Description
RankVN SEO is a lightweight technical SEO plugin for WordPress with strong Vietnamese-language support (accent-aware processing, Vietnamese keyword analysis, and a bundled Vietnamese translation).
It helps search engines and AI crawlers understand your site: unified JSON-LD Schema, XML/HTML sitemaps, meta & social tags, image SEO, and an optional llms.txt file. 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 many manual types you can add in the editor (FAQ, HowTo, Product, Course, LocalBusiness, Recipe, Event, and more).
- XML & HTML sitemaps — search-engine XML sitemaps and a customizable HTML sitemap. When RankVN XML sitemaps are on, the default WordPress sitemap is turned off to avoid duplicates.
- Robots.txt & robots meta — virtual robots.txt plus noindex / nofollow / noarchive per page.
- Canonical URLs — reduce duplicate-content issues.
- Table of contents — heading-based TOC via shortcode.
- Reader rating widget — visitor ratings with AggregateRating schema (no IP storage).
- Image SEO (Alt + Optimize) — suggest/save alt text, optional safe rename, WebP/AVIF variants for faster pages, and Media Health reports.
- Featured vs in-content images — if the same file is both the featured image and used in the post, Save / Optimize keeps the original and creates two separate copies so each slot can have its own file and URL.
- llms.txt — a plain-text map of your site for AI crawlers (optional).
- Per-module Features toggles — turn features on/off; matching settings tabs show or hide with them.
RankVN SEO Free does not include licensing or AI clients and does not contact a RankVN server. Optional AI features live in RankVN SEO Pro.
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.
- The Activation Guard checks PHP 7.4+ and WordPress 6.0+. If requirements are not met, the plugin deactivates with a clear notice.
FAQ
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Does RankVN SEO Free require a license?
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No. Free Core works fully without connecting to any external RankVN service.
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Does Free use AI credits?
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No. Free SEO tools run locally with standard rules. AI suggestions and credit workflows are Pro-only.
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Does Free contact a RankVN server?
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No. The Free build does not ship the licensing or AI client, so it never contacts RankVN servers.
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Does the Reader Rating widget store IP addresses?
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No. Only aggregated counts and averages are stored in your database. No visitor IPs or tracking cookies.
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Is the plugin built for Vietnamese sites?
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Yes. Accent-aware processing, Vietnamese keyword analysis, and a full Vietnamese admin translation are included. Source strings are English for WordPress.org.
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Which Schema types are available in Free?
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Core graph types (WebSite, WebPage, Article / BlogPosting / NewsArticle, BreadcrumbList, AggregateRating) plus many manual types you can add in the editor — including FAQPage, HowTo, Product, Course, LocalBusiness, Recipe, Event, Review, VideoObject, JobPosting, SoftwareApplication, and more (see the Schema picker in the post editor).
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What does “Re-optimize (N variants)” mean on an image?
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Those “variants” are optimized copies on disk (for example different sizes / WebP) used to serve the image faster. They are not new items in the Media Library. Library copies are only created when the plugin clones or splits an image for a specific use (for example featured vs in-content, or clone-per-post).
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What is llms.txt?
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A simple text file that summarizes your site structure so large language models and AI crawlers can read it more easily.
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
4.3.1
- Image SEO: when the same attachment is both the featured image and used in the post content, Save or Optimize keeps the original file and creates two separate copies (featured + in-content) with their own URLs — so Media Library shows the original plus two usage copies.
- Clearer on-screen note after that split: reload the editor before clicking Update.
- Clarified in this readme what “variants” means (on-disk WebP/size files, not Media Library duplicates).
- Simple-mode XML sitemap includes category archives.
- Schema editor: the popup stays open on save and restore, its height stays stable, the WebPage/None view is clearer, an empty Article placeholder is hidden when a real Article exists, and the LocalBusiness address warning is hidden for Person.
- A module’s settings tabs stay hidden while that module is off.
- Dashboard counts refresh right after a save or an alt change.
- Vietnamese translation: 114 additional approved strings.
- SEO Project Board save applies only to its own task post type.
- New installs create the 404 log and redirect tables on activation. Upgrades that already have those tables are unchanged.
- Image clone lookup no longer scans the whole Media Library for orphan copies. Clones stay tied to the post; orphans remain a Media Health item.
4.3.0
- Shared helpers for SEO title, description, image and canonical on posts and terms.
- Term archives use the same editor shell as posts, including social tags and robots meta.
- When the RankVN XML sitemap is enabled, the default WordPress sitemap is turned off.
- Image SEO settings open the Image Hub (no broken settings links).
4.2.4
- Code cleanup: removed 14 AI/Pro feature scripts from the Free build (moved to the Pro add-on) and added a build guard to prevent regressions. No change to Free behavior.
4.2.3
- Hardening: escaped the table-of-contents toggle label, validated the settings tab against a strict allow-list before saving, and hardened all JSON-LD output against script-tag breakout.
4.2.2
- Hardening: escaping, nonce/capability checks, and input sanitization reviewed across admin screens and schema output for the WordPress.org guideline review.
4.2.1
- All 18 schema types (Product, Recipe, Event, LocalBusiness, Review, VideoObject, JobPosting, Course, SoftwareApplication and more) are now available in Free — add, edit and output JSON-LD with no locks.
- Improved schema type picker layout so type names and descriptions wrap cleanly.
- Fixed: the welcome modal no longer re-opens on top of the Setup Guide page.
- Fixed: the SEO score column no longer collapses on post lists with many columns (e.g. WooCommerce products).
4.1.1
- Compliance: removed “coming soon” placeholders from the Free admin UI (editor panel and Features page).
- Renamed the editor “E-E-A-T” tab to “AI Disclosure” to reflect its actual scope.
4.1.0
- Image Optimizer: explicit WebP and AVIF toggles that generate next-gen variants only for the formats your server supports (locked with a note when unavailable).
- Media Library & Editor: per-image “Optimize this image” and “Suggest & save Alt” buttons that act on a single image on demand.
- Alt suggestions: choose the source text — nearest heading (default), the post title/H1, or the first H2.
- Media Health: new “reused images” report showing images embedded in two or more posts, plus a configurable heavy-image threshold (MB) and quick hand-off buttons to fix alt or optimize.
- Clone per post: when an image is reused across posts, clone a separate copy for one post so renaming or optimizing it never affects the others.
- Optional rename-by-alt: when saving an alt suggestion, safely rename the file to match — only when the image is not used by other posts.
- All image features run locally in PHP with no external requests.
4.0.0
- First public release on WordPress.org.
- Free edition delivers complete technical SEO with no external server: unified JSON-LD schema graphs, XML sitemaps (posts, pages, news, video, HTML), meta tags & Open Graph, robots.txt & robots meta, canonical, breadcrumbs, table of contents, reader ratings, image alt optimization, redirects, 404 monitor, and llms.txt.
- Per-module Features toggles: enable/disable each feature independently, with settings tabs shown/hidden to match and a fully clean disable (no leftover hooks, menus, metaboxes, assets, or cron).
- Standards compliance: all admin/editor CSS and JavaScript are properly enqueued (no inline blocks); source strings are English with a bundled Vietnamese translation.
- The licensing and AI client are not part of the Free build; the Free version never contacts any RankVN server. AI features are available in RankVN SEO Pro.