Aegisify SEO User Guide
About this guide
This document is a consolidated, product-grade user guide for Aegisify SEO. It is written for WordPress administrators who want clear, repeatable workflows for improving on-page SEO, technical SEO, schema/structured data, internal linking, XML sitemaps, AI-discoverability artifacts, and index acceleration—without guessing which settings matter.
This guide is maintained as an active, continuously improved resource. As Aegisify SEO evolves, new capabilities, interface refinements, and optimization recommendations may be introduced. To ensure accuracy and reliability, instructions, definitions, and screenshots may be updated periodically. Always refer to the latest version of this guide for the most up-to-date information and recommended workflows.
Audience and scope
Who this is for
- Site owners and administrators responsible for SEO settings, indexing, and search visibility.
- Marketing/SEO teams who need consistent metadata and evidence of results.
- Developers who want predictable output and safe controls (schema, robots, redirects, injections).
What this guide covers
- Where each Aegisify SEO feature lives in wp-admin and what it does.
- Recommended setup order (wizard → meta/schema → sitemap → indexing → issues → linking → evidence).
- How to run the Migration Wizard to import from other SEO plugins.
- How to operate the SEO Ops Center for ongoing monitoring and prioritized improvements.
- How to use IndexNow and Google Indexing API to accelerate discovery where applicable.
- How to connect Google Search Console and interpret performance signals inside WordPress.
- How to generate and maintain AI SEO artifacts (
llm.txt,ai-index.json,sitemap-ai.xml, and optional docs/specs folders) safely.
Safety, limitations, and responsibilities
You are responsible for your content and site policies. Aegisify SEO helps you configure and output SEO artifacts, but you must ensure titles, descriptions, injected scripts, automation, and AI-discoverability outputs align with your privacy policy, legal requirements, and business strategy.
Make changes deliberately. Metadata, schema, robots directives, redirects, and indexing automation affect crawl/index behavior. Use staged rollout (test → confirm output → expand).
Recommended: change one area at a time (Meta & Schema → Sitemap → Indexing → Redirects/Robots → AI SEO), then validate.
Injections are powerful. Head/Footer injections can run scripts site-wide. Keep them minimal, paste only trusted snippets, and prefer verification fields when available.
Only administrators should manage Custom Injections.
Automation should be “safe by design.” Autopilot features should be enabled intentionally and monitored. Indexing APIs can fail due to permissions; treat errors as signals to fix configuration.
Recommended: enable automation in layers and verify results.
What Aegisify SEO does NOT do
- It does not guarantee rankings—search visibility depends on content quality, competition, authority, and crawl/indexing behavior.
- It does not replace performance or security plugins—technical site health still matters.
- It does not automatically rewrite your content unless you explicitly enable automation features designed for that purpose.
Core concepts
How Aegisify SEO is organized
Aegisify SEO groups features into a few operational areas:
- Setup & Baseline — Setup Wizard and safe defaults establish a clean starting point.
- Metadata & Schema — titles/descriptions/social cards and structured data output.
- Discovery — XML Sitemaps (traditional) and AI SEO artifacts (LLM discovery).
- Indexing & Evidence — IndexNow, Google Indexing API, Search Console, Rank Tracking, and Evidence timelines.
- Operations — Issues & Fixes, SEO Ops Center, Redirects, 404 Monitor, diagnostics and maintenance actions.
- Growth & Structure — Linking Assistant and Local SEO.
- Admin Utilities — Tools, Custom Injections, License, and Migration utilities.
Evidence-based SEO
Aegisify SEO emphasizes proof: changes are most useful when you can connect them to outcomes (impressions/clicks/CTR/position). Evidence + Search Console + rank tracking helps you make decisions based on data rather than guesses.
Competitive advantage: Aegisify SEO is built as an “SEO operations system,” not just a metadata editor. Index acceleration + issue scanning + evidence loops are what separate an ecosystem from a simple plugin.
Quick start paths
Path A — New site (recommended order)
- Setup Wizard: set publisher type, name, logo, and social profiles.
- Meta & Schema: set title separator + templates; configure social defaults; confirm schema basics.
- Sitemap: enable sitemap, choose included post types/taxonomies, add sitemap to
robots.txt. - Indexing: enable IndexNow (recommended), then configure Google Indexing API if your site qualifies and you want API-driven submission.
- Search Console + Rank Tracker: connect, select the correct property, validate permissions, then track outcomes.
- Issues & Fixes: resolve high-impact issues first (noindex mistakes, missing titles/descriptions, orphaned pages, broken links).
- Linking Assistant: strengthen internal structure and reduce orphaned content.
- Evidence: annotate major changes and measure results.
Path B — Switching from another SEO plugin
- Install Aegisify SEO and complete the Setup Wizard.
