Markzen SEO

Markzen SEO puts every SEO tool you actually need into one well-built plugin — with zero frontend performance impact.

Meta management

Custom SEO titles, meta descriptions, canonical URLs, and per-post noindex/nofollow control. A live SERP preview shows exactly how your content appears in Google search results before you publish.

Open Graph & Twitter Cards

Automatic og:title, og:description, og:image, and Twitter card meta tags, with per-post overrides. Your content looks its best when shared on social media — no extra configuration needed.

XML Sitemaps

Auto-generated XML sitemap covering posts, pages, categories, and tags. Automatically pings Google and Bing when you publish. Full admin control over which post types and taxonomies are included.

Robots.txt

Virtual robots.txt management with no file-system writes — Markzen controls robots.txt through WordPress’s built-in do_robots filter. Detects and alerts you to any physical robots.txt file on disk that would override your settings.

Broken link checker

Background scan of every internal and external link across your site. View broken links with HTTP status codes, recheck individual links after fixing them, and mark false positives as ignored. Results persist between scans so you only see new issues.

Image alt text auditor

Background scan identifying images that are missing descriptive alt text. Direct edit links for every affected post — no hunting through the media library.

Script detector

On-demand inventory of every active JavaScript file loading on any page — first-party and third-party. Know exactly what is running on your site and where it comes from.

Lighthouse / PageSpeed Insights integration

On-demand Lighthouse audits via Google’s free PageSpeed Insights API. No API key required for the free tier. Bulk audit queue processes up to 20 posts at throttled intervals to respect API rate limits. Per-post SEO score badge in the WordPress post list column.

Focus keyphrase tracking

Assign a focus keyphrase to each post and page. Built-in duplicate detection flags keyword cannibalization — if two or more posts target the same keyphrase, they compete against each other in search results. The Keyphrases view shows your full keyphrase map at a glance.

Structured data (Schema)

Automatic JSON-LD structured data output for Article, WebSite, and LocalBusiness (when local business details are configured in settings). Helps search engines understand your content type and display rich results.

Breadcrumbs

Schema-ready breadcrumbs via the [markzen_breadcrumbs] shortcode. Outputs JSON-LD breadcrumb markup alongside the visible trail.

Dashboard & Site Health

Single-screen dashboard showing meta coverage, broken link count, missing image alt text, and Lighthouse SEO scores. The Site Health screen runs six cross-tool checks and shows a pass/fail checklist with direct action links for anything that needs attention.

Zero frontend performance impact

Markzen SEO loads no JavaScript and no CSS on public-facing pages. Every frontend feature — meta tags, Open Graph, structured data, breadcrumbs — is plain HTML output. Installing this plugin does not affect your PageSpeed or Core Web Vitals scores.

Works without an API key

The Lighthouse integration uses Google’s free PageSpeed Insights API. Rate limits apply to the free tier. You can optionally add a free API key in SEO → Settings → Advanced for higher rate limits on bulk audits.

Privacy

Markzen SEO does not track, collect, or transmit any data about your website’s visitors. No analytics, no cookies, and no fingerprinting of any kind are added to your public-facing pages. The plugin’s output is limited to HTML meta tags and structured data in your page’s element. See the External Services section below for details on the limited, administrator-initiated connections this plugin makes to third-party APIs.

External Services

This plugin connects to the following external services in specific, limited circumstances described below. No user data, visitor data, browsing history, or cookies are ever collected or transmitted by this plugin. All connections are initiated by the site administrator through deliberate actions — nothing is sent automatically on visitor page loads.

Google PageSpeed Insights API

Used by: Markzen SEO → Lighthouse (audit feature) What is sent: The public URL of a page on your site that you choose to audit. When it is sent: Only when a site administrator clicks “Run audit” or “Run bulk audit”. Never on visitor page loads. Never on a schedule without administrator action. Personal data sent: None. Only a public URL is transmitted. Who receives it: Google LLC. Terms of service: https://developers.google.com/terms Privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

Google Sitemap Ping

Used by: Sitemap notification feature (optional, disabled by default) What is sent: Your sitemap URL (example: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml), which is already publicly accessible. No content, no user data. When it is sent: When a post or page is published or updated, if the “Ping Google” setting is enabled in Settings → Sitemap. Rate-limited to once per 60 seconds. Personal data sent: None. Who receives it: Google LLC. Terms of service: https://developers.google.com/terms Privacy policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

Microsoft Bing Sitemap Ping

Used by: Sitemap notification feature (optional, disabled by default) What is sent: Your sitemap URL only. No content, no user data. When it is sent: When a post or page is published or updated, if the “Ping Bing” setting is enabled in Settings → Sitemap. Rate-limited to once per 60 seconds. Personal data sent: None. Who receives it: Microsoft Corporation. Terms of service: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/servicesagreement Privacy policy: https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement

Broken Link Checker (outbound HTTP requests)

Used by: Markzen SEO → Broken Links (scan feature) What is sent: Standard HTTP HEAD or GET requests to URLs found in your content, to check whether those links are reachable. This is equivalent to a browser loading a URL — no personal data, no cookies, no site data beyond the request itself. When it is sent: Only when a site administrator clicks “Start scan”. Never automatically. Never on visitor page loads. Personal data sent: None. The requests originate from your web server, not from your visitors’ browsers. Who receives it: The operators of any websites your content links to. Each site receives only a standard HTTP availability check.