- Should you be using Rank Math or Yoast SEO?
- Which one of them is better to use?
Many of the ShoutMeLoud readers have asked this question, and today you will learn which one is better.
Yoast SEO has been dominating the SEO realm for years. But recently, a new competitor has emerged that successfully built up a vast community within a very short time: “Rank Math“.
This plugin is gaining positive reviews from users and its popularity is growing at an unbelievable rate.
This is what made us create this article. We are here to find out which one is the SEO King, we can have only one King, either Yoast or Rank Math.
In this article, we will review Rank Math SEO by checking its main functions as an SEO plugin, and also comparing it to Yoast SEO in these functions:
- User Interface: How easily and effectively can you use the plugin? What is the difference between Rank Math UI and Yoast UI?
- Keyword Assigning: How many keywords can you assign in each Rank Math and Yoast? Will these keywords benefit your rankings?
- Content Optimization: How well can you optimize your content using Rank Math SEO plugin? Does Rank Math uses different optimization techniques than Yoast?
- Features: Which of the plugins offer more useful features?
- Indexing: Which SEO plugin offers an instant indexing service?
- Performance: How does Rank Math affect your website’s speed? How well-coded is the plugin? What about Yoast?
- XML Sitemap Integration: Does Rank Math generate a sitemap for your website? What is the difference between Rank Math’s generated sitemap and Yoast’s?
I know you can’t wait to find the answers to all these questions. So, let’s just dive into it.
What is Rank Math SEO?
Rank Math SEO plugin, aka “The Swiss Army Knife of WordPress SEO” is a free search engine optimization plugin that guides you on how to optimize your content for higher rankings.
As of now, it has 500,000+ active installations and 4.9 stars rating in WordPress. A pro version will come this fall, but all the features now present in Rank Math will remain free.
User Interface of Rank Math
The cleaner the interface the better.
When plugin developers understand all of their users and consequently design it for all of them, they are going to win.
Rank Math developers knew this so they have designed two Modes for it:
- Easy: For those who want Rank Math to do all the work. If you choose this one you won’t need to do anything with Rank Math settings.
- Advanced: For those who want to have complete control over their website SEO. Professionals, time to show up!
However, there is no such thing as “Modes” in Yoast SEO. They have designed one for everyone.
Maybe they wanted us all to learn SEO. Who knows…
Look and Style
Rank Math implements a visually attractive interface that not only looks and feels modern but also enhances the user experience.
Check out the dashboard.
Not only is the dashboard appealing, it actually makes SEO fun. When you consider that SEO is primarily filling blanks, writing numbers, processes, and checklist ticking, you will find yourself an SEO expert. Yeah, you are the real Brian Dean.
I am sure they have worked a lot on the User Interface because everything is placed in it’s the best possible location. Within the first minutes of working with Rank Math, you will be able to find everything you are looking for.
Yoast SEO does have a little old-looking interface, but they too have built a successful interface. You can use Yoast SEO efficiently too. After all, they have 12 years of experience it is the least they can do.
Focus Keyword Feature
Rank Math normally lets you assign a maximum of 5 keywords for optimization, but in an update, it added the option to increase the Focus Keyword Limit. To do so, you will need to add a filter to your page editor.
On the other hand, Yoast will let you add just one keyword for the free version and up to 5 in the Pro version.
But, does adding many keywords in Rank Math benefit your SEO?
Not directly. However, Rank Math does help you to optimize your content for your added keywords. These optimizations include “increasing the density of the keyword, using it in subheadings and more…”.
The title, meta, and permalink setup works exactly the same for both SEO plugins. They both also show the preview of snippets for mobile and desktop.
Content Optimization
If you have used Yoast SEO you would have seen things like this.
These are the optimization guides to help your post rank better in Google.
But, since SEO changes every day we can’t say all these optimization techniques work or at least are useful.
However, Rank Math promises to use the most updated and efficient techniques to optimize your content.
