (title, subtitle, CTA button, background image) anywhere with the [thinkrank_hero] shortcode or the thinkrank_hero theme hook
• New: Title formats for Tag and Archive pages, with context-aware variable buttons under every title field so each format only suggests variables that work in that context
• New: 11 new MCP abilities for AI assistants — publish llms.txt, run and read the Site SEO Analyzer, fetch performance data and integration status, generate content briefs, read and update pillar content, and detect, run, and monitor SEO imports from other plugins
• Changed: Connecting Google now runs through a secure ThinkRank-hosted flow — Google app credentials no longer ship inside the plugin and access tokens never pass through the browser; previously connected sites will be asked to reconnect once
• Improved: AI title optimization analyzes each title context separately (posts, pages, categories, and more), and AI site-identity optimization only requires a site name — an empty description or tagline is generated instead of rejected
• Fixed: Robots.txt editing overhauled — saving keeps the physical robots.txt file in sync so the live file always matches the editor, the View button shows the content actually being served, line breaks are preserved, and the editor no longer shows the auto-generated header
• Fixed: Google connection reliability — the token refresh now runs on schedule in the background, a revoked Google account prompts a reconnect instead of retrying forever, and credentials that can no longer be read (for example after a site migration) show a clear reconnect prompt instead of failing silently
• Fixed: Copying MCP connection details now works on non-HTTPS sites and older browsers
• Fixed: A fatal error that could occur when calculating sitemap statistics on the Sitemap settings screen
• Fixed: The Search title format uses the correct %search_term% variable, so the searched term actually appears in search results page titles
• Fixed: The SEO metabox drawer keeps its left navigation fixed while only the content area scrolls
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.19.0

Release Date: 2026-07-19

• New: Site SEO Analyzer — a whole-site SEO audit with a 0–100 score and letter grade, no Google connection required; checks span Basic SEO, Advanced SEO, Content, Performance & Technical, and Security, with a dashboard card and a full SEO Analyzer tab including per-category results and “how to fix” guidance
• New: HowTo block — step-by-step instructions with per-step images, total time, and automatic HowTo schema markup
• New: Table of Contents block — builds its list live from your headings, adds anchor links that work without JavaScript, and emits SiteNavigationElement schema
• New: Elementor widgets for FAQ, HowTo, and Table of Contents — Elementor-built pages get the same content patterns and structured data as the Gutenberg blocks
• Improved: Traffic Overview on the Analytics dashboard redesigned with clearer metric cards, per-metric icons, and trend badges (bounce rate correctly treats lower as better)
• Improved: Google Services settings screens redesigned and load faster — settings load in parallel, and Google account lists (Search Console sites, Analytics accounts/properties) are cached for 30 minutes instead of fetched on every visit
• Improved: Core Web Vitals collection uses your own PageSpeed API key or Google login first and re-measures automatic collections at most once a week, so measurements stay within Google’s quota (the Refresh button still forces a fresh run)
• Fixed: Blank admin screen crash in production builds (“cannot access lexical declaration before initialization”)
• Fixed: The Opportunities screen could fail with a server error (500) due to a data-format mismatch in the opportunity prioritizer
• Fixed: The “Configure SEO” launcher could appear twice in the block editor on sites where the editor loads slowly
• Fixed: Inserting a FAQ, HowTo, or Table of Contents block no longer makes the whole post render unstyled in the editor
• Fixed: The free Analytics dashboard no longer shows a “requires ThinkRank Pro” notice for features already presented as Pro previews
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.18.0

Release Date: 2026-07-16

• New: “Explain with AI” on SEO score suggestions — get a short, post-specific explanation of why a suggestion matters and how to fix it, right from the editor metabox or the SEO analysis screen (uses your configured AI provider)
• Improved: AI provider settings redesigned as tabs with a clear “Active” indicator; saved API keys now show as a masked preview with a Connected status and a Replace button
• Improved: Claude model list refreshed (Claude Sonnet 5, Opus 4.8, Haiku 4.5) — retired model IDs saved in settings are migrated automatically so AI requests keep working
• Improved: Google Services screens (Analytics dashboard, Core Web Vitals, Opportunities, Performance) load much faster — Lighthouse data now comes from a single shared PageSpeed run and admin screens reuse cached responses instead of refetching on every visit
• Improved: Site Health Audit “Configure” actions now deep-link straight to the relevant settings section
• Fixed: PageSpeed measurements no longer fail with rate-limit (429) errors — requests now run keyless or with your own Google API key instead of a shared quota
• Fixed: Empty Core Web Vitals and Opportunities screens caused by failed Google responses being cached — transient failures now retry instead of blanking the screens, and a performance score stuck at “collecting” now surfaces the actual reason
• Fixed: Fatal error from a class autoloader mis-mapping when loading the PageSpeed integration
• Fixed: AI title/meta suggestions could fail on reasoning models due to truncated responses, and AI response caching now works as intended
• Security: AI endpoints now cap analyzed content length server-side to prevent oversized requests
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.17.0

