SEO Read More Buttons
This plugin is retired. It is no longer maintained and its WordPress.org listing is being closed.
Nothing breaks in the meantime: the plugin keeps working on the sites that have it, and deactivating it is safe. It stores no per-post data and changes nothing permanently, so the moment you deactivate it your theme prints its own read more links again, exactly as it did before.
What to do
- Deactivate the plugin. Your theme's read more links come back on their own.
- If you want to remove it for good, delete it. Version 1.0.5 cleans up after itself: its settings and admin flags are removed from the database on delete.
- If you were using it for SEO, have a look at Visibility, the AyudaWP plugin where that work continues: meta tags, Open Graph, JSON-LD schema, robots directives, redirects and native sitemap control.
What moves to Visibility, and what does not
The idea worth keeping from this plugin is the accessible read more link: a link
that says what it points to, instead of repeating "Read more" hundreds of times
across your archives. That gives screen readers a meaningful description and search
engines a meaningful anchor text. A server-side version of it, built on the native
excerpt_more and the_content_more_link filters, is planned for a future
Visibility release.
The button conversion itself is not carried over, on purpose:
- A control that takes you to a URL should stay a link. Turning it into a button loses middle-click, Ctrl+click to open in a new tab, "copy link address" and the status bar preview, and screen reader users expect a link when the action is navigation.
- It ran in the browser. Crawlers that do not execute JavaScript, which includes most AI assistants, never saw the change, so the SEO benefit it advertised did not reach them.
Doing it on the server, in far fewer lines, fixes both.
Support
Need private support or custom development?
Do you need one-on-one help, priority troubleshooting, or a custom feature, integration, or tweak built specifically for your site? I offer private support and custom development. Just contact me and tell me what you need.
Need help or have suggestions?
About AyudaWP
We are specialists in WordPress security, SEO, AI and performance optimization plugins. We create tools that solve real problems for WordPress site owners while maintaining the highest coding standards and accessibility requirements.