RankBotAI – AI SEO Optimizer for RankMath & Yoast

Changelog

2.0.1 — 2026-08-16

• COMPAT: Tested with WordPress 7.1. The block-editor sidebar, classic-editor toolbar and admin-bar widget were reviewed against the 7.1 iframed editor, persistent editor toolbar and updated editor components — no changes required. The plugin uses no jQuery UI, so the jQuery UI 1.14.2 update does not affect it.
• COMPAT: Minimum WordPress version raised to 6.2. The plugin uses %i table-identifier placeholders in $wpdb->prepare(), which were introduced in WordPress 6.2 — on older versions those queries silently returned nothing.
• FIX: Fatal error on PHP 7.4. The plugin declared PHP 7.4 support but called the PHP 8 functions str_contains() / str_starts_with(), which crashed the site with “Call to undefined function”. Polyfills added.
• FIX: Duplicate structured data. RankBotAI emitted its own Article/Product JSON-LD block even when Rank Math, Yoast or AIOSEO already output a full schema graph, causing “Duplicate field” warnings in Search Console. It now extends the active SEO plugin’s schema instead, and a rankbot_ai_force_schema_output filter is available to restore the old behaviour.
• SECURITY: Hardened the JSON-LD output — a title or meta description containing </script> could break out of the structured-data block and inject markup into the page head.
• SECURITY: The site-connection callback now requires a one-time state value generated by this site, so an activation link crafted by someone else can no longer silently re-bind the site to another RankBotAI account.
• FIX: A/B testing — the sticky-variant cookie was set from wp_head, i.e. after headers were already sent, so it was never actually stored and visitors were re-randomised on every pageview. The variant is now resolved on template_redirect.
• FIX: A/B testing no longer prints a second <meta name="description"> next to Rank Math / Yoast. With an SEO plugin active, the variant is applied through that plugin’s own description filter, so the test actually takes effect.
• PRIVACY: Removed the Inter / JetBrains Mono webfont request to fonts.googleapis.com. No admin IP addresses are shared with Google any more, and wp-admin loads one render-blocking request less. The UI falls back to the system font stack that the rest of the plugin already used.
• IMPROVED: API request bodies are encoded with wp_json_encode(), which sanity-checks UTF-8 — content with broken encoding no longer produces an empty request body.
• IMPROVED: Random variant selection uses wp_rand().
• DOCS: Readme rewritten — clearer positioning, expanded FAQ, and an honest statement of translation coverage (English/Ukrainian/Russian complete; German/Spanish/Polish partial).

The following fixes were rolled out on the RankBotAI service on 2026-07-31 and reached every site without a plugin update. They are listed here for the record:

• SERVICE: Optimization no longer stalls on non-automotive catalogs. A validator rule that rejected wording like “universal”, “fits any car” or “leather care” was written for auto-parts stores but was being applied to every product. On clothing, cookware or cosmetics — where “universal size” is perfectly normal copy — it rejected good output until the job hit max retries and was abandoned. The rule is now scoped to automotive context, and other niches get their own “use only the facts in the title, description and attributes” guidance.
• SERVICE: Top-ups fixed. Accounts whose payments / user_subscriptions tables predated the gateway and billing-period columns could not pay at all — every top-up failed with “Unknown column ‘billing_period’”. The missing columns are now migrated automatically.
• SERVICE: Paid models are no longer pushed into the shared dead-model cache after a transient provider error. That was the root cause of runs failing with “all free models exhausted” while the paid fallback sat disabled.
• SERVICE: Replaced the retired gemini-2.0-flash-001 model — the provider had started answering 404 “no endpoints” — with gemini-2.5-flash.

