Do you own any blog or website? Or are you thinking of starting a blog or website?
If your answer is Yes. You must hear about SEO and if you heard about SEO you heard about SEO plugins.
Am I right?
Well, if you are using or going to use WordPress for your blog; there are a few major SEO plugins. It is tough to choose any one of them. Where Yoast SEO holds a major stake in the SEO plugin industry; on the other hand, the Rank Math SEO plugin launched by MyThemeShop also roars.
Before discussing Rank Math vs Yoast SEO plugins, let me brief you about SEO plugins.
What Is An SEO Plugin?
An SEO plugin is a piece of software designed to optimize any blog or website. It helps us to optimize our blog or website according to the standard set by search engines; especially by Google as Google is a major source of traffic for everyone.
How Does An SEO Plugin Work?
SEO plugin calculates your content on the basis of search engine (Google) standards and makes it more crawlable by search engine bots.
Such as,
- Blog Post title & description length
- Keywords optimization
- Content quality and length
- Headings, internal & external links
- Your XML sitemap
- Robots.txt and .htaccess
- Canonical elements etc.
Note: An SEO plugin only helps us to optimize our blog or website, installing an SEO plugin is not a guarantee of ranking in Google or Bing. Ranking on Google or Bing depends on various factors.
Rank Math Vs Yoast SEO Plugin: Which Is The Best?
If you don’t know about Rank Math and Yoast SEO plugins, let me introduce you to both SEO plugins in brief. After briefing both I will discuss the features of the Rank Math vs Yoast SEO plugin in detail.
Rank Math SEO Plugin
A Rank Math SEO plugin is very new and launched in 2018 by MyThemeShop.com. MyThemeShop is a well-known name in the field of WordPress themes. In a very short span, Rank Math is becoming a choice of webmasters.
It has 400,000+ downloads at the time of writing this post. 1500+ people rated Rank Math SEO 5 stars till now.
Rank Math SEO plugin ratings on WordPress.org
Yoast SEO Plugin
I am not hesitant to call it a King of SEO plugins. Yoast was created by Joost de Valk in 2010. In a very short time period, Yoast became a major player in the SEO industry due to its simple interface and capability. However, with time other plugins also came into the market, and a few old such as the All In One SEO Plugin, but could not become as popular as Yoast.
It has 5+ Million downloads at the time of writing this post. 25000+ people rated the Yoast SEO plugin 5 stars till now.
Yoast SEO plugin ratings on WordPress.org
Let’s start a comparison of the Rank Math and Yoast SEO plugins on the following points…
Rank Math Vs Yoast SEO: Performance Test
Rank Math SEO itself provided both plugin performance stats which look great. Rank Math overtakes Yoast in terms of plugin size, line of codes, etc.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO: Import Data From Other SEO Plugins
This is a major part if you are moving to any other SEO plugins. If you have a big site and thought to move another SEO plugin, it can be very hectic if your new SEO plugin does not provide a function to import SEO settings from old plugins.
Rank Math SEO can import old SEO settings into it. It can easily import SEO settings from two major plugins; Yoast SEO and All In One SEO. It will show you an old SEO plugin and import option. Including other plugin settings as well such as XML sitemap, Redirection plugin, etc. Rank Math SEO has these options integrated into it.
Yoast SEO also has the same function but I did not see it working. Probably it only works with the All In One SEO Plugin. I installed two SEO plugins but it shows a message that “Yoast SEO did not detect any plugin data from plugins it can import from“.
Rank Math Vs Yoast SEO: User Interface
Yoast and Rank Math both have a very clean and user-friendly interface. You can easily find the required functions.
Rank Math integrates lots of functions in it. It is very easy to activate and deactivate all from its dashboard. Yoast SEO also has a user-friendly interface. Just On and Off features from its dashboard. However, Yoast has less integration of functions in comparison with the Rank Math SEO Plugin.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO: One Time Set up Wizard
Rank Math and Yoast both have a one-time setup wizard. Where Yoast has a few major settings in the wizard and on the other side Rank Math SEO divided it into two categories; Easy and Advanced.