- Run Migration Wizard to import titles/meta/social/robots (safe to re-run; fills empty fields).
- Verify output on a few representative pages (home, a post, a page, an archive).
- Enable Sitemap and verify sitemap URLs load correctly.
- Enable IndexNow and verify a successful ping on publish/update.
- Use Issues & Fixes to catch leftovers or gaps from migration.
Path C — Fast indexing workflow (recommended for growth)
- Enable IndexNow (Bing/IndexNow ecosystem) and confirm the key file/endpoint exists.
- Configure Google Search Console connection for reporting and performance signals.
- Optionally configure Google Indexing API if you want API-based submission and your use case qualifies.
- Use Rank Tracker and Evidence to validate outcomes.
Path D — AI discoverability (LLM discovery artifacts)
- Go to AI SEO and leave Privacy Mode and Public URL Sanitization Mode ON.
- Choose what to include (plugins and/or post types). If you only want root discovery files, select nothing.
- Save settings and run a Manual Update once.
- Verify outputs exist at the site root and optional folders (docs/specs/ai-docs) only if selected.
Features
Tip: Aegisify SEO is designed to be usable in layers. Start with baseline settings (wizard/meta/sitemap), then enable indexing (IndexNow/GSC), then move into operations (issues/ops/evidence), and finally enable advanced capabilities (redirects/injections/AI SEO) as needed.
Install & Activate
Install
- In wp-admin, go to Plugins → Add New.
- Upload the Aegisify SEO ZIP (or install from your distribution method).
- Click Activate.
Confirm the plugin is running
- You should see the Aegisify SEO menu item in the left sidebar.
- Open Aegisify SEO → Setup Wizard to confirm admin UI loads.
Setup Wizard
The Setup Wizard guides you through essential first-time configuration: site identity, schema foundation, logos, and social profiles. Completing it establishes consistent baseline signals (titles, structured data, brand) and reduces setup mistakes.
What you configure
| Setting | What it controls | Guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher Type (Organization/Person) | How your site identifies itself to search engines for schema and brand signals. | Choose Organization for companies/brands; choose Person for personal sites/portfolios. |
| Name | Organization name or person name used in schema and defaults. | Use your real brand name; keep consistent with external profiles. |
| Logo | Logo used for structured data and social defaults. | Use a square or near-square image with sufficient resolution. |
| Social Profiles | Links to official profiles that strengthen entity signals. | Include only official profiles you control. |
Migration Wizard
The Migration Wizard imports titles, meta descriptions, canonical URLs, robots (noindex/nofollow), and social metadata from popular SEO plugins. It is designed to be safe to re-run by only filling fields that are currently empty.
Important: Migration changes what your site outputs to crawlers. After migration, validate key pages and then confirm your sitemaps and indexing workflows work correctly.
Meta & Schema
This tab consolidates site-wide SEO behavior, social meta, and schema under one umbrella. It is divided into three subtabs:
- Global — title separator, content scope, and title/description templates.
- Social — Open Graph + Twitter Cards defaults.
- Schema — structured data/publisher foundations and default mapping.
Meta & Schema → Global
Global controls define consistent metadata output across your site.
| Setting | What it controls | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Title Separator | The character(s) between title parts (e.g., “Page Title | Site Name”). | Choose one separator and keep it consistent for branding. |
| Content Scope Mode | How Aegisify SEO decides which post types are governed by templates. | Use Smart for typical sites; use Include only to explicitly target types. |
| Include Post Types | Manual list of post types to include in scope. | Comma-separated list (e.g., post,page,product). |
| Exclude Post Types | Manual list of post types to exclude from scope. | Use for internal/private types you never want indexed. |
| Home Title Template | Default title template for the homepage. | Keep short, branded, and aligned with your primary intent. |
| Home Meta Description Template | Default home description template. | Explain what you do; avoid keyword stuffing. |
| Post Title Template | Default post titles. | Use predictable structure that reads naturally. |
| Post Meta Description Template | Default post descriptions. | Prefer unique descriptions; templates are a fallback. |
| Page Title Template | Default page titles. | Keep consistent across key landing pages. |
| Page Meta Description Template | Default page descriptions. | Use as baseline; override on critical pages. |
| Archive Title Template | Category/tag/archive titles. | Ensure archives are readable and not duplicate-heavy. |
Meta & Schema → Social
Social settings control how content appears when shared on Facebook, X (Twitter), and other platforms.
Meta & Schema → Schema
The Schema subtab manages structured data foundations (publisher identity, logo) and defaults by post type. Aegisify SEO also supports advanced schema extensions such as breadcrumbs, local SEO signals, and event-related schema where applicable.
