Honestly, I like Yoast SEO. I’ve been using it for a long time and will continue to use it. However, after experience with troubleshooting, and also with clientele, there’s a rare occasion that the solution is completely removing Yoast SEO from your database completely before re-installing it. It really is rare, and usually is because of database issue (not caused by the plugin.)
Then, well, sometimes things go really wrong, and Yoast SEO may not be for some people. I’ve seen various cases of both. This tutorial is for those reasons. Not many people really talk about a solution to remove Yoast SEO because it’s a really useful plugin, and usually on most people’s top 10 recommended WordPress plugins to install.
The reason for writing this tutorial, is that just uninstalling and deleting the actual plugin from your WordPress backend doesn’t completely remove Yoast SEO. Some plugins completely remove everything, but Yoast doesn’t.
When the plugin is deactivated and then removed, it leaves rows in the wp_postmeta. Normally, the people asking about this are usually power users. They understand enough about WordPress and that some plugins store information in the database. If you weren’t really good at writing strings to remove things from your database, then you had to hunt down and manually remove the tables. The coding version in this tutorial gives you the MySQL string to remove it, instead of tediously browsing your wp_postmeta table.
I would suggest that before you do remove Yoast SEO completely from your website, that you seek out support with Yoast. Please be certain that it’s the solution, because once you remove the data, and you’ve previously invested quite a bit of time, you will lose all of your work. If you are a Yoast SEO Premium user, you have free access to an excellent support team. Utilize that option before making assumptions that the solution is completely removing Yoast SEO. Whether it is for a legitimate reason, or you decided to have personal issues with it, and gave up, still, seek support first.
That being said, I like to try to find solutions for both the code savvy and the non-coder. Here are two ways to remove Yoast SEO from your database.
How to Completely Remove Yoast SEO with a Plugin
There is a plugin called Uninstall Yoast SEO in the WordPress plugin repository. If you install it, and then activate it. The plugin automatically removes it.
The Uninstall Yoast SEO plugin is a one-time use, so once after you’ve activated it, you can remove it.
How to Completely Remove Yoast SEO using phpmyadmin and MySQL
If your host has phpmyadmin, this will work for you. Please note, that before fooling around with your database, make a backup. In fact, do yourself a favor and do a backup for your WordPress installation too. It’s better to be diligent before messing around in your database.
1. Log into your web host, and go to phpmyadmin
2. Find your database for your WordPress installation
3. Go to the SQL tab for that database and in the big input field, place the following code.
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = 'METAKEYHERE';
Note: Instead of METAKEYHERE, you will use one of the following –
_yoast_wpseo_focuskw
_yoast_wpseo_metadesc
_yoast_wpseo_title
_yoast_wpseo_canonical
_yoast_wpseo_redirect
These are some of the ones that will be listed. So, for example:
_yoast_wpseo_focuskw
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_yoast_wpseo_focuskw';
_yoast_wpseo_metadesc
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_yoast_wpseo_metadesc';
_yoast_wpseo_title
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_yoast_wpseo_title';
_yoast_wpseo_canonical
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_yoast_wpseo_canonical';
_yoast_wpseo_redirect
DELETE FROM wp_postmeta WHERE meta_key = '_yoast_wpseo_redirect';
So, there you go, you’ve got a really easy way to remove Yoast SEO, and a little more technical solution.
Ah very timely review, thank you. Was just in the middle of testing out Yoast SEO myself and find out that I am more fan of All in one SEO free plugin. Thanks for tutorial.
Hi Nile, Great informative post on WordPress related problem.
Sometimes, it difficult to remove some items than adding it. But you have instructed very well and it will really help remove Yoast SEO plugin. Your step by step tutorial really helpful to remove it easily. I must appreciate you for sharing this post in front of us.
Now I’m going to remove it but in future, like to remove it then this post will help me easily. Often people say that it not easy to remove it from WordPress but have done here by showing step by step instruction on it.
Thanks for making aware to remove Yoast SEO.
– Ravi.
Nice! I actually had a customer of ours ask me this and I knew it would be a long answer so instead I just sent them your way 😉
Hi AJ! Thanks. When I worked at Yoast, I use to get these questions. I knew the manual method of doing this, and then eventually tried the MySQL removal. However, the plugin method, it appeared so silently, that I had to try it out before I published this article.
I still love and use Yoast SEO. I know some like All In One SEO, but I moved from that years ago. I’ll still be a Yoast fan for years to come. 🙂
Yep, I really like Yoast too 😉 Sure I haven’t been a huge fan of some of the changes made recently (especially design wise in some areas) but the code is always clean and modular – most important.
Anyway, I tweeted out to you. I thought I had mentioned somewhere…I would love it if you would be up to guest posting on our site from time to time. You would be a great fit for our blog and of course you would get backlinks to your site from our authorbox as well. If interested at all please feel free to email me at the email used for the comment.
ps: There is no way to “subscribe” to your comments to see if you reply back – I use JetPack for this on the wpexplorer blog – totally recommend it if possible.
Have a great day!
– AJ
Well, usually Yoast support doesn’t really encourage removing the data from the database. In rare cases, like in this article, wasn’t going to use the plugin anymore, and already got the data they needed migrated to another SEO plugin. The other was removing everything after a glitch during initial installation.
I do like Yoast SEO a lot, but I have been experiencing some issues with it that I had never experienced before. I will go ahead and give it a try with this option here.
Hi Nile,
I really like Yoast SEO too, have used it on other sites with success. This time however, it broke all the page links on my site… I think the theme I am using HATES EVERYTHING! I just want to Saniflush everything connected to the plugin and try something else.
Thanks for the great post! ~ Ron
Hi Nile,
Is there any way to extract the SEO keywords and descriptions from the wp_postmeta so that I can recreate this on another site?
I am mulling over working for a client whose site was hacked (so the site is down), and has started using a fresh, new domain. He wants the seo work done (by someone else) on the hacked site without letting me clear up the malware.
Probably not worth the time, this one. But I’ve never had to do this, so am curious if there’s an easy way to do this.
Thanks in advance,
Betts
Hi Nile,
Thanks for your informative tutorial. Yoast has served me well for years without any issues whatsoever. However, I’m in the process of trouble-shooting a new website that’s in staging. I need to deactivate/remove Yoast, but each time I do so, it breaks the database. As per your suggestion I’ve tried using plug-ins like “Uninstall Yoast SEO” (By Ralph van Troost) but without success.
I was wondering if you’ve experienced this before and if so, if you could signpost me to any fixes please?
Thank you,
Carl
Hi Nil, thanks for the great information.
I like to know if using the plugin is the SAME as removing it manually?
– steve
You can use the plugin and remove it, but removing it by deactivating and deleting from the WordPress admin area will not remove the database tables associated with Yoast.