Title: Metando – Privacy-First SEO Author: nettapplugins Published: October 31, 2026 Last modified: October 31, 2026 --- Search plugins ![](https://ps.w.org/metando-by-nettap/assets/banner-772x250.jpg?rev=3777205) ![](https://ps.w.org/metando-by-nettap/assets/icon.svg?rev=3777205) # Metando – Privacy-First SEO By [nettapplugins](https://profiles.wordpress.org/nettapplugins/) [Download](https://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/metando-by-nettap.zip) * [Details](https://wordpress.org/plugins/metando-by-nettap/#description) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/plugins/metando-by-nettap/#reviews) * [Installation](https://wordpress.org/plugins/metando-by-nettap/#installation) * [Development](https://wordpress.org/plugins/metando-by-nettap/#developers) [Support](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/metando-by-nettap/) ## Description Metando gives WordPress site owners a simple place to manage the technical SEO signals that matter, without turning publishing into a score-chasing exercise. Metando is built on a simple idea: an SEO plugin should handle the technical signals that matter, then get out of your way. It is deliberately lean and focused, not a sprawling marketing suite. There is no account to create, no telemetry, no remote content calls, no AI add-ons, and no upsell banners in your dashboard. Everything runs locally on your site, and nothing about your content, settings, or visitors is ever sent anywhere. #### Features * Search title pattern with site-wide defaults and per-page overrides. * Search descriptions from page content by default, with optional hand-written descriptions. * Separate social titles, descriptions, and image previews. * Canonical URL and noindex controls for individual public pages and posts. * Accurate Organization or Person identity, WebSite, WebPage, and BlogPosting JSON- LD. * WordPress native XML sitemap controls at /sitemap.xml for public content types, taxonomies, and URLs per file; noindex and alternate-canonical content is excluded. * Automatic redirects with a built-in 404 monitor: add 301/302/307/410 rules, see hit counts, and turn any logged 404 into a redirect. All local, no external requests. * Import titles, descriptions, canonicals, indexing and social metadata from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, or SEOPress, so switching is painless. * Local content review and site visibility/sitemap checks in the dashboard. * Detects common SEO plugins and pauses its output to avoid duplicate metadata. * No third-party integrations, tracking, analytics, account connection, or remote content requests. * Updates are delivered through WordPress.org and the standard WordPress update system. #### What Metando sends (and what it never sends) Nothing leaves your site. Metando makes no outbound requests for content, has no analytics or telemetry, connects to no account or third-party service, and transmits no information about your pages, settings, or visitors. The only network activity is the standard WordPress update check against WordPress.org, exactly like any other directory plugin. Metando is open source under the GPL, so you can verify all of this in the plugin’s own code. Metando does not promise rankings, guarantee indexing, generate keyword-stuffing scores, or add unsupported review/rating markup. Structured data should describe visible, accurate site content. ## Installation 1. Upload the metando folder to /wp-content/plugins/ or install the plugin ZIP in Plugins > Add New. 2. Activate Metando. 3. Open Metando > Settings to set the title pattern and site identity. 4. Edit any public page or post and use the Metando SEO panel for page-specific metadata and indexing controls. ## FAQ ### Does Metando send my content or site data to NETTAP or another service? No. Metando sends no content, settings, or usage data to any server. It has no third- party integrations, telemetry, or account connection. Plugin updates are delivered by WordPress.org through the normal WordPress update system. ### Is Metando really free, with no paid tier required? Yes. Everything described here is free and fully functional. There is no locked “ pro” version, no feature held back behind a paywall, and no upsell banners in your dashboard. ### Does it generate a sitemap? It uses the XML sitemap built into WordPress. Metando lets you choose post types and taxonomies, and excludes pages marked noindex or given a custom canonical URL from the native post sitemap. ### Will this work alongside another SEO plugin? Metando detects Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress, The