Description
Bare Bones SEO is built on the premise that 95% of ranking-moving SEO work happens outside plugin settings. So the plugin stays out of your way.
No telemetry. No upsells. No dashboard widgets. Just clean control over the things a plugin should actually handle: indexing, sitemaps, titles, descriptions, schema, and redirects.
Built for developers and agencies managing sites where precision matters more than wizard-style automation.
Key Features
- Global Indexation Controls: Set indexing and sitemap behavior by post type across your entire site from a single screen.
- Page-Level Overrides: Title, description, JSON-LD schema, and indexing controls on every post and page. Page-level settings can only be more restrictive than site-level — never more permissive.
- Bulk Page Meta Editor: Audit and edit titles, descriptions, and indexing across your entire site in a paginated AJAX grid without opening individual editors.
- 301 Redirect Manager: Handle moved pages and external redirects. Runs only on 404s to avoid any frontend overhead.
- 404 Monitor: A read-only log of 404 errors by path, paginated and capability-checked.
- Health Notices: Detects common configuration problems (site set to discourage search engines, entire post types noindexed) with one-click fixes.
Installation
- Upload the
bare-bones-seofolder to the/wp-content/plugins/directory. The folder name must bebare-bones-seoexactly. - Activate the plugin through the Plugins screen in WordPress.
- Navigate to Bare Bones SEO in the admin menu to configure global indexation settings.
FAQ
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Will this conflict with Yoast SEO or RankMath?
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Running two SEO plugins simultaneously will cause conflicts — both plugins will attempt to output title tags and schema markup. Bare Bones SEO is intended to be your only active SEO plugin.
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Does this work with custom post types?
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Yes. Global indexation controls apply to any registered post type. Page-level meta boxes appear on all public post types.
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How do I add Google Analytics or other tracking codes?
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Bare Bones SEO deliberately doesn’t insert tracking code — plugins that inject scripts into every page are a common security risk. Use one of these instead: Site Kit by Google (Google Analytics, Search Console verification, and Google Ads), your theme’s header/footer scripts setting, a lightweight code snippets plugin, or the service’s own official WordPress plugin.
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Wordfence is blocking my settings from saving.
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Wordfence’s WAF can occasionally block POST requests containing JSON-LD schema. To fix this, add the plugin’s settings pages to your Wordfence allowlist under Wordfence > Firewall > Allowlisted URLs.
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What does « bare bones » mean for long-term development?
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It’s a deliberate product philosophy, not a development phase. Features that belong outside a plugin (content analysis, keyword tracking, rank monitoring) won’t be added. The plugin will stay focused on what a plugin should control.
Reviews
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Contributors & Developers
“Bare Bones SEO” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
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Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
1.0.0
- First public release.
- Removed the tracking snippet manager. The plugin no longer inserts scripts into your pages; see the FAQ for where tracking codes go instead.
- Security and coding-standards hardening across all admin screens.
- Deleting the plugin now removes its 404 log. All other settings and page data are kept.
0.1.3
- Bulk page meta editor: paginated at 50 per page with delegated row expand/collapse.
- Schema field: invalid JSON warning fires after AJAX save and holds the row open.
- Health notice system: detects discouraged indexing and fully noindexed post types.
0.1.0
- Initial beta release.
- Global indexation controls with three-state ladder model (Index / Remove from Sitemap / Noindex).
- Page-level title, description, and JSON-LD schema fields.
- 301 redirect manager.
- 404 monitor.
- GA4/GTM tracking snippet storage.