2.0.0 — 2026-06-15

• NEW: Complete “Sunset Premium” v2.0 admin redesign — Dashboard, Bulk Processing, Onboarding, Settings, History, Restore and llms.txt rebuilt on a new design system (sunset gradient, Inter + JetBrains Mono, smooth animations, glow & particle effects).
• NEW: Dashboard now features a gradient plan/balance card with particles, an SEO success-rate donut, redesigned stat tiles, a token-usage chart and a Quick Actions panel.
• NEW: Local-first history storage — optimization history is mirrored to a local table and read locally first, so dashboards, History and Backups stay instant even on sites with 40,000+ processed items. Full history is back-filled from the cloud once in the background and kept in sync, drastically reducing server load and latency.
• NEW: Taxonomy AI-optimization — optimize categories, tags and any custom taxonomy term (single and bulk), with backups and restore.
• NEW: Per-item restore in History — roll back a single post, product or term to its pre-RankBot snapshot with one click. The Restore page was rebuilt with selective, by-content-type and full-site modes.
• NEW: Free Credits hub — invite friends, share on X, review on WordPress.org or subscribe to the digest. Referral credits are granted automatically when an invited site connects; one-time growth bonuses are credited instantly (one claim per account).
• NEW: Dedicated “RankBot AI” tab inside WooCommerce Product Data — the quick-access action bar above the product title is kept as well (two entry points).
• NEW: Sunset-themed Gutenberg editor sidebar and classic-editor toolbar.
• NEW: Two-column llms.txt editor with a live terminal-style preview.
• NEW: Full Ukrainian and Russian interface translations (all UI strings) on a regenerated translation template.
• IMPROVED: Database optimization and additional indexes for faster history and stats queries.
• FIX: Category/taxonomy optimization no longer retries indefinitely (the service now accepts seo_title / seo_description / keyword result aliases).
• FIX: Resolved the “Undefined array key ‘description’” PHP warning emitted by the JSON-LD schema output on product/post pages.
• FIX: Translations now load the bundled plugin language files first, preventing a stale global .mo / .l10n.php from shadowing fresh strings.
• PERF: Added automatic retention/cleanup for backend jobs and site_operations payloads (cron) — heavy AI request/response data is pruned after 30 days, preventing database bloat.

1.6.4 — 2026-04-25

• FIX: Added hybrid stats source — API now falls back to jobs table if usage_logs is empty, fixing counter display for sites with historical data.
• IMPROVED: Backward compatibility for old sites that haven’t migrated to new usage_logs billing model yet.
• FIX: Total processed count now properly returns historical job count instead of remaining at zero.

1.6.3 — 2026-04-25

• FIX: Unified dashboard counters between plugin admin and cloud dashboard — processed and spent values now use a single source (usage_logs) to avoid mismatches.
• FIX: /api/v1/history stats no longer inflate “processed” by counting internal lifecycle events from site_operations.
• NEW: Added API stats fields for 7/30-day windows (period_7_ops, period_7_spent, period_30_ops, period_30_spent) for accurate plugin period cards.
• IMPROVED: Plugin dashboard now prefers API-provided period aggregates and does not depend on the first history page sample.
• IMPROVED: Replaced hardcoded UI version marker in Global Instructions block with dynamic plugin version.

