Description
RankVN SEO has strong Vietnamese-language support (accent-aware processing, Vietnamese keyword analysis and a bundled Vietnamese translation).
The Free build runs on your server — no remote licensing calls and no telemetry without your consent.
What you get in Free
- Meta title & description — customize Google snippets for posts, pages and the homepage.
- Open Graph & Twitter Cards — richer social previews with safe image handling.
- Unified Schema Graph — one connected JSON-LD block (WebSite, WebPage, Article, Author, BreadcrumbList) plus types you add in the editor (FAQ, HowTo, Product, LocalBusiness, Event and more).
- XML & HTML sitemaps — XML and customizable HTML sitemaps; the WordPress sitemap is off while RankVN’s XML sitemaps are on.
- Robots.txt & robots meta — virtual robots.txt; noindex, nofollow and noarchive per post or page; noindex per category or tag. Sitemaps, llms.txt and IndexNow skip content that is not public.
- Canonical URLs — archives and page 2 and later point to their own address; search and 404 pages print none. A custom category or tag canonical applies to all its pages; on the posts page, to page 1 only.
- Table of contents — heading-based TOC via shortcode.
- Reader rating widget — visitor ratings with AggregateRating schema (no IP storage).
- Image SEO (Alt + Optimize) — suggest and save alt text, WebP/AVIF variants and Media Health reports.
- Shared images — the editor image panel can copy an image for the edited position, asking first if another post uses it or you cannot edit it; the server never edits the post.
- llms.txt — a plain-text map of your site for AI crawlers (optional).
- Features toggles — turn modules on/off; their settings tabs follow.
External Services
This plugin can connect to the following third-party services. All of them are OPT-IN — nothing is contacted until you explicitly enable/configure it in the plugin settings.
IndexNow
Used to notify search engines (Bing, Yandex, and others) that a URL was added or updated, so they recrawl it faster. When enabled, on publish/update the plugin sends the changed URL and your site’s IndexNow key to https://api.indexnow.org. No visitor or personal data is sent.
Protocol/terms: https://www.indexnow.org/ · Bing privacy: https://privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement
Google Tag Manager (GTM)
Optional. Loaded only if you enter a GTM container ID. The plugin outputs Google’s GTM loader (https://www.googletagmanager.com) so tags you configure in your own GTM account run on your site. Data sent is defined by your GTM configuration.
Terms: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/tag-manager/use-policy/ · Privacy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Optional. Loaded only if you enter a GA4 Measurement ID. The plugin outputs Google’s gtag.js loader (https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js) to send visitor analytics to your GA4 property.
Terms: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/us/ · Privacy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Microsoft Clarity
Optional. Loaded only if you enter a Clarity project ID. The plugin outputs the Clarity loader (https://www.clarity.ms) to send session/heatmap analytics to your Clarity project.
Terms: https://clarity.microsoft.com/terms · Privacy: https://privacy.microsoft.com/privacystatement
Note: the SEO analysis feature may fetch pages on your own website (same domain) to read their rendered HTML; no data is sent to any third party.
The Free version does not include any licensing or AI client and never contacts a RankVN server; all AI features are part of RankVN SEO Pro only.
Privacy
RankVN SEO Free does not send your site data externally by default.
* IndexNow: only active if you enter an IndexNow key; sends the submitted public URL plus the key (see External services).
* Google Tag Manager / Google Analytics 4 / Microsoft Clarity: tracking snippets are only rendered if you explicitly enable them and enter the corresponding ID; data is then collected by those third parties from visitors’ browsers.
* Reader Ratings: stores total vote counts and rating averages in local WordPress post metadata only. No visitor IP addresses, browser cookies, or personal tracking tokens are collected.
* The Free version does not contact a RankVN server; licensing and AI features are Pro-only.
Installation
- Upload the
rankvn-seofolder to/wp-content/plugins/, or install the ZIP from Plugins Add New. - Activate the plugin.
- Needs PHP 7.4+ and WordPress 6.0+; otherwise it deactivates with a notice.
FAQ
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Does RankVN SEO Free require a license or AI credits?
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No. Free works fully without any RankVN service; AI suggestions and credits are Pro-only.
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What does RankVN SEO show for password-protected posts?
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RankVN SEO output does not use the protected content, automatic excerpt, word count or reading time. A meta description you typed is still public. WordPress (e.g. its RSS feed), your theme and other plugins behave on their own.
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What happens when “Discourage search engines from indexing this site” is on?
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Every page prints noindex, nofollow; RankVN sitemaps and llms.txt are not served.
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What does “Re-optimize (N variants)” mean on an image?
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Optimized files on disk (sizes, WebP, AVIF) serving the image faster; not new Media Library items.
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Known limitations
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Images whose original was replaced before 4.3.2 may have no restore record; RankVN will not replace them again until that is safe, and there is no repair tool yet. Old bookmarks to the former Media Health page address may show “not allowed” when the grouped admin menu is on; use the menu link instead. If the alt template fills an empty alt, the front end may print two alt attributes. The longest-side limit is not yet applied consistently to portrait images. Alt text typed on purpose as an entity (e.g.
&,') may become the character it stands for in the block editor after save or reload, and on the Edit Media screen and front-end featured image (seen with the Classic editor). Saving again from the block editor image panel may store the changed text; saving from Edit Media is untested. Plain &, quotes and apostrophes were fine in tests.
Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
Contributors & Developers
“RankVN SEO” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors
Translate “RankVN SEO” into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
Changelog
4.3.2
- Canonical: homepage, posts page, author, date, post type, category and tag archives, page 2 and later included, point to their own URL instead of the first post. Search and 404 pages print no canonical.
- Robots: when “Discourage search engines” is on, every page is noindex, nofollow. “Default” robots settings stay default on save.
- XML sitemaps, News/RSS/Video sitemaps, llms.txt and IndexNow skip content that is noindex, private, unpublished or password-protected.
- Password-protected posts: RankVN metadata no longer uses the protected content, automatic excerpt, word count or reading time.
- Image permissions: editor preview/Save/Optimize, alt suggestions and auto alt on save need read access to the source image, plus edit rights on post and target image.
- Editor panel: Save/Optimize copy when needed, asking first if another post uses the image or you cannot edit it; the server never edits the post. Featured row saves; 4.3.1’s missing script is included. Resize matching uses metadata; some legacy names match only the original filename.
- Editor image panel Alt: the saved Alt also goes into that image in your draft; a pending Save no longer overwrites Alt, image or mode changes made meanwhile; quotes, and entity-like text such as
&in the Classic editor panel, stay as typed after reload and a second Save. - Image optimization (editor, Library, bulk, scheduled): variants get their own file names, checked against real files; a mismatched backup blocks replacing the original; the restore path is saved first.
- Media window: Alt and Optimize results stay with the right image across redraws; Alt fills its field. Requests over 60 seconds are flagged, unconfirmed ones not resent.
- Image settings: hidden or turned-off sections keep their values on save; batch size, orphan warnings and the heavy-image threshold work; a failed Alt scan shows an error, not “all done”.
- Media Health: scan progress bar; a failed report save shows an error; unattached image copies are listed.
- Images: saving an alt suggestion no longer renames existing files, even with “Rename file to match Alt” on (editor panel copies are still named after their alt). Cloning from Media Health and the media window is off for now; copy from the editor image panel.
- Social: saving one tab no longer clears another; invalid profile URLs are rejected but stay in the field to fix.
- Settings: after Save you see the real result — saved, no changes, partly or not saved.
- Archives title template keeps “%” and tokens; Setup guide import is a separate action; turning reader ratings off removes the widget and its schema.
Older entries: see changelog.txt.