WordPress: How to Bulk Edit Yoast SEO Canonical URLs

In this guide, we will show you how to bulk edit Yoast SEO canonical URLs for WordPress posts or pages.

Important: Although this tutorial is focused on posts and pages, it applies to WooCommerce products and custom post types added by other plugins.

​Editing canonical URLs individually on WordPress can be a tedious and time-consuming process, especially for websites with extensive content. Typically, you would need to open each post or page, scroll to the SEO plugin section (Yoast SEO in this example), navigate to the ‘Advanced’ tab, and manually input the canonical URL. This method becomes increasingly impractical as the number of posts grows, leading to potential inconsistencies and errors. ​

WP Sheet Editor offers a simplified solution by providing a spreadsheet interface within your WordPress dashboard. This tool allows you to view and edit canonical URLs for multiple posts simultaneously; it’s like working in Excel or Google Sheets.

With WP Sheet Editor, you can:​

• Bulk edit canonical URLs: Modify the canonical URLs for numerous posts in one go, saving significant time.
• Ensure consistency: Apply uniform canonical URLs across similar posts to maintain SEO integrity.
• Utilize advanced search filters: Identify and edit posts based on specific criteria, such as missing canonical URLs or specific patterns.

WP Sheet Editor allows you to efficiently manage canonical URLs across your WordPress site, enhancing SEO performance and reducing the likelihood of duplicate content issues.

After installing the plugin and activating your license, follow the steps in the sections below to bulk edit canonical URLs on WordPress posts or pages.

Open the posts or pages spreadsheet

Depending on what you want to edit, you must select the spreadsheet to use.

• If you want to edit pages, go to WP Sheet Editor > Edit pages.
• If you want to edit posts, go to WP Sheet Editor > Edit posts.

In this example, we will use the posts spreadsheet to show you how to edit Yoast SEO canonical URLs in bulk.

Edit SEO canonical URL using the spreadsheet

One easy way to update Yoast SEO canonical URLs for your WordPress posts or pages is to use the spreadsheet.

1. Locate the SEO Canonical URL column.
2. Paste the canonical URLs on the posts you want to update.
3. Once you’re done, click on Save to apply the changes.

Bulk edit SEO canonical URLs for WordPress posts or pages

Now let’s see how to edit SEO canonical URLs in bulk. For this you need to first select the posts you are going to edit and then proceed to set the SEO canonical URL or even replace the SEO canonical URLs in bulk.

1- Select the posts you will edit

To select all the posts you want to edit, you have these two options:

a) Select posts in the spreadsheet

You can use the checkbox picker in the left to pick the posts you will edit. Once you’ve selected the posts to edit, you can open the Bulk Edit tool and go to the next step.

b) Search for posts by category, tag, etc.

The Search tool allows you to use any field of your WordPress posts as search filters. For example, you can filter posts by category, status, canonical URL, etc.

In this example, we will search for all the posts containing a specific category and empty SEO canonical URL. We just need to select these values:

• Enter Categories: Enter the category here.
• Tick the Enable advanced filters checkbox.
• Field: SEO Canonical URL
• Operator: =
• Value: Leave this field empty.
• Click on Run search.

Once you run the search, you’ll see all the posts matching the search filters displayed in the spreadsheet.

Now you can open the Bulk Edit tool and go to the next step to bulk update the SEO canonical URL.

2- Bulk update Yoast SEO canonical URL

There are several changes you might want to apply to the Yoast SEO Canonical URL field. In this guide we want to show you three examples of bulk edits you could apply.

a) Set the same canonical URL in bulk

Select these values if you want to set the same Yoast SEO canonical URL for all the selected posts:

• Select the rows that you want to update: Select if you want to edit the posts from your current search or edit all the posts you have manually selected.
• What field do you want to edit: SEO Canonical URL
• Select type of edit: Set value
• Replace existing value with this value: Enter the canonical URL you want to set for your posts here.
• Click on Execute Now.

b) Bulk replace SEO canonical URLs

If you want to replace a specific SEO canonical URL in all the selected posts, you can select these values:

• Select the rows that you want to update: Select if you want to edit the posts from your current search or edit all the posts you have manually selected.
• What field do you want to edit: SEO Canonical URL
• Select type of edit: Replace
• Replace this: Add the old URL
• With this: Add the new URL
• Click on Execute Now.

c) Bulk remove SEO canonical URLs

If you want to clear or remove the canonical URL from the selected posts, you need to select these values:

• Select the rows that you want to update: Select if you want to edit the posts from your current search or edit all the posts you have manually selected.
• What field do you want to edit: SEO Canonical URL
• Select type of edit: Clear value
• Click on Execute Now.

Bulk import Yoast SEO canonical URLs

Another way to bulk edit SEO canonical URLs is to import the data from a CSV file. WP Sheet Editor has the best data importer for WordPress.

As you can see below, we have added canonical URLs for our posts using a CSV file that we will import to update canonical URLs in bulk.

Once you have prepared your CSV file containing SEO canonical URLs for your WordPress posts or pages, you need to open the Import tool.

Select the CSV file you will import:

• Source: CSV file from my computer
• Click on Choose File and locate the CSV file on your computer.
• Click on Next.

Now click on Import all the columns to proceed.

Since we’re editing existing posts only, we need to select these values:

• Do you want to update or create items: We will select Update existing items, ignore new items.
• We will use the record_id column and the ID field to match the posts and import the right data.
• Click on Next.

Once you’re ready to bulk import the SEO canonical URLs, click on The preview is fine, start import.

As you can see, WP Sheet Editor offers you several ways to manage your posts in bulk. You can edit the SEO canonical URLs in the spreadsheet, using the bulk editor, or import the data from a CSV file. You will be able to save a lot of time and edit SEO canonical URLs in bulk easily.