Changelog

Version history for Bavarian Rank Engine

1.0.0 — Initial Release

AI & Meta Generation
  • AI Meta Generator — auto-generates a 150–160 character, SEO-optimized meta description the moment a post is published
  • Customizable prompt with {title}, {content}, {excerpt}, and {language} placeholders
  • Automatic language detection via Polylang, WPML, or WordPress site locale
  • Fallback meta extraction (sentence-boundary-aware, 150–160 characters) — works without an API key or on API failure
  • Multi-provider support: OpenAI (GPT-4.1, GPT-4o, GPT-4o mini), Anthropic Claude (3.5 Sonnet, 3 Haiku), Google Gemini (2.0 Flash, 1.5 Pro), xAI Grok (3, 3 mini)
Bulk Operations
  • Bulk Generator — batch-process posts that have no meta description yet
  • Batched AJAX processing with 6-second rate-limiting delay between batches
  • Transient-based lock prevents simultaneous runs; auto-expires after 15 minutes
  • Up to 3 retries per post with 1-second delay between attempts
  • Live progress log, per-batch cost estimate, and failed-post summary
Schema.org & GEO
  • Schema.org Enhancer — injects JSON-LD structured data for Organization, Article, Author, Speakable, and BreadcrumbList types
  • AI indexing meta tags: max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1
  • BreadcrumbList output suppressed automatically when Rank Math or Yoast SEO is active
  • Organization sameAs social links configurable from the admin
Content Discovery
  • llms.txt — serves a machine-readable content index at /llms.txt for AI retrieval systems
  • Supports custom title, description sections, featured resource links, and post-type selection
  • Pagination for large sites; HTTP ETag / Last-Modified caching; manual cache clear button
Bot & Crawler Management
  • robots.txt manager — block 13 known AI crawlers and data-harvesting bots from the WordPress admin: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, PerplexityBot, CCBot, Applebot-Extended, Bytespider, DataForSeoBot, ImagesiftBot, Omgili, Diffbot, FacebookBot, Amazonbot
  • Crawler Log — records AI-bot visits (bot name, hashed IP, URL) in a private database table
  • 30-day summary shown on the plugin dashboard; entries purged automatically after 90 days
Editor & Dashboard
  • Meta Description meta box — shows current description, its source (AI / Fallback / Manual), a live character counter, and one-click AI regeneration
  • SEO Analysis sidebar widget — word count, reading time, heading structure, link counts, live warnings
  • Link Analysis dashboard panel — posts without internal links, external-link outliers, top pillar pages by inbound link count
  • Plugin dashboard with provider status, meta coverage per post type, and crawler activity summary
Plugin Integrations
  • Native meta field write-through for Rank Math, Yoast SEO, AIOSEO, and SEOPress
  • Existing descriptions set by those plugins are always respected and never overwritten
  • Standalone meta output suppressed automatically when a supported SEO plugin is active
  • Language detection from Polylang and WPML for correct per-language meta generation
Security
  • KeyVault API key obfuscation — keys are XOR-encrypted with a key derived from WordPress auth salts before database storage; never stored in plain text
  • No OpenSSL extension required
  • SHA-256 IP hashing in Crawler Log — original IP addresses are never stored
Developer
  • bre_prompt filter — customize the AI prompt at runtime
  • bre_meta_saved action — hook into meta description saves for custom workflows
  • Extensible provider architecture — implement ProviderInterface to add custom AI providers