SEO Cleaner

Plugin Description

SEO Cleaner is a WordPress plugin that allows you to clean up unnecessary elements from your site’s source code. You can remove unused meta tags, links, scripts and styles in your head section, delete redundant server response HTTP headers and disable features that you do not need that potentially can harm your site’s SEO.

Plugin Installation

From Your WordPress Dashboard

• Visit ‘Plugins > Add New’.
• Click ‘Upload Plugin’.
• Select zip-archive with plugin and click ‘Install Now’.
• Activate SEO Cleaner from your plugins page.

Via File Upload

• Unpack zip-archive with plugin.
• Upload the ‘seo-cleaner’ folder to your ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory, using your favorite method (ftp, sftp, etc…)
• Activate SEO Cleaner from your plugins page.

Once Activated

• Visit ‘Settings > SEO Cleaner’ and adjust the preferences.
• Check your plugin works fine and enjoy plugin usage.

Admin Interface

Plugin Settings are located under ‘Settings > SEO Cleaner’.

Use Head Cleanup settings for removing unnecessary html tags from your head section.

• WordPress Generator Version – this meta tag just shows your WordPress version in your head section. You can remove it for security reasons and keep your source code clean.
• WLW Manifest Link – WLW Manifest Link adds support for Windows Live Writer application. If you are not using this app you can remove this link.
• RSD Link (EditURI Link) – RSD (Real Simple Discovery) is the mechanism used by XML-RPC clients. Also this mechanism can be used by spammers. If do not use this clients with your site, you can remove it.
• Shortlink – This meta tag just shows short link (not canonical link) to your posts. You can remove it.
• Prev/Next Links you can see on the head section of your blog posts. This is links to the next and previous post that actually not used. You can remove it and keep your head section clean.
• Hardcoded Styles for Recent Comments – This is hard coded css in head section for recent comments widget. You can remove it.
• Emoji Styles and Scripts is used for emoji support in old browsers. If you are not using emoji smiles on your site you can disable this feature and keep your head section clean.
• DNS prefetch – The main reason for rel=dns-prefetch to exist is to speed up the way web pages load when they are using different domains for page resources. You can remove this elements, if all of your resources has the same domain.

Use Feed Cleanup settings for removing feed links and/or disabling this functionality.

• Remove Feed Links option cleans head section from links to the xml feeds and does not disable feed functionality.
• Totally Disable Feeds option fully disables feed functionality. If you are using feeds on your site (e.g. FeedBurner) do not turn on this option.

Use HTTP Response Cleanup settings for removing redundant HTTP response headers.

HTTP response headers are not visible to website users. You can see them only via the browser developer tools console.

• Shortlink HTTP Header contains link to the short URL of current post. This information is not used anywhere and you can remove this.
• X-Pingback HTTP Header contains link to your pingback file. This information can be used by spammers and you can remove it.
• X-Powered-By HTTP Header contains information about PHP version on your server. This information is not used anywhere and you can remove this.

Use WP JSON API Cleanup settings for removing WP JSON API links, headers or totally disable this feature.

Usually WP API is used by external apps to get data from your site.

• Remove WP API Links and Scripts option does not disable WP API, just cleans head section from these links.
• Remove WP API Link from HTTP Headers option does not disable WP API, just cleans HTTP headers from this link.
• Totally Disable WP API Feature option fully disables WP JSON API.

Use Comments Cleanup settings for adjusting comment form and comments template.

• Website Field in comments is a popular way to leave spam links. You can avoid such kind of spam using this option.
• Notes Before Comment Form is a general text like “Your email address will not be published…” and it is used on many websites. You can remove it as not unique content.
• Remove Comment Author Link option allows you to get rid of website link from comment author name.
• Auto linking is a WordPress feature that automatically converts plain URLs in comment content to the link tags. You can disable this.

Use Archives Redirect for disabling unused archives.

Using these options you can redirect unused archives to the homepage and avoid indexing these pages and content duplication.

Use Attachments Redirect for disabling attachment pages.

Every image or other file attached to post has it’s own URL and sometimes it can hurt your SEO if these URLs will be indexed by search engines. So you can enable this option and redirect attachment single page URLs to parent post URL to avoid indexing these pages.

Use this tooltip to view the feature that will be disabled. Just hover the icon with question mark.

View Changes

You can disable this html tags from head section. Every tag can be disabled separately.

This settings is located under ‘Settings > SEO Cleaner > Head Cleanup’.
Feed links disabling option is available under ‘Settings > SEO Cleaner > Feed Cleanup’.
WP API links and scripts disabling option is available under ‘Settings > SEO Cleaner > WP JSON API Cleanup’.

You can disable this HTTP headers. Every header can be disabled separately.

This settings is located under ‘Settings > SEO Cleaner > HTTP Response Cleanup’.

You can do these adjustments with your comments template. Every feature can be controlled separately.

This settings is located under ‘Settings > SEO Cleaner > Comments Cleanup’.

Plugin Filters and Actions

Hooks (filters and actions) in WordPress core, plugins and themes essentially allow you to manipulate code without editing core files. So you can change third-party plugin behaviour from your own theme or plugin and keep future updates as well.

Plugin Hooks:

• seo_cleaner_redirect_target (filter) – allows changing default URL for redirect
• seo_cleaner_redirect_status (filter) – allows changing default redirect status
• seo_cleaner_settings (filter) – allows changing plugin settings via code
• seo_cleaner_admin_fields (filter) – allows changing plugin settings fields via code
• seo_cleaner_apply_settings (action) – allows executing custom code before applying settings

Example:

add_filter( 'seo_cleaner_redirect_status', function( $status ) {

    $status = 302;

    return $status;

} );

In this case we are changing 301 redirect to 302 redirect.

Notes

• Please clean your browser cache and site cache when you are applying new settings.
• “X-Pingback” and “X-Powered-By” HTTP headers can be removed only if you have PHP version 5.3 and up.
• Some features may not work if you have very modified theme and/or plugins, or if you have third-party extensions that can impact on this features. Contact us if our help is needed.

Why I do not see any changes?

First of all clean your browser cache and site cache when you are applying new settings. Most of changes you can see only in page source code or via browser developer tools.

What if I don’t know what this feature means?

We have added screenshots almost for every feature where it was possible. Just navigate to plugin settings in admin panel and hover the question mark. Also every option has description under the checkbox.

What if I use one of this features?

Just skip this option and do not turn on it.

Should I disable all features?

If you are using one of these features you should not disable it. E.g. if you are using Emoji on your site — do not disable it. But if you are not planning to use it – you can turn of it, this will help you keep your head section clean.

What if in the head section I see other redundant links not listed in plugin setting?

Sometimes some WordPress themes contain hardcoded links and plugin has no control on this. You can remove it in the header.php file in your theme. As a best practice is to do this in a “Child Theme” (this allows keeping future updates).

What if I need this plugin customized?

We can help you tuning the plugin up to your needs, or even creating a new one from scratch, per your requirements. Drop us your request and we will get back with the estimate shortly.