Rank Math SEO vs Yoast SEO: Keyword Optimization
Both plugins are good at keyword optimization. Yoast and Rank Math both calculate keyphrases. However, with Rank Math, you can optimize your post for up to 5 keywords or keyphrases whereas Yoast doesn’t provide this function free of cost.
The following parameters are common in both plugins to calculate keywords throughout the post.
- Focus keywords in the SEO title
- Focus keyword in SEO Meta Description
- Focus on a keyword in the URL
- Focus keywords in subheadings
- Focus keyword in the image alt attribute
- Focus keyword used at the beginning of the SEO title
Rank Math also calculates keywords in the first 10% of posts as well which is good for writing. Yoast calculates the same thing in the first paragraph. I don’t think it is good for writing an SEO-friendly post. Nobody can force a focus keyword in the first paragraph. Your first paragraph can be ended only in one or two lines.
Yoast and Rank Math both tell you if you over-optimized your post or not with keyword-matched counts. Which is good for SEO.
Yoast SEO Plugin :
Rank Math SEO Plugin:
Pro Tip: “There is no ideal keyword density percentage but it should not be too high the most important thing is to keep the copy natural.”
Content Analysis In Yoast And Rank Math SEO
Both plugins check many parameters to analyze a blog post. Yoast shows them in Good or Bad and Rank Math gives the number out of 100. However, you can also check all parameters in detail in both plugins.
Rank Math vs Yoast: Tracking Of Keywords Ranking
Rank Math SEO has this unique function to track your keyword ranking in Google. You don’t need to open the Google Search Console or any other SEO tools to check keyword ranking.
Rank Math made your work easy. It integrates with Google Search Console and shows data in Rank Math.
Yoast does not provide this function. 🙁
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO: Inbuilt SEO Analysis Function
Rank Math has an inbuilt SEO analysis function. You can audit your blog at any time. No third-party software is required. Yoast does not have this type of function.
Preview Of Blog Pages
Both plugins are showing your page/post preview for Google, Facebook, and Twitter.
Internal Linking Suggestion
Rank Math SEO shows internal link suggestions as well. Yoast SEO also has the same function but not for free users.
Broken Or Changed Links Redirection Manager
Rank Math and Yoast both have advanced broken links redirection manager but Rank Math gives you it free and Yoast charges for it.
Role Manager – For Multi Authors’ Blog
Rank Math SEO Plugin introduced an inbuilt role manager function. It is very useful if you have multiple authors. You can set different roles and prohibit access. Yoast lacks here.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO: Advanced Robots Meta (Snippet)
Google started focusing on the snippet and in a blog post, Google clearly said that they are focusing on Snippet. You probably received some error message in AMP pages in Google Search Console that the image size is small.
Rank Math quickly adopted the Google update and released a new version of the plugin. I still don’t see this in Yoast.
Google Schema Rich Snippets In Yoast and Rank Math SEO
Rank Math has inbuilt Google Schema Rich Snippets for different categories. I don’t see this in Yoast SEO.
Rank Math Vs Yoast SEO: No-follow All Or Few External Links
If you want to set no-follow all external links including image links, you can do it in Rank Math by changing one setting. Yoast has no function to do no-follow external links in bulk.
Even if you want to no-follow any specific link, you can easily do it in Rank Math SEO however you need a third-party plugin if you are using Yoast SEO. Yoast does not provide this function.
Google released a few more tags for links such as “Sponsored” and “UGC”. Rank Math is quite ahead of others in making changes to its SEO tool. You need to decide what type of link you have, “no follow” or “sponsored”. No third-party plugin is required.
Rank Math Vs Yoast SEO: Content Readability Check
Both SEO plugins analyze the readability of the copy you wrote and calculate the Flesch Reading Ease score.