Release Date: 2026-07-14

• New: Agentic AI SEO with the built-in ThinkRank MCP server — connect Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other MCP-compatible AI assistants to manage SEO in plain language (35+ SEO tools; one-click OAuth 2.1 connect for Claude, Application Password fallback for other clients; off by default, admin-only)
• Improved: “View Generated Sitemaps” links are enabled only after the sitemap files have actually been generated, and applying a sitemap template now prompts you to regenerate
• Fixed: Content brief generation no longer times out on large briefs — AI requests for briefs now allow up to 120 seconds
• Fixed: WebSite schema was silently skipped when regenerating schema after site settings changed
• Fixed: SEO score heading analysis now counts the post title as the page H1, so titled posts are no longer flagged as missing an H1
• Fixed: The “Configure SEO” launcher is reliably pinned in the block editor header on WordPress 6.6+ and always shows the SEO score badge
• Fixed: Instant Indexing history now respects Role Manager permissions instead of a generic capability check
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.16.1

Release Date: 2026-07-12

• Improved: Instant Indexing now submits URLs in the background via WP-Cron, so publishing or updating a post no longer waits on the IndexNow request
• Improved: Expanded the Privacy section and added an “External services” section documenting every third-party request ThinkRank can make
• Fixed: AI features (content brief, metadata, SEO score) no longer time out with a 502 on slower hosts — the PHP time limit is raised for blocking AI requests
• Fixed: Saved Briefs panel is capped to the form height and scrolls internally instead of overflowing
• Fixed: Removed a stray breadcrumb reference from schema output
• Security: Hardened REST API permission and capability checks, added SSRF protection to sitemap and content-brief URL fetching, per-user AI rate limiting, and direct-access (ABSPATH) guards
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.16.0

Release Date: 2026-07-09

• New: FAQ Gutenberg block (thinkrank/faq) — inline Q&A rendered as a no-JavaScript accordion with FAQPage schema
• New: Migration Tools — opt-in setting that reveals a dedicated Migration page to re-run SEO data imports after setup
• New: Setup Wizard Ecosystem auto-detects already-active plugins; migrated SEO plugins are deactivated automatically once their data is imported
• New: Editable permalink slug in the metabox, and a “You have already used this Focus Keyword” warning
• New: Out-of-the-box schema on posts, pages, CPTs, archives, and the homepage (WebSite + SearchAction, CollectionPage), plus canonical URLs and meta descriptions on archive pages
• New: Local business sitemap (local-sitemap.xml), and fuller Rank Math local-business migration (address, geo, price range, opening hours)
• Changed: Migration page and SEO conflict notice redesigned to match the ThinkRank/native WordPress look; sidebar navigation regrouped
• Fixed: XML sitemap no longer drops short/”demo” content or lists non-viewable CPTs; 404/search/date-archive robots directives corrected
• Fixed: robots.txt no longer blocks render-critical CSS/JS paths
• Security: Hardened REST API permission and capability checks
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.15.0

Release Date: 2026-07-06

• New: Role Manager — control which roles can access Essential SEO, AI Tools, and Settings sections
• New: Elementor integration — edit ThinkRank SEO fields directly inside the Elementor editor, plus a Classic Editor sidebar widget
• New: AI providers — OpenRouter support, custom-model entry for any provider, and Gemini 3.x models
• New: SEO Score — one-click “Apply” for AI-generated title, meta description, link, keyword, and schema fixes
• Changed: Per-post SEO scoring now aligns with other SEO plugins. Segmented sitemaps now paginate based on the Links per Sitemap setting.
• Fixed: Duplicate robots/canonical meta tags removed; honor “Discourage search engines”; full og:title without truncation
• Improved: Import now migrates sitemap settings and Yoast title/description templates and author meta
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.14.0

