Rank Math vs Yoast SEO Comparison – Which is the better Plugin For WordPress?
Yoast SEO is a very popular WordPress plugin for SEO and has over 5 million active installations. This statistic is immediate proof that it is a solid option trusted by a lot of people.
But there is a promising contender, Rank Math from MyThemeShop. Although the plugin’s popularity is lower than Yoast SEO, it has great reviews and an awesome collection of features.
This brings the question: Rank Math vs Yoast SEO? – would you select the one that’s popular with a massive user base, or the one that’s promising and boasts a handful of useful features?
This is a very common problem for WordPress users. The CMS (Content Management System) boasts a laundry list of plugins, which makes it difficult to find out which one will work the best for you. This is more so the case when every plugin calls themselves “The Best”.
What Makes SEO so Important?
You see, search engines like Google and Bing, use search algorithms to find and rank the most relevant websites by the search term. And the critical takeaway from this is that the site that ranks at the top takes away 70% of all traffic. That’s huge!
So if you want your site on the top of the SERP (Search Engines Result Page), you need to optimise your content properly. However, this need not be too difficult, and WordPress users can easily streamline the process using SEO plugins like Yoast SEO or Rank Math.
Which WordPress SEO Plugin Should I Use?
Let’s pin Yoast SEO against Rank Math to find out their pros and cons, so you can make an informed decision as to which WordPress SEO plugin is best for you.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Review
Installing and activating the plugins are as straightforward as installing any other WordPress plugin. Furthermore, once activated, both plugins will create a new section on your WordPress dashboard sidebar. Here you can set up different attributes of the plugin and configure how it will optimize your content for increased organic traffic.
It’s worth pointing out, that upon activation, Rank Math will require you to login/create a Rank Math account and assign it to your website. It will also start up a setup wizard which will help you get all options in place for smooth user experience. Yoast SEO also offers a “configuration wizard“, but the user needs to activate it manually.
Overall, in all intent and purposes, Rank Math is much more user-friendly compared to Yoast SEO, which is highly important for users with no experience regarding SEO.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – User Interface
As far as UI is concerned, Yoast SEO focuses more on functionality than aesthetics. Sure, you can get everything done with all the options neatly organized under well-defined categories. But there is no helping the fact that the Yoast SEO UI seems a bit bland and uninspired.
This can be a turn off for some people, especially when functionality and aesthetics don’t need to be mutually exclusive traits. This holds even truer when you consider how Rank Math implements a visually attractive interface which not only looks and feels modern but also enhances the user experience.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Keyword Integration
Keyword integration is one of the crucial factors for optimizing your content for search engines. You need to optimize your posts and pages concerning a set keyword or keyphrase so that when a user searches for that particular term, your content will show up on the SERP.
Now Yoast SEO is excellent when it comes to keyword optimization for your content. For free, you can optimize your content to rank for a single keyword, whereas it’s premium version allows you to implement multiple keyword integration.
This is another point where Rank Math takes the cake. Here you get to optimize your content for up to 5 focus keywords for free!
Well, what if you only have in mind, a single keyword to use for your content. In that case, Rank Math will automatically start suggesting different keywords as well as longtail keywords based on Google keyword suggestions.
With that being said, the feature doesn’t give you any insight about the suggested keywords regarding their search volume, competition, and so on.
Yoast SEO lacks any in-built equivalent to the functionality. In that case, if you want some keyword ideas, you will need to use a third-party online tool to generate keyword ideas.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Schema.org Integration
Schema.org allows you to enable rich snippets, star ratings, and so on, directly on the SERP. This makes your content stand out and increases the click-through rates.
Now, the great thing about Rank Math is that it offers full schema support for any content you might have on your website. However, Yoast SEO completely skips on the functionality, forcing you to install another plugin for schema.org integration on your website.
Understandably, installing a single plugin that handles both your SEO and Schema requirements is far better than having to deal with two separate ones. This gives Rank Math another advantage over Yoast.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Google Search Console Integration
Rank Math makes it super convenient to keep track of your Google Search Console data. During the setup process, all you have to do is input and verify your Gmail account, and it will fetch the associated Search Console data in your WordPress dashboard.
Now, Yoast SEO does offer Google Search Console integration, but there is no way to monitor your data from your WordPress dashboard.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – External Link Manager
It is common practice to assign nofollow tags to external outbound links associated with your content. This makes sure that web crawlers don’t associate your site’s SEO score with that of the link target.
