What are Query Strings

Query strings, aka query args, are the part of a web URL that comes after the base URL and are identified with a ?.

For example, a common query string you’ll see in WordPress is /?s=search_term which is used whenever a visitor uses the search feature on your site.

In the example above, the ?s is a key and the search_term is the value (?key=value).

Query strings are used in many different ways on websites. They enable information to be passed as part of the URL.

You can read more about query strings on Wikipedia here.

Why is Query Arg Monitoring Useful

The Query Arg Monitoring feature in All in One SEO will help you by showing you which query strings are being used on your site so that you can decide whether to block them or not.

Some query args will be used because of features in added by plugins or your theme so you may not want to block them. But there may be some that are being used by bad actors that you would want to block. This can help to ensure that they don’t show up in search results, potentially poisoning your results.

Using the Query Arg Monitoring Feature

To get enable Query Arg Monitoring, click on Search Appearance in the All in One SEO menu and then click on the Advanced tab.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and enable the toggle for Query Arg Monitoring, then click the Save Changes button.

Log Retention

The only setting in Query Arg Monitoring is the Log Retention setting.

Click on the drop down to change the length of time that logs are kept for.

Block Query Arg

In this section, you will see a table showing a log of all query strings that have been used on your site. Above this table is a form where you can enter a query arg you want to block

When someone or something (such as a crawler or robot) use a query arg on your site, it will appear in the log as shown below:

You can select to block a query arg in the table. You have option for blocking the key or the key and value.

If you choose to block the key, it will block that key and any value for that key.

If you choose to block the key and value, it will only block that key when the specified value is present.

You can also choose Bulk Actions to block or delete entries.

You can use the form above the log table to enter any key and/or value. You can even use Regex to block keys.

You may wish to disable or change this behavior.

Tutorial Video

Disabling Automatic Updates

To do this, click on General Settings in the All in One SEO menu and then click on the Advanced tab.

You should see a setting for Automatic Updates which you can set to None, Minor Only or All.

Set this to None if you don’t want the plugin to automatically update.

Set this to Minor Only if you only want the plugin to automatically update when we release minor bug fix versions.

Set this to All if you want to receive any new versions we release.

Why Do We Send Notifications

As the developers of All in One SEO, we may occasionally send notifications about the plugin to you. These notifications will show in the Notifications Center under All in One SEO » Dashboard.

Notifications can include important information about your site, information that would be helpful to you with your SEO efforts, and news about what’s changed in our plugin.

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Disabling Notifications

You can disable these notifications by clicking on General Settings in the All in One SEO menu and then clicking on the Advanced tab.

You should see a setting for Announcements. Change this setting to show or hide notifications sent by us and click Save Changes.

This is important because most search engines require that every SEO title and description is unique. So when you have content that is split across multiple pages, then All in One SEO will make sure that each page has a unique SEO title and description.

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Getting Started

All in One SEO creates unique SEO titles and description for your paginated content by adding the word “Page” followed by the page number to the end of the SEO title and description.

You can customize this if you want by clicking on Search Appearance in the All in One SEO menu and then clicking on the Advanced tab.

You should see a setting for Paged Format.

The Page Number smart tag will output the number of the page which ensures that every page has its page number appended to the SEO title and description, making it unique.

• Autogenerate Descriptions: AIOSEO now automatically generate meta descriptions for your content based on the Meta Description settings found under All in One SEO » Search Appearance » Content Types.
• Run Shortcodes in Autogenerated Descriptions: AIOSEO now automatically runs shortcodes and there’s no longer a setting to disable this.
• Remove Descriptions For Paginated Pages: AIOSEO no longer removes meta descriptions from paginated content. Instead, it appends the page number just like it does with the SEO title tags.
• Never Shorten Long Descriptions: AIOSEO no longer shortens long descriptions. Instead it generates meta descriptions based on a standard length of 55 words defined in the_excerpt() in WordPress.
• Exclude Pages: This setting has been removed for all new users. It does still exist for anyone that was using it in v3.x and can be found under All in One SEO » Search Appearance » Advanced.

However, if you want to remove this menu item for all Administrator users on your site.

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Removing the AIOSEO Admin Bar Menu

To remove the AIOSEO Admin Bar menu, click on General Settings in the All in One SEO menu and then click on the Advanced tab.

You’ll see a setting for Admin Bar Menu that’s set to Show.

To remove the SEO menu from the Admin Bar, change this setting to Hide.

However, there may be times when you want to remove this column.

Tutorial Video

Removing the AIOSEO Details Column

To remove the AIOSEO Details column,  click on General Settings in the All in One SEO menu and then click on the Advanced tab.

You’ll see a setting for Post Type Columns and the Include All Post Types box should be checked.

Uncheck the Include All Post Types box to see a list of your post types.

Uncheck the box for the post type where you want to remove the All in One SEO column.

Controlling Robots Meta for Post Types, Taxonomies, etc

To access these settings, click on Search Appearance in the All in One SEO menu. You’ll see tabs for Content Types, Taxonomies, Media, and Archives.

On each tab you’ll find sections for each type of content and in each section there will be an Advanced tab where you’ll find the Robots Meta Settings toggle.

The Robots Meta Settings toggle will be set to Use Default Settings, click the toggle to display checkboxes for each of the Robots Meta settings.

Here you can control the following robots meta tags:

• No Index – Set this if you don’t want this content appearing in search engines
• No Follow – Set this if you don’t want search engines following links within this content
• No Archive – Set this if you don’t want search engines caching this content in search results
• No Translate – Set this if you don’t want translating this content in search results
• No Image Index – Set this if you don’t want search engines indexing images in this content
• No Snippet – Set this if you don’t want search engines to display a text snippet of video preview for this content in search results
• No ODP – Set this if you don’t want search engines using information from The Open Directory Project in search results for this content
• Max Snippet – Set this to control the maximum number of characters to be used when creating the text snippet in search results
• Max Video Preview – Set this to control the maximum number of seconds for previews in search results
• Max Image Preview – Set this to control the maximum size of an image preview in search results.

Each of these settings applies to all content in the specific post type, taxonomy, or archive for the section you’re in. For example, if you want to set these for all Posts, then you’d go to Search Appearance » Content Types » Posts » Advanced.

Global Settings

If you want to control these meta tags globally for your entire site, then go to Search Appearance » Advanced and you’ll see the Global Robots Meta toggle.

If you want to control these meta tags for just one item of content, then check out our article on Setting the Robots Meta for Individual Content here.

For more information on these robots meta tags, please review Google’s documentation here.

However, there may be times when you want to remove this column.

Tutorial Video

Removing the AIOSEO Details Column

To remove the AIOSEO Details column, click on General Settings in the All in One SEO menu and then click on the Advanced tab.

You’ll see a setting for Taxonomy Columns and the Include All Taxonomies box should be checked.

Uncheck the Include All Taxonomies box to see a list of your taxonomies.

Uncheck the box for the taxonomy where you want to remove the All in One SEO column.

However, if you want to remove these widgets for all Administrator users on your site then we have a setting for this.

To do this, click on General Settings in the All in One SEO menu and then click on the Advanced tab.

You’ll see a setting for Dashboard Widgets.

To remove each of the Dashboard widgets, uncheck the checkbox and click Save Changes.

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