WordPress SEO setup: the settings that matter after install

WordPress powers a large share of the web, and its defaults are mostly reasonable for search engines. Pages get clean HTML, titles come from post titles, and recent versions generate an XML sitemap on their own. But there are a handful of settings and default behaviours that hurt new sites constantly, and a few archive types that produce thin duplicate pages unless you decide what to do with them. This guide goes through them in the order you would meet them after a fresh install, and then covers the plugin settings that matter.

1. Search engine visibility

Under Settings → Reading there is a checkbox labelled "Discourage search engines from indexing this site". When ticked, WordPress adds a robots noindex directive to every page. Developers tick it during the build so the unfinished site stays out of results, and it is one of the most common reasons a brand new site never appears in Google.

Check it at launch, and check it again after any migration from a staging server, because database copies carry the setting with them. A better approach for staging is HTTP password protection at the server, which cannot accidentally travel to production. The noindex and robots mistakes guide covers the other ways a site can be hidden by accident.

2. Permalinks

Under Settings → Permalinks, choose a structure before you publish anything. The usual choice is "Post name" (/sample-post/), which is short and readable. Structures with dates (/2026/11/09/sample-post/) make content look old and make URLs longer; they suit news sites that genuinely publish by date. Avoid the "Plain" option (?p=123).

Two related choices: keep the category base (/category/) unless you have a reason to remove it, since removing it with plugins can create URL conflicts; and decide whether posts should include the category in the URL. Including categories means a post's URL changes if you recategorise it later, so many sites leave it out.

If the site already has traffic, changing permalinks is a migration. WordPress redirects some old post URLs automatically, but not all patterns, so map and test redirects as described in the migration checklist.

3. The archive pages WordPress creates

WordPress automatically creates several kinds of listing pages. Some are useful landing pages; others are thin duplicates of each other. Decide for each one.

Archive	Example URL	Usual decision
Category	/category/recipes/	Index if categories are meaningful and have a written introduction
Tag	/tag/quick/	Noindex, or stop using tags; often one or two posts each
Author	/author/admin/	Noindex or disable on single-author sites; index with a real bio on multi-author sites
Date	/2026/11/	Noindex or disable; rarely searched
Attachment pages	/sample-post/photo-1/	Redirect to the file or parent post (newer WordPress versions disable them by default)
Internal search	/?s=boots	Noindex; never link to search results
Paginated archives	/category/recipes/page/2/	Leave indexable with self canonicals; see pagination

Author archives deserve a word. On a single-author site, /author/admin/ duplicates the blog home and also reveals a login username. Many SEO plugins let you disable author archives entirely, redirecting them to the home page. On sites with several genuine authors, the opposite is true: author pages with a real biography, photo and list of articles support the trust signals discussed in the E-E-A-T guide.

4. Choose one SEO plugin and configure it

An SEO plugin is not required, but it makes the essential controls available without editing theme code: custom titles and meta descriptions per page, canonical URLs, noindex settings per archive type, structured data, and better sitemaps. The major plugins are broadly comparable; choose one that is actively maintained and has a large user base, and never run two SEO plugins together, because both will output titles, canonicals and structured data and they will conflict.

The settings that matter in any of them:

• Title templates for posts, pages, categories and the home page. A good default is "Post title – Site name". Check the home page title specifically; it often defaults to "Site name – Just another WordPress site" or the theme's demo tagline.
• Archive indexing per the table above.
• XML sitemap: enable the plugin's sitemap and make sure WordPress's built-in sitemap is disabled, or vice versa, so there is only one. Exclude noindexed archive types from it.
• Structured data: set the organisation or person behind the site, logo and social profiles. Do not enable schema types that do not match the content.
• Breadcrumbs, if your theme supports them, with BreadcrumbList markup.

Then write titles and descriptions for the pages that matter most. The title and meta description guide explains what makes them work.

5. Theme checks

Themes control a lot of what search engines see. After installing one, view the source of a post and check:

• One <h1> per page, containing the post title. Some themes wrap the site logo in an H1 on every page, or show no H1 at all.
• The main content is in the HTML, not loaded by JavaScript after the page renders.
• A <meta name="viewport"> tag and a responsive layout.
• lang on the <html> element matches the site's language (set under Settings → General).
• No duplicate title, description or canonical tags (often a sign of the theme and the plugin both outputting them).

Page builders deserve particular care. They make design easy, but some output very deep, heavy HTML and many scripts, which hurts speed and responsiveness; see speeding up WordPress.

6. Housekeeping that saves trouble later

• Delete the sample content: the "Hello world!" post, the sample page and the default comment. They get indexed surprisingly often.
• Set the site language and time zone under Settings → General, so dates and language attributes are correct.
• Use HTTPS in both URL fields (WordPress Address and Site Address) and redirect HTTP to HTTPS at the server. Mixed settings cause redirect loops and mixed-content warnings. See redirects, HTTPS and www.
• Comment settings: if you allow comments, paginate them or disable "Break comments into pages" deliberately; also note that ?replytocom= links can create duplicate URLs on older themes.
• Image sizes: set sensible maximum dimensions under Settings → Media and use a plugin or host feature to serve WebP; see image SEO.
• Updates: keep WordPress, the theme and plugins updated. Hacked WordPress sites are a common source of spam pages injected into otherwise clean sites, which can lead to security warnings in Search Console.

7. Problems that appear months after launch

A clean setup tends to degrade as plugins are added. The patterns worth checking every few months:

• Plugins that create public post types. Form builders, page builders, portfolio and event plugins sometimes register content types with their own archives and single pages, which then appear in the sitemap and in search results. Look at the sitemap index for unexpected sections and set them to noindex or remove them from the sitemap.
• Redirect plugins piling up. Several plugins each managing some redirects make chains and loops likely. Keep redirects in one place, ideally at the server or in a single plugin.
• Thin category growth. Writers create a new category for every post. Fifty categories with one or two posts each are tag pages in disguise. Merge them and redirect.
• Feeds and embeds. WordPress exposes RSS feeds for posts, comments, categories and tags. They are harmless, but if your logs show crawlers spending a lot of time on feed URLs, you can disable the ones you do not need.

8. Connect the outside tools

Verify the site in Google Search Console (a Domain property via DNS is the most complete), submit the sitemap, and check the Page indexing report after a week or two. Do the same in Bing Webmaster Tools, which also lets you import sites from Search Console. Then run a technical check with the DeskSEO checker: it will catch the most expensive WordPress mistakes, such as a sitewide noindex, missing canonicals, a sitemap that does not load or robots.txt problems, in under a minute.

Launch-day checklist

1. "Discourage search engines" unticked; no noindex in page source.
2. Permalinks set to post name (or your chosen structure) before publishing.
3. One SEO plugin, configured; only one sitemap.
4. Tag, date and (single-author) author archives noindexed or disabled; attachment pages redirected.
5. Home page title and description written by hand.
6. Sample content deleted; HTTPS everywhere.
7. Search Console and Bing verified; sitemap submitted.