Yoast SEO vs Rank Math vs All in One SEO: Which Should You Use?

On this page

1. What an SEO plugin actually does
2. The three at a glance
3. What matters for a business website
4. Never run two SEO plugins at once
5. How to switch plugins safely
6. Settings to check, whichever you choose
7. So which one should you use?

Almost every WordPress business website needs an SEO plugin, and three names come up again and again: Yoast SEO, Rank Math and All in One SEO (often shortened to AIOSEO). All three are widely used and handle the basics well. The honest truth is that the plugin you choose matters far less than how it's configured and what you publish. This guide explains what these plugins do, how they differ in general terms, and how to switch without harming your rankings. For the other plugins a business site needs, see essential WordPress plugins.

What an SEO plugin actually does

An SEO plugin handles technical housekeeping that WordPress doesn't fully cover on its own:

• Titles and meta descriptions for every page, with templates for posts, categories and products
• XML sitemaps listing the pages you want Google to find
• Indexing controls, such as noindex for thin pages like tag archives or thank-you pages
• Canonical tags pointing Google to the main version of a page
• Structured data describing your organisation, articles, products and breadcrumbs
• Social previews: the title, description and image shown when a link is shared on WhatsApp, Facebook or LinkedIn
• Content suggestions while you write

What it doesn't do: write useful content, earn links, speed up your site or fix a confusing structure. A green score in the editor is a checklist, not a ranking.

The three at a glance

Features and plan contents change regularly, so treat this as a general picture and check each plugin's current free and paid plans before deciding.

Plugin	Known for	Worth knowing
Yoast SEO	One of the longest-established SEO plugins, with a familiar interface and SEO and readability analysis	The free version covers the essentials; extras such as a redirect manager are in the paid version
Rank Math	A newer plugin with a large free feature set, including redirects and modules you can switch on or off	Lots of options; turn off modules you don't use to keep things tidy
All in One SEO	Another long-standing plugin, with a setup wizard and on-page analysis	Several advanced features, such as local SEO tools, sit in paid plans

All three can produce sitemaps, schema, social previews and indexing controls. For most small business sites, any of them will do the job well when set up properly.

What matters for a business website

• Reliability: regular updates and compatibility with the current WordPress version
• Clean output: one title, one description, one canonical tag and sensible schema on every page
• Business details: a way to set your organisation name, logo and social profiles, plus LocalBusiness schema if you serve customers locally
• Redirects: built in, or handled by a separate dedicated plugin, so changed URLs don't break
• Ease of use for whoever writes and edits pages, not just the developer
• WooCommerce support for product and category pages, if you sell online
• Cost over the years: paid plans are usually yearly subscriptions, so check renewal pricing

Don't pick a plugin for a long feature list you'll never use. Fewer active features means fewer settings to get wrong.

Never run two SEO plugins at once

It's surprisingly common to find two SEO plugins active, often left behind when someone tried a new one without removing the old. This can cause:

• Duplicate or conflicting titles and meta descriptions
• Two sets of structured data that contradict each other
• Two sitemaps listing different pages
• Conflicting noindex or canonical settings, which can quietly drop pages from Google

Some themes, page builders and all-in-one plugins add their own SEO fields or schema too, so check those as well. A quick test: open a page, view the page source and search for name="description". You should find exactly one.

How to switch plugins safely

1. Take a full backup first, and use a staging copy if you can; see WordPress backup and restore.
2. Record your current setup: title templates, noindex settings, sitemap address, schema settings, and a list or export of any redirects.
3. Note a few important pages with their current titles, descriptions and canonical tags, so you can compare afterwards.
4. Install the new plugin and use its import tool. These plugins generally offer to import titles, descriptions and settings from the others; check it supports your current one.
5. Deactivate the old plugin, but don't delete it until you've checked everything.
6. Check your sample pages, the new sitemap and your redirects. Test structured data using the tools in how to test structured data.
7. Submit the new sitemap in Search Console if its address changed, and watch the Performance and Pages reports for a few weeks.
8. Remove the old plugin once you're confident nothing was lost.

Redirects deserve special care: if they lived in the old plugin and don't import, old URLs will start showing 404 errors.

Settings to check, whichever you choose

• Organisation details: the correct business name, logo and social profile links
• Archive pages: decide whether tag, author and date archives should be indexed; see SEO for category and tag pages
• Media attachment pages: make sure they redirect or are noindexed rather than appearing as thin pages
• Title templates: sensible defaults, so new posts and products don't go out with poor titles
• Sitemap contents: your real pages, not test pages, thank-you pages or empty archives
• Search engine visibility: the WordPress "discourage search engines" option must be off on the live site

So which one should you use?

• Already using one that works? Keep it. Switching carries risk and rarely improves rankings by itself.
• Building a new site? Choose the one the person maintaining the site finds easiest, and compare its current free features with what you need.
• Want redirects and richer schema without paying? Compare what each free version includes today, since this is where they differ most.
• Running WooCommerce or several branches? Check how each handles product schema and local business details before deciding.

Whichever you pick, configure it properly once, then put your effort into content and pages that genuinely help customers.

Not sure your SEO plugin is set up correctly, or need to switch without losing rankings? See my WordPress SEO services.