If plugins are seen to go “rogue”, it might be an idea to consider your options, which might have been the case with the Yoast SEO plugin on Black Friday.
It all started when panicked clients began ringing up wondering if their websites had been hacked due to a very strange animated graphic in the header of the WordPress admin area.
After doing a bit of digging, we discovered that the banner in question was from the Yoast SEO plugin advertising its Black Friday sale.
They might not be the only WordPress plugin creator doing this, but you would probably expect more from such a well respected and admired plugin creator, with some people calling the banner “spam”
The backlash has been swift (You can see some discussion here), with many developers ditching the Yoast SEO plugin, in favour of The SEO Framework plugin.
We have decided to do the same, and so far, its so good, so lets hope the The SEO Framework doesn’t try to push any sneaky ads in the future, as its already a winner.
footnote. The Yoast SEO plugin has since been updated to remove the advertisement, but the horse has surely bolted.