How to Switch from Yoast SEO to Prime SEO Without Losing Your Data

Yoast SEO has been the default WordPress SEO plugin for over a decade. It taught millions of site owners what meta descriptions are. It deserves credit for that.

But defaults change. And if you've been using Yoast recently, you've probably noticed the pattern: features that were free are moving behind a $99/year paywall, admin notices keep pushing Premium, and the plugin has grown heavier with each update. Meanwhile, AI search is reshaping how people find information -- and Yoast has no tools for it.

This guide covers exactly how to switch from Yoast SEO to Prime SEO, what gets migrated, what doesn't, and why your rankings won't drop.

Why people are switching

Three reasons keep coming up:

Features behind paywalls. Redirects, 404 monitoring, IndexNow, and Image SEO -- all Premium-only in Yoast ($99/year). Prime SEO includes all of these in its free version.

AI search readiness. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude are sending real traffic to websites. Yoast has no llms.txt support, no AI crawler management, and no tools for this new category of search. Prime SEO was built for it.

Simplicity. Yoast's settings have become sprawling. Multiple submenus, dozens of toggles, constant upsell banners. Prime SEO puts everything on fewer screens with a cleaner interface.

There are good reasons to stay on Yoast too -- the massive knowledge base, years of stability, and deep community support. This isn't about Yoast being bad. It's about whether a different plugin fits your needs better in 2026.

What gets migrated

Prime SEO's migration tool reads Yoast's database entries and copies them into Prime SEO's format. Here's exactly what transfers:

Post-level SEO data

For every post, page, and custom post type on your site:

• SEO Title (_yoast_wpseo_title) -- including Yoast's template variables, which are automatically converted to Prime SEO's format (e.g., %%title%% %%sep%% %%sitename%% becomes {title} {separator} {site_title})
• Meta Description (_yoast_wpseo_metadesc)
• Focus Keyword (_yoast_wpseo_focuskw) -- including additional keywords from Yoast Premium
• Canonical URL (_yoast_wpseo_canonical)
• Robots meta -- noindex, nofollow, noarchive, nosnippet, noimageindex directives
• Open Graph -- OG title, description, and image
• Twitter Card -- Twitter title, description, and image
• Schema type -- page type and article type settings
• Primary category selection
• Cornerstone content flag
• Breadcrumb title override

Site-level settings

• Knowledge Graph -- site representation (Organization or Person), company name, email, phone, and person name
• Social profiles -- Facebook page, Twitter handle, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest URLs
• Breadcrumbs settings -- separator character, home label, and prefix text

What does NOT migrate

A few things don't transfer because they work differently between plugins:

• Yoast Premium redirects -- these are stored in a separate table (wp_yoast_seo_redirects). Prime SEO detects them and shows the count, but the migration tool imports them only if the table exists and contains data.
• Internal linking suggestions -- this is a Yoast-specific feature with no direct equivalent.
• Content analysis scores -- Prime SEO recalculates these using its own analysis engine. Your scores may differ slightly because the algorithms are different.
• Yoast SEO configuration (global settings like title templates for archives, taxonomies) -- these are plugin-specific and need to be set up in Prime SEO's Settings page.

Step-by-step migration

The entire process takes about 2 minutes. No coding, no file editing, no command line.

Step 1: Install Prime SEO

Go to Plugins > Add New in your WordPress dashboard. Search for "Prime SEO" and click Install Now, then Activate.

The Setup Wizard will appear. You can either complete it (recommended for new setups) or skip it and go directly to the migration tool.

Step 2: Open the Migration Tool

Go to Prime SEO > Migration in the admin sidebar.

The migration page automatically detects Yoast SEO. You'll see a card showing:

• Yoast SEO's name and status (active or inactive -- data can be imported either way)
• Number of posts with SEO data
• Number of redirects (if Yoast Premium)

Step 3: Preview the import

Click Preview to see exactly what will be imported before anything changes. The preview shows:

• Total posts that will be affected
• Sample data from the first few posts (original Yoast values and how they'll appear in Prime SEO)
• Any template variables that will be converted

Review this carefully. Make sure the variable conversions look correct -- for example, %%title%% | %%sitename%% should become {title} | {site_title}.

Step 4: Run the migration

Click Start Migration. The tool processes each post and copies the SEO data. A progress bar shows how many posts have been processed.

The migration tool creates an automatic backup before it starts. If anything goes wrong, your original data is preserved.

When it finishes, you'll see a summary:

• Posts imported: X
• Settings imported: X
• Redirects imported: X (if applicable)
• Errors: X (if any)

Step 5: Verify your data

Open 3-5 of your most important posts and check the Prime SEO metabox. Verify that:

• SEO title matches what Yoast had (or the converted template)
• Meta description is intact
• Focus keyword transferred
• Open Graph title and description are correct
• Robots settings (noindex/nofollow) are correct

Also check your homepage -- go to Prime SEO > Dashboard and verify the Homepage SEO settings.

