Title: INI Scout
Author: milenfrom
Published: September 14, 2026
Last modified: September 14, 2026
---
Search plugins
# INI Scout
By [milenfrom](https://profiles.wordpress.org/milenfrom/)
[Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/ini-scout.1.2.0.zip)
* [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/ini-scout/#description)
* [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/ini-scout/#reviews)
* [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/ini-scout/#installation)
* [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/ini-scout/#developers)
[Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/ini-scout/)
## Description
INI Scout is a focused, no-bloat SEO plugin for WordPress. It adds solid on-page
SEO with automatic structured data, and stays out of the way of multilingual plugins(
e.g. TranslatePress / WPML — hreflang) and the rest of your stack.
**Dashboard & settings**
* A modern admin UI: vertical-nav settings with cards, accordions and toggle
switches,
plus an at-a-glance SEO dashboard.
**On-page engine**
* Document `` and meta-description templating, per post type and per
taxonomy,
with per-post and per-term overrides.
* Canonical URLs for every context, with per-post override.
* Robots directives via the core `wp_robots` filter (no duplicate tags):
per-post
noindex, plus noindex toggles for search, date and author archives.
* `max-image-preview:large`, `max-snippet:-1`, `max-video-preview:-1` by default.
* Google / Bing site-verification meta tags (output on every page).
**Social**
* Open Graph and Twitter Card tags, with featured-image fallback and a
site-wide
default share image. Per-post share-image override.
**Structured data (Schema.org JSON-LD)**
* `WebSite` (+ optional Sitelinks SearchAction) and
Organization / `LocalBusiness`
with address, geo, telephone, opening hours, price range and social profiles (`
sameAs`).
* `Article` / `NewsArticle` for posts and news.
* Per-post-type schema mapping: assign any post type to a schema type
(Article,
WebPage, Store, Event, SaleEvent, …) from the settings screen, or leave it on`
auto` for sensible defaults.
* `BreadcrumbList` on every non-home page.
**Sitemap**
* Custom XML sitemap at `/sitemap.xml` (index + per-type / per-taxonomy
sub-sitemaps)
with image entries and `lastmod`; respects noindex. Replaces the WordPress core
sitemap. Excludable per post type / taxonomy.
**IndexNow (instant indexing)**
* Auto-submits published / updated URLs to Bing, Yandex, Seznam and Naver the
moment content changes (a single ping is shared between them). Google does not
consume IndexNow — the sitemap + Search Console cover Google.
* Secret key generated automatically and served as a virtual verification file
(
no stray file in the webroot); one-click regenerate and a manual test ping.
* Respects per-post noindex; submission runs on `shutdown` so the editor save is
never blocked. Capped, non-autoloaded submission log.
**Dashboard**
* A modern, WordPress-native overview: setup checklist with progress, live
feature
toggles, IndexNow status & recent submissions, and per-content-type meta-description
coverage bars.
**robots.txt**
* Virtual robots.txt editor that always advertises the sitemap.
**Breadcrumbs**
* `[iniseo_breadcrumbs]` shortcode and `iniseo_breadcrumbs()` template tag,
sharing
the same trail as the BreadcrumbList schema.
### Notes
* Multilingual: hreflang and translated URLs remain TranslatePress’s job. Every
tag this plugin prints is in the rendered HTML, so it is translatable through
TranslatePress’s string editor.
* Caching: all front-end output is produced on `wp_head` and served from the
existing
page cache for anonymous visitors.
### External services
IndexNow is optional and disabled by default. When you enable it and publish or
update eligible content, or explicitly submit a URL, INI Scout sends the site host,
public page URLs, verification key and key-file URL to https://api.indexnow.org/
IndexNow. Participating search engines share these submissions. No account is required.
Submission does not guarantee indexing. Service information and terms: https://www.
indexnow.org/terms Privacy information: https://www.indexnow.org/terms (Privacy
section)
Crawl and content analysis fetch public pages from your own site to analyze the
rendered content. No external analytics or telemetry service is used.
## Installation
1. The plugin lives in `wp-content/plugins/ini-scout/`.
2. Activate **INI Scout** from Plugins. Activation registers the sitemap rewrite
rules and flushes them once.
3. Open **INI Scout Settings** and fill in the Local Business tab (address, geo,
phone, hours) so the Organization / LocalBusiness schema is complete.
4. Add the verification codes (General tab) if you use Search Console / Bing.
## FAQ
### How do I switch from the previous SeoWP plugin?
Back up your database and deactivate SeoWP before activating INI Scout. Existing
settings, post and term metadata, IndexNow keys, shortcodes and integration hooks
are retained. Do not use WordPress’s Delete action on the old plugin: its uninstaller
removes shared SEO data. After deactivating it, remove the old plugin folder through
your hosting file manager instead.
### Does INI Scout require the INI platform?
No. All SEO features work independently. The optional platform integration
exposes
an authenticated REST endpoint for a separately installed connector.
## Reviews
There are no reviews for this plugin.
## Contributors & Developers
“INI Scout” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this
plugin.
