# SEO

> How Wovie works with SEO plugins such as Yoast or Rank Math: the structured data it adds to your movies, TV shows and people, what it leaves to your plugin, and the settings we recommend.

Source: https://doothemes.com/docs/wovie/customization/seo

---

## Overview

Wovie leaves the SEO of your site to the plugin you choose, such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math: titles, descriptions, sitemaps and social sharing.

Wovie adds what a plugin cannot build on its own: the **structured data** of your movies, TV shows and people, with their rating, cast, trailer and more. And while you have no SEO plugin, it adds the basic tags of those pages, so they share well from day one.

## What Wovie adds

| Page | Always | Only without an SEO plugin |
|---|---|---|
| **Movie** | Structured data `Movie`: rating, director, cast, trailer, country | Description, Open Graph, Twitter card and breadcrumb |
| **TV show** | Structured data `TVSeries`, with the same details | Description, Open Graph, Twitter card and breadcrumb |
| **Person** | Structured data `Person` | Description, Open Graph, Twitter card and breadcrumb |

The description is the start of the synopsis or the biography, and the image is the poster or the photo.

The rest of your pages, such as the home page, the archives, the genre pages and the collections, get their tags from your SEO plugin.

Search result pages are not indexed: WordPress marks them as `noindex`.

## With an SEO plugin

Wovie detects these plugins: **Yoast SEO**, **Rank Math**, **SEOPress**, **All in One SEO**, **The SEO Framework** and **Slim SEO**.

When one is active, Wovie stops adding the description, Open Graph, the Twitter card and the breadcrumb, so they are not duplicated: your plugin adds them. The structured data of movies, TV shows and people stays, because your plugin does not build it with these details.

## Recommended settings

In your SEO plugin:

1. **Episodes stay out of the sitemap.** Each episode address redirects to the page of its TV show, where visitors watch it. Since Dbmovies 1.3.39, episodes are left out of the sitemaps of WordPress, Yoast SEO and Rank Math. With another SEO plugin, or an earlier Dbmovies, leave **Episodes** out of its sitemap and index yourself.
2. **The Authentication and Account pages are not indexed.** They are forms for members, with nothing for search engines. Since Dbmovies 1.3.39 they are marked `noindex`. Some SEO plugins print their own robots tag: check that yours keeps these two pages as `noindex`.
3. **Write a description** for your home page, and templates for your archives, genres, countries, years and collections.
4. **Keep Persons in the sitemap.** Each person has a page with their profile and filmography.

## Lists that load with JavaScript

The lists of the archives, the genre, country, year and tag pages and the search page load right after the page, with JavaScript. Search engines that run JavaScript, like Google, see them. In any case, your sitemap lists every title, and each title page is complete without JavaScript.

## For developers

If you use an SEO plugin that Wovie does not detect, tell Wovie it is active with this filter, in a child theme or a small plugin:

```php
add_filter('wovie_seo_plugin_active', '__return_true');
```

Return `false` instead to keep the tags of Wovie even with a detected plugin.

## Troubleshooting

| Problem | What to do |
|---|---|
| The tags of a movie appear twice | Wovie does not detect your SEO plugin. Use the filter above |
| The home page has no description | Write it in your SEO plugin: Wovie does not add one |
| Search Console reports the episodes as redirects | Update Dbmovies to 1.3.39 or later. With an SEO plugin other than Yoast or Rank Math, leave **Episodes** out of its sitemap |
| The sign in page appears in Google | Update Dbmovies to 1.3.39 or later. If your SEO plugin prints its own robots tag, set the Authentication page to `noindex` in it |