Import from Yoast SEO or Rank Math.

How the importer works

Yoast SEO and Rank Math both store their SEO data in your WordPress database. Each post’s SEO title, meta description, focus keyphrase and other settings are saved as hidden fields attached to the post, and site-wide options such as title templates are saved in WordPress’s options table. Rank Math also keeps its redirects in a database table of its own, and Yoast SEO Premium stores its redirects in options.

Rilea SEO’s importer reads that stored data and copies it into Rilea SEO’s own fields. It doesn’t need the old plugin to be running, although keeping it active until you’ve finished does no harm. Most importantly, it only reads. Nothing your old plugin saved is changed or deleted, so you can always go back.

When you open Rilea SEO, then Tools, the importer shows how many posts have Yoast SEO data and how many have Rank Math data, so you know what to expect before you start. It then works through your posts in batches of 200, which keeps it reliable on large sites and on modest hosting.

What comes across from Yoast SEO

For each post, page and product

• SEO title and meta description
• Focus keyphrase
• Related keyphrases and keyphrase synonyms, from Yoast SEO Premium
• Noindex and nofollow settings
• Advanced robots settings: noarchive, nosnippet and noimageindex
• Canonical URL
• Breadcrumb title
• Cornerstone flag
• Primary category, and primary product category for WooCommerce
• Facebook title, description and image
• X title, description and image

Site-wide

• Title and description templates for each post type, converted to Rilea SEO’s variable format
• Whether each post type should be indexed
• Category and tag SEO settings
• Main settings such as verification codes and whether the site represents an organization or a person
• Redirects created with Yoast SEO Premium, including regex redirects

What comes across from Rank Math

For each post, page and product

• SEO title and meta description
• Focus keyword
• Robots settings
• Canonical URL
• Breadcrumb title
• Pillar content, which becomes cornerstone content in Rilea SEO
• Primary category, and primary product category for WooCommerce
• Facebook title, description and image
• X title, description and image

Site-wide

• Title and description templates
• Category and tag SEO settings
• Main settings
• Active redirects from Rank Math’s redirection manager, keeping their match type: exact, contains, starts with, ends with or regex

Template variables

Yoast SEO and Rank Math write template variables slightly differently from Rilea SEO. Yoast SEO, for example, wraps variables in double percent signs. The importer converts the common variables into Rilea SEO’s format automatically, so a title template like “post title, separator, site name” keeps working. A handful of variables that only exist in the other plugins are mapped to the closest Rilea SEO equivalent. After importing, glance at your templates in Rilea SEO, then Settings, then Titles & Meta, to confirm they look right.

Running the import

1. Back up your site. It’s quick and gives you peace of mind.
2. Install and activate Rilea SEO. Leave your old SEO plugin active for now.
3. Open the importer. Go to Rilea SEO, then Tools. You’ll see how many posts have data from each plugin.
4. Start the import. Click Import from Yoast SEO or Import from Rank Math, and wait for it to work through all your posts. On large sites this can take a few minutes; keep the page open until it finishes.
5. Deactivate the old plugin. Go to Plugins and deactivate it. Don’t delete it until you’re sure you won’t switch back.
6. Refresh permalinks. Go to Settings, then Permalinks, and click Save Changes.
7. Clear your caches. Clear your caching plugin, host cache or CDN, so visitors and search engines see the new output.

Overwriting existing values

By default, the importer doesn’t overwrite values you’ve already set in Rilea SEO. If you’ve started editing posts in Rilea SEO before importing, those edits are kept, and the importer only fills in what’s empty. If you want the old plugin’s data to replace what’s in Rilea SEO, choose the overwrite option before you start.

Checking the result

Spend ten minutes on these checks after the import:

• Spot-check a few posts. Open three or four important posts and check the Rilea SEO panel shows the titles, descriptions and keyphrases you expect.
• View the page source. On a few pages, check there’s exactly one title tag, one meta description, one canonical tag and one JSON-LD script.
• Check the templates. In Rilea SEO, then Settings, then Titles & Meta, confirm the imported templates look right for each post type.
• Check the redirects. Open Rilea SEO, then Redirects, check the number of rules looks right, and test two or three old URLs in a private browser window.
• Check the sitemap. Open /sitemap_index.xml and confirm it lists your content.
• Resubmit the sitemap. In Google Search Console, resubmit your sitemap so Google rereads it soon.