For example; Yoast SEO asks you to place the target keyword within the first sentence, however, Rank Math requires you to put your keyword within the first paragraph and not the first sentence.
Now, it is known that keyword is not required in the first sentence to obtain position 1 in rankings or featured snippets and therefore this is a clear indication that Rank Math is using updated benchmarks.
Content Optimization Scoring
Rank Math scores your optimization in the number from 0-100. Generally, if your score is above 80, it turns into a green color. So, you need to optimize your content until your score turns green color.
Yoast SEO in this case represents the optimization level of content as green, orange, and red circles.
Here, Rank Math divides your score into 100 pieces, however, Yoast divides it into 3 pieces. So, clearly, Rank Math gives you a better idea of your content optimization.
Features
Both of the plugins offer a wide range of features. But to be critical, Rank Math offers more features than Yoast SEO.
Even some have considered the many features Rank Math offer as a Con since they are a lot and can be time-consuming.
Let’s just go with “features that Rank Math has but other SEO plugins don’t have “:
- Advanced Custom Fields & AMP support
- 404 error monitor
- Redirects (301, 302, 307, 410, etc.)
- Role manager
- Modular Framework
- Add missing Alt attributes
- SEO Analysis tool
- Incorporates with Local SEO
I’m particularly excited about the “Missing Alt attributes” feature, as there was lack of one reliable SEO plugin for the same. Moreover, just by using RankMath, you could lower the usage of plugins.
Performance of Rank Math Vs. Yoast SEO
We can analyze the Performance better by dividing it into two categories: SEO Performance, Plugin Performance.
SEO Performance:
Neither tool will deliver stronger SEO results than the other. So, don’t assume that by switching to Rank Math you will see immediate growth.
However, Rank Math delivers a greater set of features than Yoast SEO which theoretically means it delivers greater SEO performance.
But, in general, it is hard to say which SEO plugin has a better SEO Performance because it will need close monitoring of two similar websites with the same content using two different SEO plugins.
Plugin performance:
Rank Math is 3x smaller than Yoast SEO, meaning there are 3x fewer lines of code. This means that your website will benefit from fewer PHP requests and subsequently will be faster.
However, as a user, you most likely won’t notice the difference but every millisecond you can save is precious on the web.
XML Sitemap Integration
A Sitemap file is an important part of any website when it comes to indexing. Without a sitemap, there is a great chance that google will forget some of your content and do not index them.
Rank Math SEO plugin generates the sitemap for your website automatically. You can also generate custom sitemaps once respective post types are available on your site, such as news sitemap, image sitemap, etc.
There is no obvious difference between sitemaps generated by any of the SEO plugins. However, I think it is much easier to customize your sitemap using Rank Math than other SEO plugins.
Rank Math vs. Yoast: The Verdict
- Rank Math has a more modern user interface than Yoast. But, both plugins are well designed and coded.
- You can assign unlimited focus keywords by Rank Math. However, the Yoast premium will allow you to add a maximum amount of 5 keywords.
- Both Rank Math and Yoast have proven optimization techniques, but Rank Math is more updated with SEO benchmarks.
- Rank Math offers an instant indexing service, which typically will benefit you. This service is not provided by Yoast SEO.
- Rank Math is 3x lighter than Yoast SEO, meaning you will have a 3x faster website using Rank Math.
- Both SEO plugins will generate a sitemap for your site and there is no obvious difference between their sitemaps. However, Rank Math has a better UI and consequently is easier to work with.
- Rank Math offers all of its features for free, while Yoast Premium will charge you $89 per year.
Dear friends and family, we are gathered here today to announce the King, and it is …
Rank Math SEO vs. Yoast SEO Summary
Rank Math is a revolutionary SEO plugin that comes with a modern and easy-to-use interface. It uses the most updated optimization techniques and lets you assign unlimited focus keywords and optimize your content for all of them.
