Rank Math: Detailed Guide & Recommended SEO Settings (2026)

The WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin has been the only plugin I relied on in recent years for SEO optimization of WordPress sites. This was understandable since there weren’t comprehensive SEO plugins like Yoast at the beginning. However, today the situation is different…

Then Rank Math came along, packed with useful features. It’s likely that many of you have already heard of it and might even be using it for SEO optimization on your WordPress site.

In this post, we will introduce the Rank Math plugin, explain how to install it, and show you the recommended settings you should configure in the plugin.

A Few Words About Rank Math Plugin and Its Features

Rank Math is a modular SEO plugin packed with features for site-wide and individual SEO optimization. It’s easy to install and includes a Setup Wizard to streamline configuration.

Rank Math has been on WordPress.org since November 2018. It’s built by a team based in Gurugram, India, and runs on more than 4 million WordPress sites.

The modular system lets you activate only the features you need, avoiding conflicts with other plugins. Key highlights include Schema and Rich Snippets for better search result visibility and an SEO Analyzer that scans your site and suggests improvements.

Rank Math is user-friendly and adaptable, making it a powerful tool for WordPress SEO. If you’re weighing your options, check out our detailed Yoast SEO vs Rank Math comparison.

I tested every setting in this guide on a clean WordPress 7.1 site running the free version of Rank Math (1.0.280, October 2026). Settings that need Rank Math Pro are marked PRO.

1. Installing the Rank Math Plugin

Like any other plugin installation, go to the WordPress dashboard > Plugins > Add Plugin and search for Rank Math SEO. Click Install Now, and once the installation is complete, activate the plugin.

Activating the plugin will take you directly to the screen to connect your Rank Math account. You can create a free Rank Math account or skip this step and proceed to the plugin’s Setup Wizard.

2. Setup Wizard – Basic Options

The Setup Wizard allows you to configure the main settings of the plugin, connect your Analytics and Google Search Console accounts, set up your sitemap, import SEO data from your previous plugin, and more.

You don’t have to use this wizard to configure the plugin; it can be done manually from the plugin settings screen. However, for the purpose of this guide, we’ll use the wizard and later go through the other plugin settings.

Let’s go through the Rank Math Setup Wizard together…

A. Select the Advanced Setup Option

The wizard offers three modes. Easy keeps most settings at their defaults and skips the Sitemaps and SEO Tweaks steps. Advanced shows every option. Custom Mode PRO loads a settings file you exported earlier. For this guide, we’ll follow the Advanced option.

B. Import Settings from Your Previous SEO Plugin

This step appears only when Rank Math detects another SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO. You can import the plugin settings, the SEO title, description and focus keyword of every post, term and author, and Yoast blocks. Redirections are imported only from Yoast SEO Premium.

When I imported from Yoast, titles and descriptions came across intact and Yoast variables were converted (%%sep%% became %sep%).

The import screen says Yoast will be disabled automatically, but in my test it stayed active after the wizard. Deactivate the old SEO plugin yourself once the import is done, so two plugins don’t output meta tags.

C. Add Site Details

In this step, specify the type of site you have: blog, portfolio, store, or small business, for example. Then, add your site logo for Google and an image to display when sharing the site on social media.

Pay attention to the recommended image sizes on this screen: at least 112×112 pixels for the logo, and 1200×630 pixels for the default share image.

D. Connect Google Services (Analytics and Search Console)

If you have Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts, you can connect them here and let Rank Math read their data. This step needs a free Rank Math account: if you skipped it earlier, the button on this screen connects it first. You can also skip the step and connect later under Rank Math > General Settings > Analytics.

Once connected, choose the Search Console property and Analytics stream that belong to this site.

Rank Math also allows you to add the Google Analytics tracking code through the plugin if you haven’t done so already.

E. Configuring the Sitemap

A sitemap is a file that provides information about the pages, videos, and other file types on your website for search engines. These search engines (such as Google) read this file to better understand how to efficiently crawl your site.

On this screen, choose whether to enable the sitemap feature in Rank Math. We recommend enabling this feature along with the other settings on this screen.

The Public Taxonomies checkboxes decide which taxonomies get SEO options and appear in the sitemap. Categories are checked by default. Unchecking a taxonomy removes it from the sitemap, but it does not noindex its archive pages.