Now, it is very easy to incorporate a nofollow tag in your content by just tweaking with the hyperlink in HTML format. But if coding isn’t your cup of tea, the Rank Math has you covered with its dedicated External Link Manager. You can assign every single outbound link as nofollow straight from the setup wizard.
Yoast SEO skips out on this particular feature.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Redirect Manager
We all need to incorporate internal links and external links in our website for enhanced user experience. However, these links can generate errors like 404 – page not found, if the concerned link targeted has been removed. Likewise, your site can also have broken links as well.
All these can create a negative impact on the user and can result in increased bounce rate. However, the issue can be quickly resolved using a redirect manager. Now both Rank Math and Yoast SEO offer a dedicated and powerful redirect manager.
The only difference is that Rank Math makes it available for free, whereas, with Yoast SEO, you need to upgrade to the premium version.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Image & Video SEO
By adding relevant meta descriptions and alt tags to your images and videos, you can leverage these media files as a means for siphoning organic traffic to your website.
Now both Yoast SEO and Rank Math offers SEO functionalities for image files with various settings.
In regards to Video SEO, Rank Math allows the option to add Video Rich Snippets, which can boost your overall traffic inflow. Many more advanced functionalities are also available with Yoast SEO for Video SEO, but all of it is stored away in the premium version of the plugin.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Content Analysis
Both plugins analyze your content directly from the WordPress post editor and recommend changes that will influence your SEO score.
With that being said, Yoast SEO handles the feature in a qualitative sense. It analyzes your content to tell you if the optimization is GOOD or BAD simply.
Rank Math handles this aspect correctly. First of all, your content is given a score from 1 to 100, which is much more clear in terms of how well you have optimized your posts. On top of that, any recommendations it has are very clear and detailed, which makes it actionable.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – XML Sitemap
XML sitemaps are used by Search Engine bots and web crawlers to navigate through all the different posts and pages on your website and properly index them on the search engine database. Without XML sitemaps, these bots might miss out on some posts on your site, as a result of which, it will never show up on the SERP.
Now both Yoast SEO and Rank Math allow you to create XML sitemaps at the push of a button. This will not cause you any headache, and you are good to go with either of the plugins.
RankMath vs Yoast SEO – SEO Audit Tool
An SEO Audit Tool can give you a detailed insight on your website(s) overall SEO score. This can help you see what areas you have got right, and which issues need to be improved.
Rank Math has its own dedicated SEO Audit Tool, integrated straight into your WordPress dashboard. You might not get the insight equal to a premium third-party SEO Audit Tool like SEMRush, but the data is actionable and insightful.
Yoast SEO has no such functionalities, and you are forced to use an external service to audit your website concerning SEO.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – WooCommerce SEO
WooCommerce is the de-facto eCommerce plugin for WordPress. It helps to incorporate e-Commerce capabilities on your WordPress website, including creating shop listings, adding products, enabling payment gateways, and much more.
Both Yoast and Rank Math offers WooCommerce SEO functionalities, which can help you incorporate metadata about the products so that it shows up directly on the search engine feed when a potential customer is searching for it.
However, as we have seen as some type of a trend by now, Rank Math provides WooCommerce SEO functionality absolutely for free, whereas it is locked as a premium feature on Yoast SEO.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Role Manager
The role of manager functionality, as you can guess by the name, allows you to control the roles and level of permission different authors have on your website. The feature is useful to multi-author websites running over 100 authors working together to create quality content.
Now to ensure all authors can produce SEO optimized for your website, Rank Math incorporates a Role Manager functionality, a feature which Yoast SEO skips out. But in defense of the later, if its a simple blog or website with you as its only author, then the extra functionality seems somewhat meaningless and rather intrudes as bloat.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO – Support
Yoast SEO offers premium level support available with its premium plan only. For free users, they have set up a knowledge base covering all the FAQs to help you resolve mostly all the issues. But with that being said, Yoast SEO has proven itself to be extremely reliable over the years, and you will rarely have to get in touch with their support team.
With Rank Math, the story is entirely different. Being the new kid on the block, the plugin does have minor bugs and issues here and there which might compel you to get in touch with their support team. But with that being said, the support team from MyThemeShop is extremely helpful and active, available 24*7 around the clock to resolve all your issues.