1.6.0 — 2026-04-23

• NEW: Global instructions for AI (custom prompt) — set site-wide rules that are injected into EVERY AI generation. Useful to ban specific topics (“do not mention free shipping”), enforce disclaimers (“note that the manufacturer can change package contents”) or restrict scope (“describe only the product specified in the title — do not invent unrelated items”). Stored on the RankBotAI server, applied at prompt-build time. Max 2000 characters.
• NEW: Admin UI block on the main plugin page — connected sites get a textarea with live character counter and one-click cloud sync.
• NEW: Server endpoints GET /api/v1/site/custom-prompt and POST /api/v1/site/custom-prompt (Bearer-auth, per-site).
• NEW: Server endpoint GET /api/v1/runtime-config — exposes the active AI pool mode (paid_first / free_with_paid_fallback / free_only) and the matching dispatch profile (parallel jobs, polling cadence, stuck-job timeouts). The bulk runner can read this on the fly to scale itself up/down without a plugin update.
• NEW: Admin AI Models Pool in the cloud dashboard — three radio-card modes (PAID-FIRST, BALANCED, FREE-ONLY) with cost/speed/quality trade-off summary; per-model RPM/priority editing; one-click discovery of fresh free OpenRouter models.
• IMPROVED: Multi-key rotation — when one OpenRouter / Groq key hits its 20 RPM cap, the model is no longer blacklisted globally; another key for the same model is tried first.
• IMPROVED: Hallucination guard — global instructions are prepended as CLIENT'S MANDATORY GLOBAL INSTRUCTIONS block at the very top of the system prompt, with explicit “must override defaults” phrasing.
• FIX: Database::getInstance() typo in OpenAIService was silently falling back to default mode — pool mode and active models are now actually read from DB.
• FIX: Cache-Control header on /api/v1/runtime-config switched to no-store so mode changes propagate to WP within seconds (CDN was caching the old JSON).

1.5.0 — 2026-04-21

• NEW: Rollback All button on Bulk page — one-click restore of every post & product to its pre-RankBot state (batched processing with a modern progress bar, ETA and live items/sec stats).
• NEW: Unique focus keywords in bulk mode — AI receives the list of focus keywords already used across the site and avoids duplicates between products.
• NEW: Universal niche-agnostic prompts — the plugin now produces high-quality SEO for any store type (auto parts, adult, pharmacy, services, electronics, fashion, food, etc.) with strict anti-hallucination rules (no invented prices, no competitor brands, no placeholders, facts-only).
• NEW: Source language auto-detection — AI always writes in the same language as the original product/post content. Supported: Ukrainian, Russian, Polish, German, Spanish, English and more.
• NEW: Infinite free retry on failed generations — failed jobs are re-tried without charging extra tokens, with an anti-cycle guard that prevents the same mistake repeating across attempts.
• NEW: AIMD throttle auto-recovery — bulk dispatch concurrency automatically recovers after transient provider errors (no more “stuck at 1 parallel”).
• SPEED: Higher bulk concurrency for free OSS model — base 8 / max 12 parallel jobs (was 5 / 8). Target throughput: ~700 items/hour on healthy provider.
• SPEED: Faster AIMD ramp-up — concurrency now grows after every 1 successful tick (was 2) and shrinks by only -25% on errors (was -50%).
• SPEED: Hot-loop cron interval reduced from 5s to 2s while jobs are queued — fewer idle gaps between dispatches.
• IMPROVED: /api/v1/history endpoint up to 100× faster on warm cache (~0.27s vs ~31s) thanks to new composite indexes and 30s server-side file cache.
• IMPROVED: Output validation layer rejects hallucinated placeholders ([brand], {name}, TBD), wrong-length meta tags, and content written in the wrong language.
• IMPROVED: Purged dead and hallucinated model IDs from the free model pool; only verified working OpenRouter & Groq models remain.

1.4.3 — 2026-07-19

• NEW: Speed & ETA indicators in bulk progress bar — shows items/hr, avg time per item, and estimated time remaining
• NEW: ETA display in admin bar badge during bulk processing
• IMPROVED: Server provides timing data for accurate speed calculations across page reloads

1.4.2 — 2026-07-19

• FIX: Critical bulk processing bug — jobs were not saved to local tracking table, causing infinite retry loops
• FIX: Auto-recovery for missing local job rows — polls server to restore sync state
• FIX: Cron poll handler now recovers orphaned jobs from postmeta when local row is missing
• IMPROVED: Product optimization now sends weight, dimensions, tags, and review data to AI
• IMPROVED: AI prompt emphasizes attribute integration and specifications table
• IMPROVED: Short description generation now requires key attributes and focus keyword