Undoubtedly Rank Math is able to get great traction in a couple of years, and looking at its roadmap, it is definitely looking like a clear winner. However, we can’t undermine Yoast SEO, which has been around for too many years, and it would be interesting to see how they amp up their development cycle.
Moreover, RankMath is planned to release a pro version, and how the community reacts to the paid part of the plugin, will be something interesting to see. I have a hunch that it might have an on-demand advanced keyword optimization feature and might try to become an SEO suite for WordPress.
For me, I have moved one of my WordPress sites from Yoast SEO to RankMath, and the migration was smooth. I would be sharing a few videos on how to use Rank Math, and how to migrate from Yoast SEO to Rank Math in the days to come.
For a new blog, I would recommend using Rank Math, as it offers many features that Yoast SEO (free) version does not offer. The strong community and growing features make it sought-after WordPress plugin.
For now,
What do you think, which one is better, Rank Math or Yoast SEO? Which one are you using right now? Are you planning to switch to Rank Math?
If you have used Rank Math, tell us about your experience with it.
And don’t forget to share this article with your friends.
Thanks Dear, As a beginner my experience was great to using Rank Math. Its really easy to understand all things or how we should manage SEO properly.
Thank you for sharing this in detailed.
I used to have the old All In One Seo plug in on my websites, then a couple of years ago, I switched to Yoast, and have not regretted. I might try Rank Math one day, but as now, I don’t feel the need for a change as I’m quite accustomed to Yoast.
Yes, Rank Math has lots of free features as compared to the Yoast SEO tool. I liked it’s feature to free analysis of your content and provides a score, more than 80 score it is rated your content as a green (that’s means your content is much SEO friendly).
One of the main things you did not mention is the 404 feature. If you move a post to a new page say for more search results, so should be more traffic, Yoast does this automatically without any issues. I have found this to be a bit hit and miss with rank math. Sometimes it finds that you have moved a slug and other times you have to do it yourself.
As this could be quite important with a large site of blog posts Rank Math could improve this aspect.
For me it was their biggest let down, and the main reason I dont use it on larger websites with lots of posts.
Just my opinion.
Thank you so much for giving overall idea about this plugin. I have been using yoast seo plugin, Must try Rank Math SEO plugin.
Truly in Love with Rank Math now…. I was using Yoast SEO for past couple of years, then accidently came across this Rank Math plugin… gave it a try for few days just to see does it delivers what it promises…. And my traffic just skyrocketed…. I could see the difference in just 15 days & best part is i feel i am now in more control of many SEO aspects than i was with Yoast. I really feel bad that i was missing on this seo plugin all these years. This is all a man want! Keep the magic going…
Yeah, you’re right. Rank Math free plugin working nice. I shift from yoast seo to rank math on my new website and it’s working same as yoast seo premium plugin offers. If you’re a new blogger then I should definitely advice you to use rank math for better on page seo for your website.
I am not familiar with Rank Math Plugin before reading your blog post, now I am so happy to get such a great information. I am gonna try this plugin. Thanks for sharing this.
I have recently switched to Rankmath and getting some good features with it. I can now optimize my blog post with more than one keyword without shedding money for it. I feel it more user-friendly especially for new bloggers. Thanks for giving more insight into it. Keep up the good work.
thanks for sharing information i confused which SEO plugin is better, but now i read this article finally my doubt is clear thank u so much !!!
I have site since 2018 , in the 2 years i get good traffic from discover , news and featured schema , as per i am using yoast. Is it okay to migrate to RankMath??
When Rank Math was released i try it that gives negative experience , so what abt migrate to rankmath now?? I move or not , help me please.
Yes agree with the points.
Recently moved to Rank math and found some amazing features which is not in the previous plugin.
Now I can optimize my content more efficiently .
I have also recently moved from Yoast to Rank math. But harsh sir as we know that google starts to rank automatic LSI keywords when our post is old, then putting 5 focus keywords is right according to you?