So Which SEO Plugin Should You Choose?
As you can see clearly, Rank Math is offering a fantastic collection of features that can help you take your SEO game to the next level. This isn’t to say that these functionalities are not available with Yoast SEO, but they are reserved for the premium version.
With this in consideration, if you are already a Yoast SEO premium user, then it makes little sense to move to Rank Math. However, users with a free Yoast SEO installation will highly benefit by making the switch, especially when you consider that Rank Math has a dedicated feature that allows you to import all your Yoast SEO settings.
Furthermore, thanks to its intuitive UI and a comprehensive setup wizard, Rank Math is also the most beginner-friendly between the two plugins.
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How to activate rich pins on Pinterest with rank math. Please support
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I think for rich pins you have to convert your pinterest account to business by claiming your blog link verified.
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I think Rank math is gaining more ground right now. I will test run it to see how good it is. Thanks for this review
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Nice write up, now I can make a decision on which to use in my new blog.
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I personally prefer Rank Math as it has great support for it’s users even though it’s a free plugin. One thing I don’t like is, there is not any support for Google News and some Schema Type is not available and we can’t use multiple Schema Type in a single post. But overall it’s good in comparison with Yoast and other SEO plugins.
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I have been using yoast for my site for a long time now. I think I still prefer yoast
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Thanks for sharing.
I think Rank Math is better than Yoast. I installed Rank Math plugin 3 days ago it is working well than Yoast.
And also I’m using Yoast SEO free version from 2 years but it is not better than Rank Math.
Rank Math is free no need to pay.
I really recommended Rank Math
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Thanks for this review, i’m using rank math since 6 month ago. Good traffic, good index, more friendly for newbie blogger like me
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I tested Both plugins and i can see Rank math is easy to setup, make things easy to newbie, by how quickly setup his own blog.
In the other hand what i don’t like in Yoast every time i open my dashboard there is an update for it and even and there is no a complete documentation for it.
If you want a good setting you need to buy their service. and even i think yoast developer’s they don’t understand how google work by using the old method by focus on meta (title + description and focus keyword). and keyword ratio.
Now we need something follow google update and advice us how we can setting a good article or page structure and gain google trust.
This is just my view about the both plugins
Regards
Badr
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Reading through this article, has given me the impression that rank math is good when it comes to seo stuff.
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I am using from two years Yoast SEO but Rank Math with the amazing feature is best to rank your site post and keyword.
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Hi,
I see you are using YOAST here
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HHAHAAA I know right, they’re using Yoast Premium!! The irony… Maybe Rank Math is too new / unstable
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hahahah, at least his review is honest. Maybe he’s scared to convert to Rankmath? That’s his business, right? I was scared too and just switch from yoast to rankmath today and will be watching the traffic change for the next 3 to 6 months. I’ve seen what rankmath has done for my clients and now I’m ready to try it on my own site. Scary stuff. But exciting too.
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Hi Heather,
Did you shifted from Yoast to Rankmath? Is the traffic increased or not? Can you please tell me should i shift to Rankmath or not. I’m bit confused right now. Thanks in advance!!
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Hi,
The post compares free versions of Yoast and RankMath.
However at this site, we are using Yoast Premium.
Once premium version of rank math becomes available, we will sure think about it.
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I set up Rank Maths on my website and i noticed all my articles disappeared on Google. Secondly, Google stopped indexing my news articles. I had no choice than to uninstall it. Will try again but honestly, I’m worried about my website.
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After reading a lots of comparison, i think will use RankMath for new website and still using yoast for older website.
Anyway, thanks for writing this detail 🙂
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I think Rank Math will be best. Though I am using Yoast from long days. But recently I am started using Rank Math.
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I find it very interesting to switch over. I used yoast and find it very flat and not has many features as rank math
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Very informative article…can I switch my website from yoast seo premium to Rank Math with import data?
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I am confused with what is it. Rank math is easy to use for my website but right now i am back to Yoast. These kind of articles are making me go back and forth.
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Good comparison! Yoast SEO vs Rank Math. Since July 2019 onwards am using Rank Match, it was migrated from Yoast SEO and I don’t see many issues on it. The only problem I faced so far was when you run SEO Analyzer 2nd time the site may turn to 500 error which you need to remove the “ank_math_seo_analysis_results” entry from DB to restore back to normal. They are trying their level best to resolve this error permanently but so far not fixed yet. Let us hope for the best! I truly recommended Rank Math in my personal opinion.
