Custom canonical URL for Yoast SEO
by Andrei Zhitkov · SEO
This plugin allows setting a default custom URL to be used as canonical. It is designed to work with Yoast SEO only.
Try it live opens a temporary test site in your browser, which can take about 20 seconds to load. Plugins that rely on outside services or a full server may not work completely there.
Health
Not scored
no reviews to score from
Active installs
80+
≈90 estimated
Momentum
-17%
downloads vs prior 30d
Biggest opportunity: “canonical”, “seo” and “yoast” aren't earning a slot. You list them, but you're not in the first 24 results for those searches. WordPress.org counts only your first five tags, so free the slot for a search you can win.
Not scored yet. Nobody has reviewed this plugin, so a grade would come from directory averages rather than from anything measured here.
Install conversion
How it's measured →1.8%
of downloads still active
At least 80 of 4.4K lifetime downloads are still running, above its category: the median SEO plugin keeps 1.2%, across 1,191 plugins.
Downloads count every update, not just first installs, so older and more frequently released plugins read lower. Compare against other SEO plugins, not across the directory. wp.org reports active installs as the bottom of a band, so the real rate is this or higher.
Removal-risk signals
45/100Maintenance and integrity signals that tend to precede a WordPress.org removal. Not an official status, a heads-up to act.
- Long abandoned. No update in 3+ years — the top precursor to removal once a vulnerability is found.
Details
Directory ranking optimization
How it's scored →How well this listing is tuned to rank in WordPress.org search, on the factors an owner controls. Not popularity, optimization.
Under-optimized
Most to gain: Update recency
Updated 1187 days ago, past the ~180 days where wp.org starts discounting
Tested up to WordPress 6.2.15; the current branch is 6.8
No reviews yet, so wp.org scores it as a middling unrated listing
3 of 5 tags set · short description in place
To rank higher: Last updated 1187 days ago — ship an update; wp.org decays a listing's search weight after ~180 days.
Get the full rank-higher report →Search visibility
How it's tracked →Directory searches this plugin turns up in, and which way each one is moving. WordPress.org publishes no history of search positions, so this starts the day we first tracked a keyword and never backfills.
Not enough tracked days yet to call a direction. Momentum needs at least three keywords measured a week or more apart.
wp.org is where the directory puts the plugin for that search. On merit is where it would sit if results were ranked on rating, support and updates, without the install boost. The last column is how far the wp.org position moved, from our first reading in the last 90 days to the latest.
| Keyword | wp.org | On merit | wp.org move, 90 days |
|---|---|---|---|
| canonical your tag | Not in the top 24 | ||
| seo your tag | Not in the top 24 | ||
| yoast your tag | Not in the top 24 | ||
1 search this plugin appeared in over the last 90 days, 0 listed. 1 left out as unrelated or noise (years, numbers, stray words). 3 of its tags aren't in the top 24 for their own search.
What to do about it
- “canonical”, “seo” and “yoast” aren't earning a slot. You list them, but you're not in the first 24 results for those searches. WordPress.org counts only your first five tags, so free the slot for a search you can win.
Daily downloads
Since 5 Oct 2022 · 1,487 days · wp.org + Plugin Pulse archive
30-day downloads
Rolling 30-day volume · peak 162 · peaks are release surges
Directory rank
Ranked about #17,400 to #18,100, alongside the other plugins at 80+ installs. Plugins with the same install count swap places between wp.org requests, so this is where most of them sit. Checked monthly, last on 21 Oct 2026.
Update activity
Downloads in the last 30 days for every 1,000 active sites.
Not enough installs to measure. This needs at least 100 active sites; below that, a handful of downloads reads as tens of thousands.
What its installed base runs
via wordpress.orgShare of active installs on each version of this plugin · 100% run the current release. Green is the current release; a big slice on older versions is a user base that has stopped updating.
Estimated active installs
The public count shows “80+”. Our estimate pins where the real number sits.
Crossed into this band today and a band this size takes about a year or more to cross, so the real count is still just under 90.
Install history since 4 Oct 2022
Behavioral tests
via WP HiveAutomated install-time checks, tested on PHP 7.2.16 · WP 5.3
AI assistants
How it's measured →Whether ChatGPT and Claude name this plugin when asked the category question, and whether the readme gives them something to quote.
Not measured yet for this plugin’s topics. Its tracked searches are not among the measured topics. See the topics measured so far.
Readme readiness
3 of 8 pass · checked 28 Oct 2026Can an assistant quote this readme? Eight deterministic checks over the wp.org listing, no model involved.
- ✓ Says what it does "This plugin allows setting a default custom URL to be used as canonical. It is designed to work with Yoast..."
- ! Has a FAQ No FAQ section.
- ! FAQ asks real questions No FAQ to judge.
- ! Names who it is for Never says who the plugin is for or what they use it for.
- ✓ Names what it works with Mentions Yoast.
- ! Headings and lists 1 heading and 0 lists; assistants quote headed sections and bullet lists, not paragraphs.
- ! Enough to quote 627 characters of description; under 1,000 there is little to quote.
- ✓ Tags match the text All 3 tags appear in the text.
Growth timeline
Install-tier crossings we have observed, and how long each tier took to outgrow
- 2026-10-31 90+ → 80+ down after 10 days in tier
- 2026-10-21 80+ → 90+ up after 1 days in tier
- 2026-10-20 100+ → 80+ down after 98 days in tier
- 2026-07-14 90+ → 100+ up after 3 days in tier
- 2026-07-11 100+ → 90+ down after 17 days in tier
- 2026-06-24 90+ → 100+ up after 1 days in tier
- 2026-06-23 100+ → 90+ down after 678 days in tier
- 2024-08-14 200+ → 100+ down after 72 days in tier
Competes with
The plugins that solve the same job, ranked by shared tags then reach, closest match first. The letter on the right is each plugin's health grade (A best, F worst).
-
ACF Content Analysis for Yoast SEO 100K+ installs · 4.0★ · 2 shared tags B -
Website LLMs.txt 50K+ installs · 4.3★ · 2 shared tags A -
WP All Import – Import SEO Settings for Yoast SEO 20K+ installs · 3.4★ · 2 shared tags B -
WPGraphQL Yoast SEO Addon 10K+ installs · 4.1★ · 2 shared tags A -
Remove Yoast SEO Comments 10K+ installs · 3.8★ · 2 shared tags D - C Canonical SEO 9K+ installs · 3.6★ · 2 shared tags
Embed this report card
Drop a live Pulse card for Custom canonical URL for Yoast SEO into a readme, a review or a deck. It updates itself.
<iframe src="https://plugins.wpmayor.com/embed/custom-canonical" width="480" height="300" style="border:0" loading="lazy" title="Custom canonical URL for Yoast SEO — Plugin Pulse"></iframe> Custom canonical URL for Yoast SEO: 80+ active installs, no reviews yet. Plugin Pulse (WP Mayor), as of 2026-10-31. https://plugins.wpmayor.com/plugin/custom-canonical
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