F. SEO Tweaks

The last step of the basic wizard, SEO Tweaks, has three switches. All three defaults are the right choice for most sites:

This completes the basic setup wizard. The next screen confirms that your site is ready and shows a Setup Advanced Options button, which opens a short second wizard.

3. Advanced Options Setup Wizard

After completing the basic setup wizard, another wizard with more advanced settings will appear.

A. Role Manager

The Role Manager lets you determine which types of registered users on your site can access the plugin settings. Depending on your site’s needs, decide whether to use this option. In most cases, if you don’t have many content contributors, there’s no need to enable this option.

B. 404 Errors and Redirections

The 404 Monitor feature records when search engines or users encounter a page that cannot be found, resulting in a 404 Not Found error. It’s recommended to enable this feature.

The Redirections feature lets you create permanent 301 redirects and temporary 302 or 307 redirects, and return 410 (deleted) or 451 (unavailable for legal reasons) for URLs on your site. Combined with the 404 monitor, you can fix broken URLs as you find them. We also recommend enabling this feature.

C. Schema Markup

In this section, you can set the default schema settings for your posts and pages. We won’t elaborate on what schema is here since I’ve already written a post about schema and structured data. Rank Math preselects Article for both, with the Blog Post article type for posts and Article for pages, which suits most blogs.

Don’t worry too much about adding schema at this stage. If you’re unsure which type of schema to add, simply disable the option.

You’ve now completed the Rank Math setup wizard! Clicking “Save and Continue” takes you to the plugin’s dashboard, on the Modules tab.

4. Dashboard

The Rank Math dashboard has five tabs: Modules, Help, Setup Wizard, Import & Export and MCP Setup. The main one is the Modules tab. First, check that Advanced Mode is selected at the top of the screen. Easy Mode hides several modules and settings.

Modules

Advanced Mode shows all the modules, some available in the free version and some requiring Rank Math Pro. Make sure not to enable unnecessary modules that you don’t plan to use.

Here is the full list of modules in Rank Math 1.0.280:

• 404 Monitor – Records 404 errors in a log so you can fix them and set up redirects. It’s recommended to disable this module after use to avoid bloating the database.
• ACF – Enables Rank Math to analyze content in Advanced Custom Fields. Activate only if you have relevant content in ACF fields.
• AI Link Genius PRO – AI-assisted internal linking suggestions.
• AI Visibility – A new module, on by default, that tracks how AI search answers mention and cite your brand.
• AMP – Adds the required meta tags to AMP pages. Relevant only if you use the AMP plugin.
• Analytics – Shows Search Console and Google Analytics data inside Rank Math (AdSense data needs Pro). It’s convenient, but we prefer viewing data directly in Search Console to avoid database bloat.
• bbPress – Provides better control over meta tags in bbPress forums (only if you use bbPress).
• BuddyPress – Provides better control over meta tags in BuddyPress forums (only if you use BuddyPress).
• Content AI – AI writing and keyword research tools inside the editor. More on this module below.
• Image SEO – Adds missing alt and title attributes to images automatically. Captions, descriptions and the other image options are Pro. Use the alt text feature if you’re not adding it manually when uploading images.
• Instant Indexing – Uses the IndexNow protocol to notify Bing, Yandex, and other participating search engines when you add, update or delete content, so it appears faster in search results. Rank Math automatically generates and hosts the required API key for you.
• Link Counter – Displays the number of internal and external links in each post/page. Helpful for on-page SEO optimization. We don’t use it as it may bloat the database.
• LLMS Txt – Serves an llms.txt file that points AI tools to your most important content, and adds an Edit llms.txt tab to General Settings.
• Local SEO – Adds your business details (address, phone, opening hours) as structured data and helps Google build a Knowledge Graph entry for you.
• News Sitemap PRO – Enable this only if you publish content on Google News.
• Podcast PRO – Adds SEO support for podcasts published on your site.
• Redirections – Allows you to create redirects through Rank Math (server-level redirects are faster).
• Role Manager – Limits plugin settings access based on user roles.
• Schema (Structured Data) – Adds schema and structured data to your pages, which can improve your click-through rate (CTR) in Google search results. The free version offers 13 default schema types, from Article and Product to Recipe and Event.
• SEO Analyzer – Checks your site and your content against 28+ tests and suggests improvements. Run the analysis, fix issues, and then disable the module.
• Sitemap – Generates XML sitemaps (including images) and adds the sitemap URL to your robots.txt.
• Video Sitemap PRO – Creates a sitemap for videos on your site. Useful if you host original videos.
• Google Web Stories – Adds schema and meta tags to stories made with the Web Stories plugin.
• WooCommerce – Optimizes WooCommerce with proper meta data and product schema (highly recommended for WooCommerce stores).