What doesn’t come across

Some data doesn’t transfer because Rilea SEO has no equivalent, or because it isn’t stored in the plugin:

• AI-generated suggestions and history, since Rilea SEO has no AI tools.
• Search Console, Analytics and rank tracking data. These live in your Google account or in the other plugin’s service. Use Search Console directly.
• SEO scores. Rilea SEO calculates its own scores from your content, so they may differ from your old plugin’s.
• Redirects from other tools. Redirects in a separate redirect plugin or in your server configuration stay where they are and keep working.
• Inactive Rank Math redirects. Only active redirects are imported.

Importing on many sites

If you’re moving several sites, do one first and check it carefully. Once you’re happy with Rilea SEO’s settings there, back them up from Rilea SEO, then Tools. On each further site, run the importer for that site’s post data, then restore your settings backup, and adjust the details that differ, such as the site name, logo and verification codes.

Questions

Will my rankings change?

If your titles, descriptions, canonical URLs and redirects carry across, search engines see the same pages as before. Small differences in the structure of the schema don’t usually affect rankings.

Can I run the import more than once?

Yes. Running it again fills in anything that’s still empty in Rilea SEO. With the overwrite option, it replaces Rilea SEO’s values with the old plugin’s again, which is useful if you imported too early.

What if I used both Yoast SEO and Rank Math in the past?

Your database may contain data from both. Choose the plugin you were using most recently, because its data is the most up to date. You can run the other import afterwards without overwriting, to fill in any gaps.

Is my old plugin’s data deleted?

No. The importer only reads it. If you later delete the old plugin, it may remove its own data depending on its settings, so wait until you’re sure you won’t switch back.

Common import problems

Some posts show Rilea SEO’s default title instead of a custom one

If a post used your old plugin’s template rather than a custom title, there was no custom title saved, so there was nothing to import. The post now uses Rilea SEO’s template for its post type. Check that template, and write a custom title in the Rilea SEO panel if the post needs one.

Titles show a variable instead of a value

If a title shows something like a word between percent signs, the old template used a variable Rilea SEO doesn’t support. Edit the template in Rilea SEO, then Settings, then Titles & Meta, and replace it with a supported variable.

The import stops partway

On very large sites or slow hosting, the browser connection can time out. Reload the Tools page and start the import again without the overwrite option. Posts that were already imported are skipped, and the importer carries on with the rest.

Redirects look different

Rank Math and Yoast SEO Premium describe some match types differently. The importer maps them to Rilea SEO’s exact, contains, starts with, ends with and regex options. Test a few imported pattern and regex rules to confirm they behave as before.

Before you import: a short checklist

• You have a recent backup of your site.
• Rilea SEO and your old SEO plugin are both installed.
• You know which plugin you used most recently, if you’ve used both.
• You’ve decided whether to keep values you’ve already set in Rilea SEO or overwrite them.
• You have a few minutes to check the result afterwards.

After the import

Once your data is across and the old plugin is deactivated, it’s a good moment to use the features you may not have had before. Add related keyphrases to your most important posts, turn on IndexNow, set up news or video sitemaps if they apply, add your business locations, fill in GTINs for your best-selling products, and run the orphaned content report to find pages that need internal links.

Where your imported data lives

After the import, each post’s SEO data sits in Rilea SEO’s own fields on that post, alongside the old plugin’s fields, which stay untouched. You edit it in the Rilea SEO panel in the post editor, or across many posts at once in Rilea SEO, then Bulk Editor. Site-wide templates and settings live in Rilea SEO, then Settings, and imported redirects appear in Rilea SEO, then Redirects, marked as imported so you can tell them apart from rules you add later.

Because the old plugin’s data is still in the database, you can compare the two at any time. Some site owners keep the old plugin installed but inactive for a few weeks after switching, as a safety net, and delete it once they’re confident everything carried across correctly. If you do that, remember to leave it inactive, because two active SEO plugins print duplicate tags.

Planning the switch on a busy site

On a site with steady traffic, pick a quiet time of day for the switch, and keep the steps close together: import, deactivate the old plugin, refresh permalinks and clear caches in one session. That keeps the window where pages might show duplicate or missing tags as short as possible. Afterwards, keep an eye on Google Search Console’s Pages and Enhancements reports for a couple of weeks, and compare clicks and impressions with the same period before the switch.