How WordPress All in One SEO Plugin causing Troubles to Website Operation?

As per the user reports, WordPress All in One SEO plugin was designed for the purpose to improve the website performance. But it unnecessary turned on automatic updates. The auto updates overlapped with a renowned major upgrade which later caused different websites to experience outages and other unintentional behavior.

Major Troubles caused by All in One SEO Plugin

1. Automatic Updates without Approval

Automatic update is an important feature of the WordPress CMS development allowing plugins to update automatically without approval from the website admin. The actual process is that this is something that a website admin opts into it.

Some admin prefer backup their WordPress installations before making an update. If something goes wrong they can roll it back to the earlier state. With by default updates it becomes easy to save a backup before the update happens. A bad update is a major concern that becomes tough without a proper backup.

That’s why it was surprising when a member of the WordPress Facebook group commenced a discussion about how All in One SEO turned on automatic updates without proper notification beyond what was in the changelog.

2. Multiple All in One SEO Updates

All in One SEO recently updated from version 3.7 to a new 4.X version on November 14, 2020. This was a wobbly start because a second update to 4.01 followed on the same day to resolve a database issue. That was quite challenging for the WordPress Developer to manage as they were facing update issues.

From November 14th through December 2020, the All in One SEO plugin released over twelve updates to address multiple issues, seemingly dozens of bugs. To put that into consideration, as per the Yoast SEO plugin changelog, the Yoast SEO published merely three updates within that same one month time period.

These are bug fixes from just one update:

1. Fixed: Bug that stopped editors and authors from modifying SEO titles as well as descriptions.

2. Fixed: TruSEO support in the classic editor URL not completely working on long URLs.

3. Fixed: Problem where the closing head tag did not always display.

4. Fixed: Trouble on websites where the title tag would eliminate a $ and any numbers after it.

5. Fixed: PHP error regarding missing array during the migration.

6. Fixed: Trouble where AIOSEO would not clear the trailing from canonical URLs.

7. Fixed: Error where notices would appear in the log when planning to access the log file.

8. Fixed: Conflict with WP Shop plugin

But it’s the update from December that actually introduced the unilateral automatic update. That’s the only update mentioned in the changelog that tells about auto update but it’s somewhat different.

Wrapping Up:

Automatic updates make sense for publishers with websites that aren’t actually complex. That said backing up a website is a sensible step to implement before updating. Many people believe that WordPress Web Development Company should have the choice to opt-in to auto updates. The publishers of All in One SEO have regretted and stated that they are taking off the automatic updates feature.