5. General Settings

The General Settings screen in Rank Math contains settings that impact your site’s overall SEO. Access it via WordPress Dashboard > Rank Math > General Settings.

For each tab below, every setting shows the value we recommend, drawn the way it looks in Rank Math (switch, dropdown or text field). The tag on the right says whether that matches Rank Math’s default or needs a change, so you can skip the rows that are already set. Use Show only changes to see just those.

1. Links

2. Breadcrumbs

If you don’t use breadcrumbs, there’s no need to configure this section. If you want to add breadcrumbs to your theme, use the following code:

<?php if (function_exists('rank_math_the_breadcrumbs')) rank_math_the_breadcrumbs(); ?>

You can also use the shortcode [rank_math_breadcrumb] to display breadcrumbs. To change the trail with code, see customizing breadcrumbs in Rank Math.

3. Images

This tab appears only after you enable the Image SEO module, which is off by default. The free version adds missing alt and title attributes; the other image options are Pro.

4. Webmaster Tools

Lets you add verification codes for Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, Baidu, Yandex, Pinterest and Norton Safe Web, plus custom meta tags. This is optional if you verify Google Search Console another way, for example through DNS.

5. Editing the Robots.txt File

Rank Math allows you to edit the robots.txt file directly through the plugin interface, and it adds your sitemap URL to the file automatically. For more details, read my post on robots.txt and its importance for SEO.

The robots.txt file should be located in your site’s root directory: site.co.il/robots.txt. If a physical robots.txt file already exists there, Rank Math can’t edit it: change the file directly, or delete it and edit from Rank Math.

6. Others

The “Others” tab contains miscellaneous settings not covered in the previous sections.

7. WooCommerce

8. Editing the htaccess File

Rank Math allows you to edit the htaccess file through the plugin. Before you can edit, you have to tick “I understand the risks”, and Rank Math saves a backup copy (.htaccess_back_xxxxxx) in the same folder. The tab is shown only to administrators who can manage the whole site. A useful tip is to add security headers to enhance site security.

9. 404 Error Monitoring

10. Redirections

11. Analytics

In this section, you can connect Google Search Console and Google Analytics to Rank Math so you can view their data directly in the plugin’s interface. It needs a free Rank Math account, and AdSense data needs Rank Math Pro.

We won’t go into detail here, but Rank Math has an excellent guide on this topic. This feature can be convenient, but keep in mind it can easily bloat your database.

12. Content AI

Content AI is a Rank Math module that helps you write content optimized for both users and search engines. It analyzes top-ranking pages for your target keyword and suggests related keywords, questions and links to include.

Key Content AI features include:

• Research-based recommendations: Suggested word count, heading count, link count, and media usage based on what top-ranking competitors use.
• Related keywords: Keyword and question suggestions to improve topical relevance and coverage, in more than 80 countries.
• Content AI Commands: A toolbar menu in the block editor with quick AI actions such as “Write More,” “Improve,” “Summarize,” and “Fix Grammar.”
• 40+ AI tools: From blog post outlines to SEO titles and meta descriptions.

Content AI needs a connected Rank Math account. Free accounts get a limited number of credits to try it, and paid plans add more. You can find more details in Rank Math’s Content AI documentation.

6. Titles & Meta

This section sets the default titles and meta tags for every type of page on your site. Search engines read them first, and getting the defaults right saves you from fixing pages one by one later.

You can learn more about this topic in my post on on-page SEO.

1. Global Meta

2. Local SEO

The Local SEO section contains meta settings relevant to local businesses. Adding Local SEO helps search engines identify your site as a local business and display it in search results for business-related queries.

The first fields are always shown. Email, phone, address and the about and contact pages appear only after you enable the Local SEO module.