Sitemap
The Sitemap tab controls XML sitemap generation and discovery behavior. You can choose what content types are included and optionally ping search engines when content changes.
Validate your sitemap
- Open the sitemap URL in a browser (should load, not 404).
- If you use a sitemap index, click into a child sitemap.
- Confirm newly published content appears after publish.
- Submit the sitemap URL to Google Search Console (recommended).
AI SEO (LLM Discovery)
AI SEO generates AI discovery artifacts that help LLM crawlers inventory and understand your products and site content. This is separate from XML Sitemaps (traditional search engines).
Outputs generated
- Site root:
/llm.txt,/ai.txt,/ai-index.json,/sitemap-ai.xml - Optional folders (created only when you include sources):
/docs/— public docs/index.html /specs/— machine-readable specs/aegisify.json /ai-docs/— markdown documentation/documentation.md
Safety & privacy toggles (recommended ON)
- Privacy Mode: hides sensitive implementation details in generated files (plugin versions, file paths, routes, cron hooks). Outputs only high-level names and docs URLs (when enabled).
- Public URL Sanitization Mode: removes query strings from public URLs and limits inventory to published content. Media attachments are excluded unless explicitly selected.
Linking Assistant
The Linking Assistant and Smart Links tooling can suggest and apply internal links based on keyword relevance and your configured rules. This helps reduce orphaned pages, strengthen topical clusters, and improve navigation.
Best practice: internal linking is most effective when it matches user intent and reading flow. Favor clarity over volume.
Automation & Autopilot
Aegisify SEO supports automation features designed to reduce repetitive SEO work and keep metadata consistent at scale. Automation is intentionally designed to be safe-by-default: it should fill gaps and improve consistency without unexpectedly overwriting intentional editorial choices.
Autopilot (when enabled)
- Fill missing metadata: generate a sensible title/description when fields are empty.
- Maintain consistency: apply global templates for posts/pages/archives where configured.
- Trigger discovery updates: when paired with IndexNow and sitemap pinging, content changes can be broadcast more quickly.
Automation caution: Enable Autopilot after you’ve set your templates and verified output on representative pages (home, a post, a page). Avoid turning on automation before your baseline strategy is defined.
AI Refresh (scheduled maintenance)
Aegisify SEO can run a daily maintenance routine that checks for missing titles/descriptions and fills them using rules and templates. This keeps large sites from drifting into “missing meta” states after bulk imports, migrations, or multi-author publishing.
If you later add true LLM-based writing assistance, this section can be expanded to document “AI-generated” enhancements distinctly from template-based fill.
Indexing & Search Console
Indexing features help search engines discover updated URLs faster. Aegisify SEO supports multiple discovery channels:
- XML Sitemap (traditional crawl discovery)
- IndexNow (fast URL submission for IndexNow ecosystem)
- Google Indexing API (API-based submission where applicable)
- Google Search Console (verification + performance signals inside WordPress)
IndexNow
IndexNow is designed for rapid URL submission on publish/update/delete. When enabled, Aegisify SEO can automatically submit changed URLs and maintain the required key/endpoint behavior.
- Recommended for: most sites wanting faster discovery in the IndexNow ecosystem.
- Best practice: confirm you see successful ping status after publishing or updating a page.
Google Indexing API
Google Indexing API submission can be configured for controlled, API-based URL notification. It is strict about permissions and ownership.
Permission note (HTTP 403): If you see “User does not have sufficient permission for site …”, the Google account (or service account) being used does not have access to the exact Search Console property you are calling. Ensure the correct property exists (https://example.com/ vs https://www.example.com/ vs sc-domain:example.com) and grant sufficient permissions, then reconnect.
Google Search Console (GSC)
The Search Console tab connects Aegisify SEO to Google Search Console so you can view performance metrics inside WordPress: impressions, clicks, CTR, and average position.
Typical uses
- Identify pages gaining impressions but low clicks (improve titles/meta for CTR).
- Detect sudden drops after changes (validate robots/sitemap/canonicals).
- Find queries bringing traffic to a page (align content to intent and internal links).
Rank Tracker
Rank Tracker uses Search Console query signals to track keyword performance over time. Use it to prioritize pages and topics that are close to page-one performance or have high impressions but low CTR.
SEO Ops Center, Issues, Redirects & 404 Monitor
SEO Ops Center
The SEO Ops Center is a command hub that centralizes issues, fixes, automation suggestions, and evidence into one operational view so you can move from insight to action quickly.
Issues & Fixes
The Issues & Fixes tab proactively identifies SEO problems and provides explanations and, when available, guarded fixes.
- Indexing blockers: incorrect noindex, robots contradictions, canonical mistakes.
- Metadata quality: missing titles/descriptions, duplicates across many pages.
- Structure: orphaned pages, weak internal linking opportunities.