1.4.1 — 2026-06-26

• NEW: Schema.org JSON-LD — automatic Article & Product structured data output in wp_head
• NEW: A/B testing for meta titles & descriptions — cookie-based variant rotation with impression tracking
• NEW: Bulk CSV export/import of SEO data (title, description, keyword, score) for all posts, pages, and products
• NEW: Gutenberg block-level SEO tips — real-time analysis of selected blocks (headings, paragraphs, images, lists)
• NEW: Referral dashboard — view referral stats, earned tokens, and share link from the web cabinet
• NEW: API rate limiting — sliding-window per-endpoint limits with 429 Retry-After responses
• NEW: Webhook delivery retry with exponential backoff (up to 3 attempts)
• NEW: Automated cache & rate-limit cleanup cron job
• Settings page: Schema.org toggle + CSV export/import card

1.4.0 — 2026-06-25

• NEW: Redesigned dashboard with 5-column stats grid, activity feed with clickable page links, and resource type bar charts
• NEW: Smart SEO Tips in editor sidebar — contextual suggestions based on on-page analysis (keyword placement, content structure, linking)
• NEW: WPML & Polylang multilingual support — automatic per-post language detection for AI optimization
• NEW: Weekly email digest reports with optimization stats, activity summary, and balance overview
• NEW: Prompt caching — avoids duplicate AI calls for identical keyword/snippet requests (24h TTL)
• NEW: Webhooks — receive POST notifications when jobs complete or fail, with HMAC-SHA256 signatures
• NEW: Referral program — earn 10 bonus credits for each referred user
• NEW: Analytics API endpoint — daily aggregated stats, action breakdowns, top optimized resources
• NEW: Top-up button integrated directly in the dashboard balance card
• NEW: Activation hero screen — beautiful onboarding page when plugin is not yet connected
• NEW: Menu items hidden until API key is activated for cleaner admin experience
• NEW: Full public REST API documentation in llms.txt
• Improved editor sidebar: SEO checklist + smart tips + H2 heading check + external link check
• Dashboard shows success rate, recent processed pages with direct links, and version number
• Settings page: weekly digest toggle in Interface section
• Various UI/UX improvements and performance optimizations

1.3.0 — 2026-03-25

• NEW: Advanced AI engine with automatic multi-model failover for maximum reliability
• NEW: Intelligent model selection — the system automatically picks the best available AI model
• NEW: Improved generation quality with enhanced prompt engineering
• NEW: Automatic retry and recovery when a model is temporarily unavailable
• Simplified plugin interface — no more manual model selection needed
• Improved bulk processing stability for large catalogs (10,000+ items)
• Updated credit system with clearer pricing
• Performance optimizations and reduced API response times
• Various bug fixes and reliability improvements

1.2.0 — 2026-02-17

• NEW: llms.txt Generator — create and manage llms.txt file for AI search engine visibility
• NEW: WordPress Dashboard Widget — SEO health overview with average score, missing meta descriptions, and keyword coverage
• NEW: SEO Checklist in post editor sidebar — real-time checks for title length, meta description, focus keyword, content length, image alt text, and internal links
• NEW: Toast notification system — beautiful slide-in notifications replacing standard WordPress notices
• NEW: CSS Design Tokens — unified design system with CSS custom properties for consistent theming
• NEW: Card entrance animations — smooth fade-in animations for dashboard and bulk page elements
• UI: Modernized visual appearance across all admin pages
• Various code quality improvements

1.1.0 — 2026-02-16

• Added SEO plugin detection — recommends installing Rank Math or Yoast SEO if not present
• Improved compatibility with Rank Math and Yoast SEO field handling
• Enhanced plugin stability and error handling
• Updated AI model pricing and availability
• Improved bulk processing reliability with adaptive concurrency
• Added comparison data for SEO specialist vs AI optimization
• Extended plugin description and FAQ
• Version synchronization fix (header and constant now match)
• Various bug fixes and performance improvements

1.0.1 — 2026-02-10

• Minor stability improvements.

1.0.0 — 2026-02-01

• Initial release.