The Core SEO box in the editor
The Google preview, the keyphrase, the checks and the social and advanced settings of every page.
Every post, page and product gets a Core SEO box under the editor. In the block editor of WordPress 6.8 and newer, meta boxes sit in the Meta Boxes pane at the bottom; Edit SEO under a title in the post list opens the editor straight at the box.
Focus keyphrase and scores#
The focus keyphrase is what people would type into Google to find this page. The checks use it; if another page already has the same keyphrase, the box links to it. With Premium, ✦ Suggest keyphrases proposes five.
Two rings show the SEO and Readability scores (green from 70, orange from 40). Click one to open the checks. See SEO and readability checks.
Google tab#
A live Google result for desktop or mobile. Google cuts titles and descriptions by width in pixels, not by characters, so Core SEO measures every letter in Google’s fonts:
| Field | Fits up to | Good from |
|---|---|---|
| SEO title | 600 px | 400 px |
| Meta description | 920 px (phones: 680 px) | 600 px |
A meter under each field shows the width, and the text that will be cut off is highlighted. + Variable inserts a variable such as {site}; Use template empties the field so the template from the settings is used. The URL slug can be edited here too.
Social tab#
Share title, Share text and Share image for Facebook, LinkedIn, X and messengers, with live previews. Empty fields use the SEO title, the description and the featured image. Best image size: 1200 × 630 px.
Advanced tab#
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Show in search results? | Default (from the content type), Yes, or No — hide it (noindex). |
| Links on this page | Ask search engines not to follow the links (nofollow). |
| Canonical URL | Only when this content is a copy of another page. |
| Main category | Shown when a post has two or more categories: used in breadcrumbs and {category}. |
| Cornerstone content (Premium) | Marks one of the most important pages: stricter checks, first in link suggestions. |
Premium tabs#
Core SEO Premium adds a Links tab (pages worth linking to, see Internal links) and a ✦ Write tab (content brief, first draft, improvements and FAQ, see Writing with AI), and ✦ Write with AI next to the title, description and share fields.
Categories and tags#
Category, tag and other term screens get a Core SEO section with a Google preview, SEO title, meta description, Show in search results? and a canonical URL.