Step 6: Deactivate Yoast

Once you've verified the data looks correct, go to Plugins and deactivate Yoast SEO. Don't delete it yet -- keep it deactivated for a week or two as a safety net. If you need to rollback, you can reactivate Yoast and deactivate Prime SEO.

After you're confident everything is working, you can delete Yoast SEO entirely.

Before and after: what changes, what stays the same

What stays exactly the same

• Your URLs -- Prime SEO does not change permalinks, slugs, or any URL structure
• Your content -- no post content, titles, or excerpts are modified
• Your SEO data in the database -- Yoast's meta keys remain in the database even after migration. Prime SEO copies data; it doesn't move or delete it
• Your Google Search Console -- no resubmission needed
• Your sitemap URL -- Prime SEO serves its sitemap at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml, the same location Yoast uses

What changes

• The metabox in your post editor -- you'll see Prime SEO's tabbed interface instead of Yoast's. The data is the same; the UI is different
• Admin menu -- Yoast's "Yoast SEO" menu is replaced by "Prime SEO"
• Schema output -- the JSON-LD markup in your source code will use Prime SEO's format. The schema types and data are equivalent, but the exact JSON structure differs
• Robots.txt -- if Yoast was adding rules to your virtual robots.txt, you'll need to add them in Prime SEO's Robots.txt Editor
• SEO analysis scores -- Prime SEO uses its own 0-100 scoring system. A post that scored 80/100 in Yoast might score differently in Prime SEO because the analysis criteria are not identical

What you gain

After switching, you'll have access to features that Yoast either charges for or doesn't offer:

• LLMs.txt and AI Bots Manager -- control how AI search engines see your site
• Redirect Manager -- create 301/302/307/410/451 redirects without paying for Premium
• 404 Monitor -- track broken links and convert them to redirects in one click
• Image SEO -- auto-generate ALT and TITLE attributes for images
• Instant Indexing -- submit URLs to IndexNow directly from your dashboard
• AI Crawler Stats -- see which AI bots visit your site

Common concerns

"Will I lose my Google rankings?"

No. Your rankings depend on your content, backlinks, site speed, and user experience -- not which SEO plugin generates the meta tags. As long as the SEO titles, descriptions, and schema output remain equivalent (which the migration ensures), Google sees no meaningful change.

Some site owners report a brief fluctuation (1-3 days) after switching any SEO plugin. This is usually caused by Google re-crawling pages with slightly different schema markup. Rankings typically stabilize within a week.

"What about my schema markup?"

Prime SEO generates equivalent schema types. If Yoast was outputting Article schema for your blog posts, Prime SEO does the same. The JSON-LD structure may differ slightly in formatting, but the structured data types and properties are the same.

After migration, run your key pages through Google's Rich Results Test to confirm everything validates correctly.

"I use Yoast Premium features. Can Prime SEO replace them?"

Here's the feature-by-feature comparison:

Yoast Premium ($99/yr)	Prime SEO (Free)
Redirect Manager	Redirect Manager (included)
404 Monitoring	404 Monitor (included)
IndexNow	Instant Indexing (included)
AI Generate (2 fields)	-- (Pro: 6 fields + keywords)
Internal Linking	--
Cornerstone Content	Cornerstone Content (included)
No ads	No ads

The one Yoast Premium feature Prime SEO doesn't replicate is the Internal Linking Suggestions tool. If that feature is critical to your workflow, it's worth noting.

For a deeper comparison across all five major SEO plugins, see our full plugin comparison.

"Can I go back to Yoast if I don't like Prime SEO?"

Yes. The migration copies data -- it doesn't delete Yoast's original meta keys from your database. If you reactivate Yoast and deactivate Prime SEO, everything goes back to how it was. No data is lost in either direction.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does the migration take?

For most sites, under 2 minutes. The migration tool processes posts in batches, so even sites with 500+ posts complete quickly. Sites with thousands of posts may take a few minutes longer, but there's a progress bar to track it.

Do I need to keep Yoast installed during migration?

No. Prime SEO reads Yoast's data directly from the WordPress database (post meta and options). Yoast can be active, inactive, or even deleted -- as long as the data exists in the database, the migration tool can import it.

Will my Open Graph images transfer?

Yes. The migration tool copies Yoast's OG image URLs and image IDs to Prime SEO's meta fields. Your social sharing previews on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn will look the same after migration.

Does the migration handle Yoast's template variables?

Yes. Yoast uses %%variable%% syntax for template variables (e.g., %%title%% %%sep%% %%sitename%%). Prime SEO automatically converts these to its own {variable} format during migration. Over 30 variable types are mapped, including title, site name, separator, date, author, category, excerpt, and more. See the full migration documentation.