• Person or Company: Choose whether the site represents a person or an organization.
• Website Name and Website Alternate Name: The site name to show in search results, plus a shorter or alternative version.
• Person/Organization Name: Enter the company or personal name for Google’s Knowledge Panel.
• Logo: Upload your company logo – at least 112×112 pixels, preferably square.
• URL: Enter the domain name, usually your site’s URL.
• Email: Enter your email if you want search engines to display it (don’t use a private email).
• Phone: Enter your phone number. Search engines may show it to mobile users.
• Address: Enter the full business address.
• About Page: Select the page containing information about your company (About Page).
• Contact Page: Select the contact page (Contact Page).

You can display these details on your site with the [rank_math_contact_info] shortcode. Multiple locations are a Pro feature.

3. Social Meta

The Social Meta tab connects your site to your social profiles.

• Facebook Page URL: The URL of your site’s Facebook page.
• Facebook Authorship: Your personal Facebook profile URL, to show authorship when your articles are shared on Facebook.
• Facebook Admin and Facebook App: A numeric Facebook user ID or app ID. Most sites can leave these empty.
• Twitter Username: Adds the twitter:creator tag to your posts.
• Additional Profiles: Your other profiles (LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube and so on), one per line. Rank Math adds them to the sameAs property of your Organization or Person schema.

The default share image (OpenGraph Thumbnail) and the Twitter card type are on the Global Meta tab, covered above. If you’re unsure about a setting, ask in the comments and we’ll help you out!

4. Homepage

You will see options here only if your homepage shows your latest posts. If you set a static page as the homepage in WordPress Dashboard > Settings > Reading, this tab only links to that page, and you set its SEO title and description in the page editor.

5. Authors

Author archives are enabled by default and set to noindex. For most sites, that’s fine: they still work for visitors but stay out of search results. Disable them entirely only if you have a single author, and Rank Math will redirect them to the homepage.

An author’s archive page contains all posts written by that author and can be accessed via WordPress Admin > Users and clicking View next to a user.

If you have multiple writers and want their archive pages in search results, switch the author robots meta to index and write a good title and description. Demonstrating author expertise is also an important part of E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), which Google uses to evaluate content quality.

6. Misc Pages

7. Posts

8. Pages

The settings for pages are similar to those for posts. The one difference in the defaults is the article type: Article for pages instead of Blog Post.

9. Attachments

You can’t change settings here while Rank Math redirects attachment pages, which we enabled in the Links tab.

Appendix – Rank Math Variables

Rank Math allows you to use dynamic variables in your SEO titles and meta descriptions. These variables automatically pull data from your content, making it easier to create optimized and dynamic metadata for each post or page.

Here are some commonly used Rank Math variables along with examples of how they can be used.

Commonly Used Rank Math Variables

• %title%: The title of the post or page.
• %sitename%: Your website’s name.
• %excerpt%: The excerpt of the post.
• %date%: The publish date, in the date format set in WordPress.
• %category%: The category of the post.
• %primary_taxonomy_terms%: The primary category (or term) assigned to the post.
• %tags%: The tags assigned to the post.
• %customfield(field_name)%: A custom field value. Replace field_name with the name of your custom field.

Sample SEO Title Templates

%title% | %sitename% → “10 Tips for SEO Optimization | MyBlog”

%primary_taxonomy_terms%: %title% → “WordPress: How to Optimize Your Site”

Sample Meta Description Templates

%excerpt% → “Learn step-by-step how to boost your SEO performance.”

%title% - Updated on %date% → “How to Optimize Your Blog – Updated on June 20, 2026”

Variables keep your titles and descriptions accurate when a post changes, and save you from writing each one by hand.

FAQs

Common questions about Rank Math SEO settings:

Summary

This guide walks you through the essential Rank Math settings to help optimize your WordPress site’s SEO. We’ve explained key features like redirections, analytics, and AI-powered content tools, providing practical recommendations on what to enable and what to skip.

Our goal is to help you boost your site’s search engine performance while keeping things efficient and avoiding common pitfalls like database bloat and duplicate content.

Rank Math is packed with even more features than we’ve covered here, and we’ll continue updating this guide to include them. If you’re unsure about any setting or need advice, drop us a comment. We’re here to help and promise to get back to you quickly!