Yoast SEO has plenty of parameters to calculate the content readability score.
Whereas, Rank Math has fewer points to calculate it.
Note: Flesch Readability score seems missing/removed in the new version of Rank Math SEO.
Full Control Over Breadcrumbs
Both are giving you full control over your blog’s breadcrumbs.
Rank Math Vs Yoast SEO: Inbuilt Sitemap
Rank Math and Yoast both provide an inbuilt sitemap functionality. Both notify search engines; such as Google and Bing once a post gets published.
Robots.txt And .htaccess Files
Both plugins give you an option to handle your Robots.txt and .htaccess files.
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO: Plugin Support
Rank Math is providing full support for all users. MyThemeShop is on the top when anyone asks for support and Rank Math is a product of MyThemeShop so you can expect priority support from the Rank Math team.
Yoast also provides support but only for premium users. 🙁
Rank Math vs Yoast SEO: Paid Or Free
Rank Math and Yoast SEO both are not completely free. Both give basic functions (you can work with) free of cost. If you want advanced functions then you need to buy a pro version of both plugins.
Yoast SEO charges – $89.00 for a single site for a year and
Rank Math charges – $59.00 for unlimited personal sites and $199.00 for business purposes which supports client sites as well. Both need to be renewed in a year.
However, both are paid but in Rank Math, there is no need to buy multiple licenses for multiple personal sites. It gives a single license for unlimited personal sites whereas Yoast gives only one site license. You need a new license for each site. Yoast is costlier than Rank Math.
Yoast vs Rank Math Updates
Yoast SEO releases too many updates almost every third day it releases an update. Where Rank Math releases less in comparison to Yoast. Yoast updates annoy me sometimes.
A quick list of points of Rank Math vs Yoast SEO plugin
Rank Math SEO Plugin –
- Rank Math is completely free
- It has integrated Google Search Console
- It supports up to 5 keywords
- Google search suggestion is linked with the focus keywords area.
- Rank Math provides an inbuilt SEO analysis tool
- Rank Math also provides a function of URL redirection and internal link suggestions
Yoast SEO Plugin –
- Yoast is not completely free
- It does not have a Google Search Console inside of the plugin (but in the paid version)
- It supports up to 5 keywords (but in the paid version)
- Google search suggestion is linked up in the focus keywords area (but in the paid version)
- Yoast does not have any inbuilt SEO analysis tool
- Yoast also has a function of URL redirection and internal link suggestions (but in the paid version)
Rank Math Vs Yoast SEO: Conclusion
Rank Math and Yoast SEO both are good. Yoast SEO has a long history and a huge user base whereas Rank Math SEO is new but becoming very popular among bloggers. The parent of Rank Math; MyThemeShop has a strong presence in the WordPress theme industry and is popular for its excellent themes and support.
Rank Math Vs Yoast SEO, Who Wins?
Sometimes Yoast comes up and sometimes Rank Math. We found no one is winning at this time. Yes, definitely Rank Math is providing lots of options free of cost whereas Yoast has fewer options in the free version.
⇒ If you see by cost, Yoast is costlier than Rank Math.
⇒ If you see it from a point of view of functionalities, Rank Math triumphs over Yoast. It again depends on your need such as Role Manager: I don’t need that function but maybe you need it.
⇒ If you see from a point of view of simplicity and less optimization, Yoast wins here. Yoast looks very easy to handle. Many of the functions Yoast itself handles such as subpages example.com/page2/. However, Rank Math also improved its UI and made it more intuitive since its inception.
One thing I really like about Rank Math is, Everyday they are improving its plugin and adding more and more features. It seems they are walking with Google.
Rank Math earlier had some stability issues. Rank Math team proactively fixed all bugs or issues immediately. It looks stable now. You can use it without any fear. Yoast WordPress SEO plugin has no such issues.
Rank Math made many changes in it making it very simple for everyone and adopting updates very fast. Once I left it again started using it.