SEO Framework, and Slim SEO, then pauses its front-end output to prevent duplicate SEO tags. Use one SEO plugin at a time. ### Can I move my existing SEO data into Metando? Yes. The import tool brings titles, descriptions, canonicals, indexing and social metadata over from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, or SEOPress, including per-content-type templates. Nothing is removed from the other plugin, and your existing Metando values are kept unless you choose to overwrite. ### Does a good Metando audit guarantee rankings? No. The audit reports local settings and metadata only. Search engines decide whether and how to crawl, index, and display pages. ### What happens if I deactivate Metando? The plugin’s output stops. Existing page metadata remains stored and is available if you reactivate it. ## Reviews There are no reviews for this plugin. ## Contributors & Developers “Metando – Privacy-First SEO” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin. Contributors * [ nettapplugins ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/nettapplugins/) [Translate “Metando – Privacy-First SEO” into your language.](https://translate.wordpress.org/projects/wp-plugins/metando-by-nettap) ### Interested in development? [Browse the code](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/browser/metando-by-nettap/), check out the [SVN repository](https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/metando-by-nettap/), or subscribe to the [development log](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/metando-by-nettap/) by [RSS](https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/log/metando-by-nettap/?limit=100&mode=stop_on_copy&format=rss). ## Changelog #### 1.9.22 – 2026-10-31 * Docs: the plugin name, listing short description and readme now describe Metando as a privacy-first, lightweight SEO toolkit, and the built-in redirects/404 monitor and SEO-plugin import are surfaced in the feature list. No functional or behaviour change. #### 1.9.21 – 2026-10-20 * Code quality: the admin settings screens and the post SEO box now escape every generated control (icons, switches, meters, fields, health rows) on output through a shared wp_kses allowlist, following the escape-late guideline. No functional change. #### 1.9.20 – 2026-10-19 * Fix: redirect rules for URLs with accented or percent-encoded characters match reliably again (a 1.9.19 change could stop pre-existing rules matching). #### 1.9.19 – 2026-10-19 * Fix: a password-protected post’s body no longer leaks into its meta description, Open Graph tag, or structured data. * Fix: redirect rules now match URLs that contain accented or percent-encoded characters. * Fix: a custom sitemap URL that contains a query string is now written correctly in robots.txt. #### 1.9.18 – 2026-10-19 * Fix: title and description templates now keep every %%variable%% when saved. Previously a few, such as %%date%% and %%category%%, could lose characters. * Fix: the guided setup and the settings import now reliably save their values. * Fix: saving the general Settings screen no longer fails when social profile URLs are present. * Fix: a redirect rule pointing to an external address now sends visitors there, instead of to the dashboard. * Fix: post types, taxonomies, and author archives set to noindex are now also kept out of the XML sitemap. * Admin: the Health and Overview screens no longer describe an update service; updates are delivered by WordPress.org. #### 1.9.17 – 2026-10-18 * Docs: the Plugin URI now points to the plugin’s live page at https://plugins. nettap.ca/metando. No functional change. #### 1.9.16 – 2026-10-17 * Internationalization: the text domain now matches the plugin slug on WordPress. org, so translated strings load correctly. No functional change. #### 1.9.15 – 2026-10-17 * Admin: the first-run setup prompt and the SEO-plugin conflict notice are now dismissible. No functional change. #### 1.9.14 – 2026-10-17 * Admin: added a Settings link to the plugins list row. No functional change. #### 1.9.13 – 2026-10-17 * Listed on WordPress.org as “Metando” so the plugin slug and text domain match. No functional change. #### 1.9.12 – 2026-10-17 * Code quality: the setup wizard’s default-image field is now sanitized directly with esc_url_raw (cleared the last Plugin Check input-sanitization warning). No functional change. #### 1.9.11 – 2026-10-17 * Code quality: cleared the remaining Plugin Check (VIP) findings – the settings importer no longer suppresses query filters, the importer and sitemap meta queries are documented as bounded and