• Allows for News Sitemap items to change the language via a new filter Yoast\WP\News\publication_language. Props to dgwatkins.

Bugfixes​

• Stops PHP notices on WordPress 6.7 about _load_textdomain_just_in_time loading incorrectly.

Other​

• Sets the minimum required Yoast SEO version to 24.4.
• Sets the minimum supported WordPress version to 6.5.
• Sets the WordPress tested up to version to 6.7.

• Adds a wpseo_news_sitemap_content filter to append custom content to the XML sitemap. Props to @wccoder.
• This PR introduces a new way of retrieving translations for Yoast News SEO, by utilizing the TranslationPress service. Instead of having to ship all translations with every release, we can now load the translations on a per-install basis, tailored to the user's setup. This means smaller plugin releases and less bloat on the user's server.

Bugfixes​

• Fixes a bug where a warning would be thrown on activation.
• Fixes a bug where using the & character in the publication name would break the XML sitemap.

Other​

• Drops compatibility with PHP 5.6, 7.0 and 7.1.
• Improves discoverability of security policy.
• Sets the minimum required Yoast SEO version to 22.2.
• Sets the minimum supported WordPress version to 6.3.
• Sets the WordPress tested up to version to 6.4.
• The plugin has no known incompatibilities with PHP 8.3.
• Users requiring this package via [WP]Packagist can now use the composer/installers v2.

• Huge performance improvement: moves the XML News sitemap to be based on our Indexables architecture.
• Removes images from the XML News sitemap as they serve no purpose here and this further improves performance.

Other​

• Excludes attachments and non-indexed post types from the possible post types to include in the News Sitemap.

• Adds Schema Article News subtypes: ReviewNewsArticle, AnalysisNewsArticle, AskPublicNewsArticle, BackgroundNewsArticle, OpinionNewsArticle, and ReportageNewsArticle.

• Fixes a bug where a duplicate News section would be shown in the Yoast sidebar in the post editor when Yoast SEO Premium is active in combination with WP 5.8.

• Adds key/value pairs of all News SEO meta tags to our REST API.
• Improves the performance of the news sitemap. Props to archon810.

Bugfixes​

• Fixes a bug where a database query including duplicate column names would fail on certain database systems.

Other​

• Adds a filter to override the decision to omit an item from the news sitemap. Props to joneslloyd.
• Sets the minimum WordPress version to 5.6.

• Adds News to the Yoast SEO sidebar in the Elementor editor and the block editor.
• Merges the Exclude from News sitemap and the Googlebot-News index settings from the News meta box into one setting: Exclude this post from Google News. Because both settings served the same purpose, to exclude your content from the News sitemap.
• Removes the Default genre setting from the News sitemap and settings because Google no longer supports Genres for articles in Google News.

Other​

• Sets the WordPress tested up to version to 5.7 and minimum supported WordPress version to 5.6.

Bugfixes​

• Fixes a bug where certain conditions (e.g. using a different admin language) would result in an endless loop.
• Fixes "mixed content" warnings on the News SEO options page.

• Adds 'Article' as @type to articles that are set to be included in the news sitemap. This results in a @type array with at least 'Article' and 'NewsArticle'.

Other​

• Enables tracking when activating the plugin. It can be disabled in the Yoast SEO configuration wizard.
• Sets the minimum supported WordPress version to 5.4.

• Sets the minimum WordPress version to 5.3.

• Fixes a bug where a large number of WordPress terms or post types would cause significant slowdowns and possible crashes on admin pages.

Other​

• Removes the code tags from the term and post type names on the News SEO settings page.

• Fixes a bug where the sitemap could be invalidated twice on multisite with MultilingualPress.

Other​

• Show dates in UTC+0 format everywhere.

• Replaces the HelpScout Beacon 1.0 on the News SEO admin page with the Beacon 2.0.

Bugfixes​

• Fixes a bug where the News sitemap would contain the SEO title instead of the post title.

Other​

• Sets the minimum required WordPress version to 5.2, the minimum PHP version to 5.6.20, and the minimum required Yoast SEO version to 12.6.1.

• Shows a floating Save changes button on the Yoast SEO News admin page when the normal button is not visible in the browser window.

Bugfixes​

• Fixes a bug where the copyrightHolder schema piece would not stitch on Windows because of a missing slash.

Other​

• Compatibility with Yoast SEO 12.2

• Compatibility with Yoast SEO 12.1

• Compatibility with Yoast SEO 12.0

• This add-on now has its own tab in the Yoast SEO metabox, even if you have multiple Yoast SEO add-ons installed.

Bugfixes​

• Fixes a bug where the @type in the schema output would be NewsArticle instead of Article for articles which were excluded from the news sitemap.
• Fixes a bug where news article pages and custom post types included in the news sitemap would not receive an author in their schema output.

Other​

• Sets the minimum required Yoast SEO version to 11.9.

• Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.8

• Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.7

• Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.6

• Compatibility with Yoast SEO 11.5