Should I turn off plugin auto-updates on client sites?

It's a trade-off between security patches and unexpected changes. A common approach is to leave minor core updates on (WordPress has applied them automatically since version 3.7), auto-update plugins with a good track record, and test major plugin and theme releases on staging first. Whatever you choose, something should check the SEO output after updates run.

How can I check the Discourage search engines setting without logging in to wp-admin?

View the page source and look for a robots meta tag containing noindex. If you have server access, WP-CLI shows it directly: wp option get blog_public returns 0 when search engines are discouraged and 1 when they aren't.

Why does wp-sitemap.xml redirect to sitemap_index.xml on some sites?

WordPress core has generated its own sitemap at wp-sitemap.xml since version 5.5. SEO plugins such as Yoast and Rank Math disable it and serve their own, and Yoast redirects the core URL to sitemap_index.xml. If you submitted the core sitemap to Search Console before installing the plugin, replace it with the plugin's.

How much does Deltio cost?

Starter is £24 / €29 / $31 a month, or £20 / €24 / $26 a month billed annually, for up to 50 sites and 5,000 URLs. Professional is £49 / €59 / $64 a month (£41 / €49 / $53 annually) for up to 200 sites, and Enterprise is £119 / €139 / $149 a month (£99 / €116 / $124 annually) for up to 500 sites. All plans include a 14-day free trial.

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How to Monitor a WordPress Site for SEO Changes

To monitor a WordPress site for SEO changes, record the settings that plugins, themes and updates can rewrite, then compare them with the live site on a regular schedule: the noindex state, canonical tags, title and meta description output, robots.txt, and the analytics tags a plugin injects. On WordPress most SEO regressions arrive through an update or a settings change rather than a content edit, so nobody opens a ticket.

Since WordPress 5.5, plugins and themes can be set to update automatically from the Plugins screen, and managed hosts often run updates on their own schedule. The front end looks the same afterwards. What changes is the markup that only crawlers read.

Five places WordPress changes SEO without anyone editing a page

The Reading setting

Settings > Reading has a "Search engine visibility" checkbox labelled "Discourage search engines from indexing this site". When it's ticked, WordPress adds a robots meta tag with noindex to every page. Since version 5.3 it does this through the meta tag rather than a Disallow in the virtual robots.txt, so checking robots.txt alone won't reveal it. The box is usually ticked on staging, and it travels to production whenever the database does.

SEO plugin settings

Yoast SEO, Rank Math and All in One SEO generate titles, meta descriptions, canonicals and robots meta from templates. In Yoast, every content type and taxonomy has a "Show in search results" switch, and turning one off noindexes every URL of that type. A plugin reset, an import from a different SEO plugin or an edited title template changes a whole post type in one go.

Themes

WordPress only outputs the <title> itself when the theme declares add_theme_support( 'title-tag' ). A theme that doesn't, or a child theme with a hardcoded <title>, can produce generic or duplicated titles. Switching themes can also change which element is the H1, for example a logo wrapped in <h1> on every page.

Caching and optimisation plugins

Page caching can keep serving old HTML after an SEO setting has changed, and logged-in administrators usually bypass the cache, so what you see in the browser may not be what Googlebot receives. Minification and "delay JavaScript" options can also break or postpone tag scripts. Verify in a private window or with curl.

robots.txt and tag plugins

When there's no physical robots.txt file in the web root, WordPress serves a virtual one, and SEO plugins can edit it (Yoast under Tools > File editor, Rank Math under General Settings > Edit robots.txt). A change there leaves no file on the server to compare. GA4 or GTM added through a plugin such as Site Kit by Google disappears the moment that plugin is deactivated.

Monitoring WordPress from outside the site

Opening view-source on 30 client sites after every update cycle doesn't last long. What works is a baseline and a comparison: record the correct state once, then get told when it changes. The broader pattern is described in website code change monitoring, and the indexing case in how to catch a noindex in production.

Deltio does this without a plugin. It reads the sitemap (Yoast's sitemap_index.xml, Rank Math's, or core's wp-sitemap.xml) and the pages in it on a daily cycle, so nothing is installed in wp-admin and a plugin conflict can't switch the monitoring off. When the noindex state, a canonical, robots.txt, the title, meta description or H1 differs from the previous check, or GA4, GTM or the Meta Pixel is no longer on the page, it alerts on Slack and email for that site. It also flags pages replaced by a maintenance screen, which on WordPress can mean an update failed and left the "Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance" notice in place.

It isn't an on-demand crawler like Screaming Frog, and it doesn't measure page speed. Being daily, it reports a bad update the next day rather than the next minute. If you want to set a baseline before your clients' next update cycle, there's a 14-day free trial.

Frequently asked questions

Should I turn off plugin auto-updates on client sites?: It's a trade-off between security patches and unexpected changes. A common approach is to leave minor core updates on (WordPress has applied them automatically since version 3.7), auto-update plugins with a good track record, and test major plugin and theme releases on staging first. Whatever you choose, something should check the SEO output after updates run.
How can I check the Discourage search engines setting without logging in to wp-admin?: View the page source and look for a robots meta tag containing noindex. If you have server access, WP-CLI shows it directly: wp option get blog_public returns 0 when search engines are discouraged and 1 when they aren't.
Why does wp-sitemap.xml redirect to sitemap_index.xml on some sites?: WordPress core has generated its own sitemap at wp-sitemap.xml since version 5.5. SEO plugins such as Yoast and Rank Math disable it and serve their own, and Yoast redirects the core URL to sitemap_index.xml. If you submitted the core sitemap to Search Console before installing the plugin, replace it with the plugin's.
How much does Deltio cost?: Starter is £24 / €29 / $31 a month, or £20 / €24 / $26 a month billed annually, for up to 50 sites and 5,000 URLs. Professional is £49 / €59 / $64 a month (£41 / €49 / $53 annually) for up to 200 sites, and Enterprise is £119 / €139 / $149 a month (£99 / €116 / $124 annually) for up to 500 sites. All plans include a 14-day free trial.