- Hygiene: broken links (where detection is enabled), redirect opportunities.
Redirects
The Redirects tab helps you preserve rankings and user experience when URLs change. Redirects are essential after migrations, permalink changes, slug updates, and content consolidation.
404 Monitor
The 404 Monitor captures not-found URLs so you can quickly convert real user/crawler errors into redirects or repairs. This is one of the highest ROI technical SEO features on active sites.
Ops best practice: treat 404s as an inbox. Review weekly, fix the most frequent URLs, and maintain a redirect hygiene standard after every release or restructure.
Evidence
The Evidence tab connects SEO events (changes you made) with Search Console data to show before-and-after performance and annotated timelines. This turns SEO into an evidence-based workflow.
Operational checklists
Weekly SEO operations
- Open SEO Ops Center and review high-impact issues.
- Review Issues & Fixes and resolve indexing blockers first.
- Check 404 Monitor and convert high-frequency errors into redirects.
- Check Search Console and Rank Tracker for anomalies and opportunity pages.
- Apply a small set of improvements; avoid changing everything at once.
Monthly SEO reporting
- Use Evidence to correlate changes with outcomes.
- Export or summarize key pages and queries improved.
- Re-evaluate title templates and top landing pages based on CTR.
After major site changes (theme, migration, restructuring)
- Verify your XML Sitemap loads and includes expected content types.
- Confirm Meta & Schema output on representative pages.
- Confirm IndexNow and indexing submission statuses behave as expected.
- Review Redirects and 404 Monitor if you changed URLs.
- Run a targeted Issues review to catch regressions.
AI SEO maintenance
- Keep Privacy Mode and Public URL Sanitization Mode ON unless you have a specific, approved reason to change them.
- After enabling new plugins or post types you want documented, update AI SEO include lists and run a manual update once.
- If you do not want extra folders on the site root, leave include lists empty.
Troubleshooting
My sitemap returns 404
- Confirm Sitemap is enabled and the displayed URL is correct.
- Check that rewrite rules are flushed (typically by visiting Settings → Permalinks and saving).
- Ensure another plugin is not intercepting the same sitemap route.
IndexNow ping fails
- Confirm IndexNow is enabled and your IndexNow key is configured correctly.
- Verify your site can make outbound HTTP requests (host firewall / security plugin / WAF rules).
- Check plugin logs/status fields for the last ping response.
Google Indexing API / Search Console returns HTTP 403 “insufficient permission”
- Confirm the exact property exists in Search Console (URL-prefix vs domain property).
- Confirm the connecting Google identity has permission on that property (Full/Owner).
- If using a service account, add the service account email as an owner, then reconnect.
- Disconnect/reconnect the integration to refresh tokens after permission changes.
Search Console shows no data
- Confirm the site is verified in Google Search Console and that you connected the correct property.
- Remember Search Console data is delayed; recent changes may not appear immediately.
AI SEO outputs are missing
- Run AI SEO → Manual Update and check the last error value.
- If you only want root discovery files, ensure include lists can be empty (no folders should be created).
- Confirm file permissions allow writing to the site root (for
llm.txt,ai-index.json, etc.).
Custom injections are not appearing
- Confirm Enable Custom Injections is ON.
- Verify your snippet is valid HTML/JSON-LD.
- Check for caching layers that may need a purge.
Glossary
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Metadata | Title tags and meta descriptions that influence how pages appear in search results. |
| Open Graph | Social sharing tags used by platforms like Facebook for rich previews. |
| Twitter Cards | Social sharing tags used by X (Twitter) for rich previews. |
| Schema / Structured Data | Machine-readable markup (often JSON-LD) that helps search engines understand content. |
| XML Sitemap | A structured list of URLs that helps search engines crawl and discover content. |
| IndexNow | A protocol for submitting updated URLs quickly to participating search engines. |
| Google Indexing API | API-based submission for notifying Google of updated URLs (use-case dependent and permission-based). |
| Google Search Console (GSC) | Google’s platform for site verification and performance signals (clicks, impressions, CTR, position). |
| Rank Tracker | Aegisify SEO’s keyword/query monitoring based on Search Console data. |
| LLM Discovery Files | AI-focused inventory files (e.g., llm.txt, ai-index.json) that help AI crawlers understand site content/products. |
| Robots directives | Signals like noindex/nofollow that control indexing and crawling behavior. |
| CTR | Click-through rate: clicks divided by impressions, a measure of snippet effectiveness. |
| Canonical | A preferred URL that helps prevent duplicate content signals. |
| 404 Monitor | A system to capture not-found URLs so you can repair or redirect them quickly. |
| Redirect | A rule that forwards one URL to another (commonly 301) to preserve traffic and rankings after URL changes. |