Cheers!
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I have been using Rank Math since the beginning and I feel it as much more user-friendly and has more features than the free version of Yoast SEO. Overall, I feel Rank Math beats Yoast SEO and I recommend using this than the Yoast SEO.
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I am testing Rank Math on some sites that used the free version of Yoast, and the performance has been very good. I already consider adopting it for every site I run.
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I use Rank Math on my website in Russian and it’s quite frustrating, that this plugin does not catch the keywords with Russian language specifics, and even doe not see it in the post slug, even if it properly transliterated.
The same problem with Yoast… Looks like both of these plugins are good enough, and Rank Math is doing a promotional campaign.
Despite all of this I prefer Rank Math since it works well with schema markup in my theme, and Yoast has conflicts in it.
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I using both. But Yoast is more user-friendly, also easy to use. Rank math is perfect for a user who understands about more feature.
For SEO I can’t compare which better for a free version.
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Rank Math is very well, but .. Rank Mat create around 25 rows per post in postmeta table.
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Rankmatch looks great, will give it a try
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Thank you so much for this comparison.
I’m considering Rank Math. After reading this, I decided to use Rank Math.
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Rank Math SEO Plugins is an excellent Yoast’s alternative. It has to build its audience and needs some testing, but it provides many features that are usually available in Premium versions of other WordPress SEO plugins.
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Today I am installing rank math on my blog. I use Yoast for a long time. I just want to see rank math how working.
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Rank Math is way easier than Yoast. I once used both and I definitely ended up with Rank Math.
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I tested Both plugins and i can see Rank math is easy to setup, make things easy to newbie, by how quickly setup his own blog.
In the other hand what i don’t like in Yoast every time i open my dashboard there is an update for it and even and there is no a complete documentation for it.
If you want a good setting you need to buy their service. and even i think yoast developer’s they don’t understand how google work by using the old method by focus on meta (title + description and focus keyword). and keyword ratio.
Now we need something follow google update and advice us how we can setting a good article or page structure and gain google trust.
This is just my view about the both plugins
Regards
Badr
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Thanks for sharing your insights. This surely makes sense.
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I was using yoast and it’s a fantastic plugin. But from the last 6 to 7 month I have moved to rank math and it gives me unbelievable results. I think when it’s comes to SEO, one should choose wisely bcoz, good seo can boost you in google result.
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I’m using rank math plugin on my current website it’s Really great and provides awsome features like 404 monitor, redirection, rich snippet. the bad thing is rich snippet is not working yet.
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Rich Snippet is now offered by both Rank Math and Yoast Free.
However Rank Math also provides the option to enable/ disable it anytime while Yoast doesn’t.
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I have been use yoast seo plugin and It was working good for me, also I am comfort with it . Recently everyone started suggesting to use rank math for seo and I am interested to test the rank math because of popularity.
Now if I suddenly change the plugin from yoast to rank math does it effects my seo in negative way?
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In most cases, it shouldn’t have any negative impact unless you mess up with its settings.
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We use Yoast for SEO. We are completely happy with its performance. Yes, rank math is gaining more popularity in recent times but I think for beginners Yoast is the best to use and understand more about focused keyword.
I personally did not try the rank math but I am sure in the near future I will. However, both are SEO plugins. Haha!
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I was using the Yoast plugin after launching the rankmath. I use it on a new website.
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I think Yoast is Better than Rank Math. Because Yoast helps us to write Quality and SEO Friendly Posts.
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I’ve been using Yoast for years. It’s done a great job for me and no real problems with it. However, I’ve been recommended Rank Math and I’m thinking about giving it a try. We are an agency and changing tried and tested plugins with our team and all our websites is time consuming, so I’m still on the fence with it. Is it really that much better? What about page loading times? Yoast Pro can be quite heavy on loading times, is Rank Math much faster? I’ll do some more research and do some more testes before we decide to change over!
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Can I use both plugin’s at the same time because I’m using Yoast seo right now.
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There is no justification to use two plugins for the same purpose.