paginated, and unused update-server constants left over from the old updater were removed. #### 1.9.10 – 2026-10-17 * Code quality: cleared WordPress Plugin Check findings – added translators comments for every placeholder string, confirmed all admin output is escaped, sanitized form and server inputs, and documented the plugin’s own custom-table queries. No functional or behaviour change. #### 1.9.9 – 2026-10-17 * Updates now come through WordPress.org. Metando no longer includes its own update mechanism; the WordPress update system handles new versions. No settings or content are sent anywhere. #### 1.9.8 – 2026-10-16 * Developer: two new filters, metando_document_title and metando_meta_description, let a theme or plugin supply an authoritative title or meta description for known pages. Because og:title, twitter:title and the WebPage schema name follow the document title, and og:description and twitter:description follow the meta description, a single override keeps the whole page consistent. #### 1.9.7 – 2026-10-15 * Admin: the NETTAP plugins now cluster together as one group in the WordPress admin sidebar, so the whole suite sits in a single predictable place. #### 1.9.6 – 2026-10-14 * Admin: refreshed the Metando admin to the NETTAP house style – amber accents and buttons, icons on the Settings tabs, and refined stat tiles. No functional change. #### 1.9.5 – 2026-10-13 * Hardening: the settings import now validates the organization type and sanitizes the default image, custom sitemap and social profile URLs the same way the Settings form does, so a hand-edited or foreign import file cannot inject an arbitrary type or unsafe URL into the structured data. * Fix: an invalid UTF-8 character can no longer drop the whole JSON-LD block; such characters are substituted instead. * Fix: guard against a missing post when building the Article structured data. #### 1.9.4 – 2026-10-05 * Cleanup: replaced em and en dashes with hyphens in admin and front-end text to match the single-dash house style. No functional change. #### 1.9.3 – 2026-10-04 * Fix: JSON-LD values now carry literal text. HTML entities in titles (for example“&” for an ampersand) are decoded before output, so structured data holds real characters. Which nodes are emitted is unchanged. #### 1.9.2 – 2026-10-04 * New: a metando_schema_graph filter lets a companion plugin add or adjust JSON- LD nodes inside Metando’s single @graph, so typed entities (for example LocalBusiness, Event, Article) and Metando’s page graph ship as one block with no duplicate schema. Default output is unchanged. #### 1.9.1 – 2026-10-04 * Docs: added a Screenshots section; Tested up to 7.1. * Internal: added an automated test suite covering the snippet-variable engine, meta templating, robots/canonical logic and importer mapping; no functional changes. #### 1.9.0 * Redesigned the per-page SEO box into four clear sections – Search, Social, Visibility and Advanced – with a quick-jump tab bar, in the NETTAP admin style. * Live Google snippet preview and a social share-card preview that update as you type. * Length meters on the search title and description (empty, short, good, too long) and an at-a-glance SEO score. * Visibility controls are now plain-English switches (show in search results, follow links, allow cached copies) with the technical term shown alongside. Stored values and robots output are unchanged. #### 1.8.0 * Default social image can now be chosen from the media library (not just a pasted URL), in Settings and the setup wizard. * Use your own sitemap: enter a custom sitemap URL and Metando points search engines to it in robots.txt instead of the WordPress one. #### 1.7.1 * Fixed “Sorry, you are not allowed to access this page” when opening the first- run setup screen. #### 1.7.0 * Guided first-run setup: a one-screen wizard with smart defaults gets a new site search-ready in about a minute. Skip any time. * Search-engine verification: add Google, Bing, Pinterest and Yandex verification codes (paste the code or the whole meta tag) and Metando outputs the homepage tags. * robots.txt rules: append your own rules to the WordPress virtual robots.txt from Settings > Technical. #### 1.6.1 * Moved the Health screen to the bottom of the Metando admin menu for consistency across the NETTAP plugins. #### 1.6.0 * Automatic redirects: when a published post or page changes its URL, Metando adds a 301 from the old address to the new one, and can return 410 Gone when published content is trashed or deleted. Restoring from trash removes the 410. * Settings transfer: export your Metando configuration (templates, identity, indexing, breadcrumbs and redirect rules) to a JSON file and import it on another site. No per-page content and no secrets are included. * Image alt-text audit: the dashboard now reports images missing alt text, with a per-page breakdown and a site-wide count. #### 1.5.0 * Import tool: bring titles, descriptions, canonicals, indexing and social metadata over from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, or SEOPress, including per-content- type templates. Nothing is removed from the other plugin, and existing Metando values are kept unless you choose to overwrite. * Redirect manager with a 404 monitor: add 301/302/307/410 rules, see hit counts, and turn any logged 404 into a redirect. All local – no external requests. * Indexing controls: noindex whole content types, taxonomies, author or date archives site-wide; per-page noindex now joined by nofollow and noarchive. * Breadcrumbs: a [metando_breadcrumbs] shortcode plus BreadcrumbList structured data, with a per-post primary-category picker that also feeds the %%category%% variable. * Richer social + identity: per-page social image with a media picker, article published/modified times, og:locale, social-profile sameAs links, and optional LocalBusiness structured data (name, address, phone). * The settings and import screens now stay available even when another SEO plugin is active, so you can import before switching. #### 1.4.0 * New snippet-variable engine: titles and descriptions are built from templates using %%title%%, %%excerpt%%, %%category%%, %%sitename%%, %%sep%% and more. Empty variables and the separators they leave behind are cleaned up automatically. * Meta descriptions are now pulled automatically from each page (template, then excerpt, then a content summary), with a per-page field to rewrite them when you want. * Per-content-type title and description templates on a new Content types settings tab; posts, pages and custom post types can each have their own. * Automatic descriptions can be turned off site-wide. * Editor snippet preview rebuilt: live Google-style title/description/URL preview with character guidance, reflecting your templates and overrides as you type. * Titles and descriptions now resolve for category, tag, custom taxonomy and author archives as well as posts and pages. #### 1.3.1 * Updated the generated-description suggestion and search preview while authors edit draft content. * Added an Add a title placeholder for untitled drafts. #### 1.3.0 * Added a search-result preview and one-click generated description suggestion in the page editor. * Reused one local excerpt/content description generator for the editor preview and front-end output. #### 1.2.2 * Fixed the XML Sitemap screen’s availability badge to use WordPress core’s sitemap server status. #### 1.2.1 * Added the short /sitemap.xml alias to the WordPress core sitemap index and advertised it in virtual robots.txt. #### 1.2.0 * Added Metando > Health with environment, search visibility, core sitemap, and rewrite-route diagnostics. * Fixed sitemap status detection to use the WordPress core sitemap server method. * Refresh core rewrite rules once on upgrade so WordPress sitemap routes are registered. #### 1.1.1 * Clarified that custom canonical overrides, as well as noindex pages, stay out of the core post sitemap. #### 1.1.0 * Added native XML sitemap controls for public post types, taxonomies, and per- file URL limits. * Kept noindex and alternate-canonical pages out of the sitemap before XML rendering. * Added anonymous signed updates through the NETTAP License Server with package hash verification. #### 1.0.0 * Initial release: page metadata, social previews, canonical/noindex controls, structured data, native sitemap filtering, and local content review. ## Meta * Version **1.9.22** * Last updated **22 hours ago** * Active installations **Fewer than 10** * WordPress version ** 6.0 or higher ** * Tested up to **7.1.4** * PHP version ** 7.4 or higher ** * Tags * [meta description](https://wordpress.org/plugins/tags/meta-description/)[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/metando-by-nettap/advanced/) ## Ratings No reviews have been submitted yet. [Your review](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/metando-by-nettap/reviews/#new-post) [See all reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/metando-by-nettap/reviews/) ## Contributors * [ nettapplugins ](https://profiles.wordpress.org/nettapplugins/) ## Support Got something to say? Need help? [View support forum](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/metando-by-nettap/)