Release Date: 2026-06-25

• New: 7-step Setup Wizard onboarding with migration and Site Setup pre-fill
• New: Native multiple focus keywords (up to 5), with extra keywords gated behind Pro
• New: Redesigned SEO metabox with logo launcher, bottom drawer, and live SEO pattern previews
• New: VideoObject and Review schema types with Rank Math import support
• Changed: Expanded SEO data import (Rank Math schema, sitemap, Image SEO, templates, pillar content & more)
• Fixed: Honor per-post OG title/description overrides; full-size featured image in social preview
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.13.0

Release Date: 2026-06-16

• New: Email Reporting — scheduled SEO email reports
• Changed: Refactored schema generation and settings components
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.12.0

Release Date: 2026-06-15

• Added: Redesigned admin interface built on Tailwind CSS with a new reusable UI component library
• Changed: Modernized loading states and navigation, and renamed “Usage Analytics” to “Usages”
• Fixed: Uninstall now preserves data by default, preventing accidental data deletion

1.11.0

Release Date: 2026-05-24

• Added: CSS design system with tr-* component classes and --tr-* design tokens
• Added: Pre-commit hooks (husky + lint-staged) for automated lint on commit
• Added: Auto DB migration on plugins_loaded — missing tables/columns are created automatically without requiring deactivation/reactivation
• Changed: WordPress 6.9+ component compliance (__nextHasNoMarginBottom, __next40pxDefaultSize props)
• Changed: Moved XSL sitemap stylesheets from assets/ to static/xsl/ (survives webpack clean builds)
• Changed: DB schema version bumped to 1.1.0
• Fixed: 63 dead JS imports removed across 22 files
• Fixed: npm run release zip now correctly includes assets/ and static/ directories
• Fixed: lint-staged no longer hangs on existing formatting mismatches
• Removed: Build artifacts from git tracking (12 files, 1.4MB) — now generated via npm run build

1.10.0

Release Date: 2026-05-05

• Added: New Feature | Google Analytics
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.9.0

Release Date: 2026-03-31

• Improved: Updated dashboard interface for better user experience
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.8.0

Release Date: 2026-03-11

• Added: New Feature | Import Schema From Any Website
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.7.0

Release Date: 2026-02-15

• Added: New Feature | Author Archives SEO
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.6.0

Release Date: 2026-02-09

• Added: New Feature | Pillar Content
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.5.0

Release Date: 2026-01-12

• Added: New Feature | Global Robot Meta
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.4.0

Release Date: 2026-01-06

• Added: New Feature | Image SEO
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.3.0

Release Date: 2025-12-29

• Added: New Feature | Instant Indexing
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.2.0

Release Date: 2025-12-11

• Added: New Feature | ThinkRank SEO Overview
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.1.0

Release Date: 2025-11-23

• Added: New Feature | Bulk SEO Optimization Settings
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.0.2

Release Date: 2025-10-30

• Fixed: Google Service integration issue for PageSpeed Insights
• Fixed: WooCommerce edit conflict with ThinkRank plugin
• Fixed: Version number inconsistency
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.0.1

Release Date: 2025-09-25

• Improved: Updated Database Schema
• Fixed: AI Content Brief not showing properly on Firefox
• Few minor bug fixes & improvements

1.0.0

Release Date: 2025-07-07

• Initial release
• AI Content Brief Generator with competitor analysis
• Real-time SEO Score Calculator (13-factor)
• AI Metadata Generation with SERP preview
• Competitor analysis insights
• Export content briefs in multiple formats
• Complete Site Identity management (Basic Info, Title Formats, Breadcrumbs, Hero & Branding, Business Info)
• Advanced Schema Manager for organization/website structured data
• Social Media Optimization (Open Graph, Twitter Cards)
• Performance Monitoring (Core Web Vitals, PageSpeed, diagnostics)
• Analytics Integration (GA4, Search Console) with insights
• Robots.txt management with AI optimization
• XML Sitemap generation: Basic, Complete, E-commerce, Segmented
• LLMs.txt for AI indexing
• SEO Analytics Dashboard with keyword opportunities
• AI-powered insights with natural language explanations
• Real-time diagnostics and improvement recommendations
• Intelligent reporting with automated alerts and trends
• Post/Page metabox integration with real-time optimization
• Multi-AI provider support (OpenAI GPT-4, Claude)
• Local SEO data management
• Secure API key management; your own keys
• React-based admin interface
• PHP 8.0+ with strict typing
• Custom tables and intelligent caching
• Error handling, logging, performance optimization
• WordPress 6.0+ compatibility