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rank math seo tool is tha best seo tool i am use past few month
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Such a detailed comparison. After reading this article, I feel like switching it to rank math. I have been hearing a lot about rank math these days. Let me give it a try.
Thanks again for the share.
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I will use yoast seo on my website
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I have multiple online projects and many websites running Yoast from a few years now. I decided to try rank math on my personal blog for a while and see how it goes. Is there an option to export everything back to Yoast after that? Because so far this is my only concern before I make the switch.
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Yes, now yoast included an option to import from Rankmath
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I have Tested Rank Math on my website and it really works well!!! Awesome work is done by the MyThemeshop team.
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I love the review here. I am scared of migrating to Rank Math I feel it would take some months to have it take full effect on my SEO ranking.
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since bRank math is new in the market, i think it will work wonders. i just want to try it out and know how it feels like
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Hi
thanks for this detailed comparison.
I will test Rank Math on my website.
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In the last months I’ve moved from All in one SEO to Yoast to Rank Math. I really love Rank Math, it’s simple to use and very complete. I like keywords suggestions, it makes my life easier. Now I see my organic visitors increase on a daily basis!
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I jumped to Rank math. It gives me excellent results.
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You have writtas a well-researched Article. But As I am considered, I love rankmath, because the ease of use and their support. They have Facebook group where they are hungry to help you on anything you need.
However, they provide some premium features which are paid in yoast.
I already moved from yoast to Rankmath. Now I have RM installed on my 2 websites.
I think it’s best to go with.
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Thanks For the simple and clear explanation. Your Article help me to take decision for selection of seo plugin for my website.
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Very good article although I don’t know why Rank is free, where it is maintained or how it has revenues to make a better plugin than a company that has been collecting licenses for several users for years.
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Yoast premium is better than rank math.
Though, Rank math is free and is better than the free version of yoast.
But the premium version of yoast is far better than rank math.
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why?
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Thank you for sharing this information. I was confused between both yoast and rank math which one should I use for my website Clicksbazaar. I am using Yoast seo but after reading this review I think I should change to Rankmath for my website.
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I have been using Rank math for 6 Months now, and there are 4 new site that use it.
Over all i have seen the page load time has a significant difference.
Rank math is lighter and faster and fully loaded as compared to Yoast.
I give it a thumbs up.
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A fantastic, fabolus information about these two incredible WordPress plugins.
MANY THANKS
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Thank you so much for the information. I had intention to upgrade Yoast but will pick Rank Math instead. Nice savings 🙂
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This is a mindblowing post for SEO plugins. I also used RankMath. A few days ago I used the tool for my 2 sites. RankMath is a great tool. I agree Yoast is also a good plugin. But I like RankMath, it’s work is very fast and point to point. That’s why I like most RankMath.
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nice article to compare rank math vs yoast and i choose rank math to do seo thank to give me right comparison.
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I’ve been using Rankmath for more than 1 months! Still, I am trying to figure out how it differs or better than Yoast SEO. Till today, I’ve used Yoast SEO for many blogs. But for my current blog, trying RankMath! Let’s see how it ranks my articles! By the way, thanks for the honest review.
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I’m currently using all in one SEO plugin how can I transfer my all data to rank math please reply me
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I’m going with rankmath, thank you
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I haven’t used either of the two plugins but from the reviews and tutorials on Youtube, I will actually go with Rank Math as it portrays to have lots of features and they’re surprisingly free.
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Thanks for the review. I think i will switch to rankmath.
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I ‘m using Yoast Premium and also consider to switch from Yoast Premium to Rank Math. Whether Rank Math has “import from Yoast” feature?
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Yes, Rank Math offers SEO data migration from Yoast.
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Thank you very much for the tips, i am going to move to rank math immidetely
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This was very helpful. Since I am just using the free version of Yoast, I’ll give Rank Math a try then.
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Based on the analysis i think Rank Math outweighs Yoast and I will definitely give it a try. Even Yoast premium is not that good due to many technical glitches especially with regards to indexing images of a website.
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Thank you very much for your review it helps me much in setting up my website very easy.
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Rank math is the best plugin of all. Its provides great performance & free features. I like most to use rank math plugin. Really a awesome plugin.
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Thanks for sharing the detailed article about SEO. I agree with you definitely SEO services are best for small-and-medium-sized businesses. I’m sure it will help search engine optimizer to boost their ranking in search engines.