The Yoast Duplicate Post plugin for WordPress allows users to easily clone posts and pages with a single click, significantly enhancing workflow efficiency. This free plugin is popular, being used on over 3 million sites. It duplicates all elements of a post or page, including images, meta data, and SEO optimizations, which is more comprehensive than manual copying. The plugin features two modes: Clone and New Draft, offering flexibility in content management. It’s particularly useful for content updates, creating backups, and speeding up the process of creating similar posts. The plugin also includes a Rewrite & Republish feature for seamless content editing. For more details, you can visit the Yoast website.
The Yoast Duplicate Post plugin is a highly useful tool for WordPress site administrators, streamlining various content management tasks. Here’s a detailed description of how it gets used:
Installation and Setup
- Plugin Installation: First, the site administrator needs to install the plugin. This can be done by navigating to the WordPress dashboard, going to ‘Plugins’ > ‘Add New’, and searching for ‘Yoast Duplicate Post’. Once found, they click ‘Install Now’ and then ‘Activate’.
- Configuring Settings: After activation, it’s important to configure the plugin’s settings. This can be done by going to ‘Settings’ > ‘Duplicate Post’. Here, administrators can choose which post types can be cloned (e.g., posts, pages), decide what to copy (date, status, excerpt, attachments, etc.), and set permissions for who can duplicate content.
- Associate The Post Types With Duplicate Post. In the settings, you determine exactly what the plugin does and doesn’t duplicate for you. In the settings, you can also change where the copy page buttons appear.
- Associate The User Roles. As a site manager, you can also determine who of your editors get access to the page duplication features. This also includes the SEO roles that Yoast SEO introduced.
Using the Plugin
- Cloning Posts or Pages:
- To clone a post or page, the administrator goes to the ‘Posts’ or ‘Pages’ section of the WordPress dashboard.
- They hover over the post or page they want to duplicate and click on ‘Clone’ to create an immediate duplicate or ‘New Draft’ to open a duplicate in the post editor.
- ‘Clone’ creates a complete copy of the post/page and lists it as a new draft, while ‘New Draft’ also opens it for editing immediately.
- Rewrite and Republish Feature:
- This feature is particularly useful for updating existing content.
- The administrator can select a post to edit, and by clicking on ‘Rewrite & Republish’, they can make changes in a draft while the original post remains live.
- Once the changes are complete, they can republish the updated post. The plugin then automatically replaces the old post with the new version and discards the draft.
- Bulk Actions:
- For bulk operations, the plugin allows the duplication of multiple posts/pages at once.
- This is done by selecting several posts/pages in the list view and choosing ‘Clone’ from the ‘Bulk Actions’ dropdown menu.
Managing Duplicates
- Editing Duplicates: After duplicating, the administrator can edit the new post/page as needed. This includes changing the title, content, meta descriptions, and SEO settings.
- Avoiding Duplicate Content Issues: It’s crucial to edit duplicated posts to avoid SEO penalties for duplicate content. The administrator should ensure that each post is unique in terms of its content and SEO settings.
Additional Features
- Template Tags: The plugin offers template tags that can be used to add duplicate links in templates.
- Customization Options: Advanced users can customize the plugin’s behavior by using the provided filters and actions.
Use Cases
- Creating Similar Posts: Useful for creating multiple posts with a similar structure.
- Testing and Staging: Ideal for creating test copies of live posts/pages for experimentation.
- Content Backups: Helps in quickly creating backups of existing content.
The Yoast Duplicate Post plugin is a powerful tool for content management, offering WordPress site administrators a way to efficiently manage and update their site’s content.