Contributors
* [ milenfrom ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/milenfrom/)
[Translate “INI Scout” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/ini-scout)
### Interested in development?
[Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/ini-scout/), check
out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ini-scout/), or subscribe
to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/ini-scout/) by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/ini-scout/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss).
## Changelog
#### 1.2.0
* Rebrand the plugin, administration screens, exports and translation domain to
INI Scout.
* Use the ini-scout directory and main plugin file for WordPress.org distribution.
* Remove the private update channel; updates are delivered by WordPress.org.
* Preserve existing settings, metadata, shortcodes and integration identifiers.
#### 1.1.2
* Fix: the editor “Search appearance” preview now shows the auto-generated description(
the %excerpt% fallback) correctly. It previously read the excerpt only from the
value present at page load and never followed the content editor, so on screens
without a standard excerpt box — notably WooCommerce products, where the description
lives in the content editor — the preview wrongly said “No meta description”
even though the live page does output one. The preview now derives %excerpt%
from the live editor (Block and Classic) just like the front-end. Front-end output
was already correct and is unchanged.
#### 1.1.1
* Fix: the Setup-checklist item “Business address & location added” now ticks once
the required address parts are present (street + city + country). It was incorrectly
gated on map coordinates (latitude/longitude), so a complete address with no
coordinates never completed. Coordinates and postal code remain optional — Google
geocodes from the address. The platform `iniseo/v1/state → schema_types.has_address`
now uses the same definition, so the checklist and the reported data agree.
#### 1.1.0
* New: **Crawl & score** page (INI Scout Crawl). Pick content types and run a
batched, cancellable crawl that fetches each published URL’s rendered HTML (so
page-builder content is measured), scores SEO and readability, stores the scores,
and can optionally submit each URL to IndexNow. Available regardless of IndexNow(
the IndexNow submit is an optional per-run extra).
* New: Per-post **Submit to IndexNow** button in the content-analysis metabox (
published posts, when IndexNow is enabled).
* New: Posts/Pages **list actions** — row actions “Crawl & score” and “Submit to
IndexNow”, plus matching **bulk actions** for selected items.
* Fix: the SEO / Readability columns on the post list now light up after a crawl(
the crawl writes the same rating meta the columns read).
* New: Setup-checklist items can be **dismissed** (e.g. address / opening hours
on non-local-business sites); dismissed items no longer count toward the progress
total, and can be restored.
#### 1.0.10
* Fix: IndexNow settings (enable + content-type whitelist) now save correctly.
They were silently reverted because the shared settings sanitizer — which runs
on every save of the option — re-read the old IndexNow values from the database
instead of honouring the IndexNow page’s own submission. The sanitizer now keeps
IndexNow values when they are present in the submitted data and only preserves
the stored values when they are absent (the main Settings form), so a Settings
save still never wipes IndexNow.
* Fix: Search-engine verification meta tags (Google / Bing) are now output on every
page, not just the homepage — search engines may re-verify from any URL, and
this matches every other SEO plugin.
* New: The site-wide “Default share image” can now be set from the Titles tab too(
the same setting as Social Default share image — one value, editable from either
place, no duplicate save).
#### 1.0.9
* Internal: INI Scout now registers its REST namespace (iniseo/v1) with the INI
WP connector’s family registry, so the INI Protector plugin’s “Require login
for REST API” never blocks the INI Scout platform endpoint the control panel
pulls. No user-facing change.
#### 1.0.8
* Fix: the SEO title length check now measures the **SEO title** (the INI Scout
title field), not the WordPress post title. Editing the SEO title now updates
the “Aim for 30–60” check live; when the SEO title is left blank it measures
the rendered template default (“Post title – Site name”) — i.e. exactly what
appears in the page .
#### 1.0.7
* New: Manual “Re-analyze” button by the SEO score ring, plus a per-suggestion
re-check action, so the score can be refreshed on demand while editing.
* Improve: Content analysis now reads the rendered front-end HTML when the editor
body is thin (page builders such as Elementor, and ACF-only layouts), so the
word count and keyphrase checks reflect what visitors and search engines actually
see — fixing misleading “very little content” warnings and stale scores.
* Internal: Head cleanup (generator / WLW / RSD / shortlink removal) moved to the
INI Protector plugin so there is a single owner. INI Scout keeps its noindex
directives and all other SEO features.
#### 1.0.0
* Initial release.
## Meta
* Version **1.2.0**
* Last updated **1 day ago**
* Active installations **Fewer than 10**
* WordPress version ** 5.7 or higher **
* Tested up to **7.1**
* PHP version ** 7.4 or higher **
* Tags
* [indexnow](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/indexnow/)[open graph](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/open-graph/)
[schema](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/schema/)[seo](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/seo/)
[sitemap](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/sitemap/)
* [Advanced View](https://wordpress.org/plugins/ini-scout/advanced/)
## Ratings
No reviews have been submitted yet.
[Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/ini-scout/reviews/#new-post)
[See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/ini-scout/reviews/)
## Contributors
* [ milenfrom ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/milenfrom/)
## Support
Got something to say? Need help?
[View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/ini-scout/)