These 5 keywords don’t help you rank your articles based on those keywords directly. They are just guiding you to use those keywords thoroughly and systematically throughout the post content. Basically, these plugins help you show the perspective of how Google may treat your content and they are all customised according to the views of their development team and some common good SEO practices. Google will only analyze your content on its own parameters.
According to me, the natural way of content creation is the best which doesn’t focus on keywords but to help the targeted users solely, but certain good SEO practices (very basic and minimal) help the content reach to its deserved audience.
They are both great plugins. But note that better or more features doesn’t mean better results in general.
I have used both Yoast SEO and Rank Math Plugin. After using Rank Math for Some Time, I switched back to Yoast. I am more comfortable with the results of the Yoast SEO Plugin although it has fewer features on paper.
In theory, Rank Math is better than Yoast SEO. But Yoast SEO does it better in Practice. It offers fewer features but they are more effective.
For any other feature of Rank Math, there are other plugins that perform it better. For example, I find Google XML Plugin more effective than all the sitemap and ping features of Rank Math. Schema & Structured Data for WP & AMP is better than structured data feature of the two other plugins (Personal Opinion).
At the end, how you create content is what matters. I have found out that no plugin helps you rank overnight. I wrote some article without focus keywords or on-page guide from these plugins and they are ranking #1.
Can you Please Provide me more information on why you say that Yoast SEO Plugin Performs better than RankMath SEO despite the fact that it has fewer options and features? Any Special In-Built Features that we are missing here?
I have been using Rank Math for a long time, and it’s by far the best WordPress SEO plugin ever made. The plugin is lightweight, packed with features, and it’s totally free. The support is top-notch, and I can’t recommend it enough. Switch over to Rank Math, and you will never regret it.
We have previously tried using Rank Math for one of our websites a year ago or so, but compared to Yoast, it was not better. Maybe things have changed, I think we will try with one of our newer websites just to mix things up.
Another thing I did not like was the fact that I got a lot of emails from Rank Math, had to unsubscribe. However, reading your post made me consider using Rank Math again – will give it a try.
when it comes to SEO Performance which one is highly recommended?
I’m planning to embed a blog on my site.What would you suggest,Yoast SEO or Rank Math?
Which one offers various features in the free version? Everybody says ,Yoast SEO is best. Do you have any strong point to choose Rank Math?
I’m all Ears!
Thanks.
Hey Harsh,
This plugin is the best WordPress SEO plugin and I use it on my website. Rank math offers everything is free.
Rank Math Pro is coming soon and it going to be awesome.
I have been using Yoast SEO plugin for ever and also Yoast SEO Premium plugin for a couple of my sites. Around 5 months back, I moved to Rank Math for a fairly new website of mine. And, I am really thankful I did the switch. I am able to get all the features of Yoast SEO Premium while using Rank Math free version. As you rightly said the UI and the feature sets are extremely well laid out and easy to use even in the advanced settings.
With the whole lot of new features being introduced on a regular basis, Rank Math is definitely poised to give Yoast SEO plugin some serious competition.
I am seriously planning to migrate to Rank Math for all my sites.
Yes, Rank Math is the Best Plugin out there. When I started my Blog a Month ago, I first installed Yoast SEO, But then I realized the Best Features were only available in the PRO version of it.
Since then I was on hunt to search for a better SEO Plugin and free at the same time. That’s when i came across RankMath. I First Installed it on a Test site from a Free Host and found it much better than Yoast SEO.
I am absolutely happy that I made the switch, it was the best decision I ever made. Also, You should Use an Additional Structures Data Plugin, I have one which is Compatible with RankMath which has like Advanced Schema which is due to come to Rank Math Pro this Fall.
Also I think you should join their FB Group. That’s where they post everything first and also about the upcoming New RankMath Pro . It’s the Best for New Comers to SEO.