remove WordPress SEO columns from post table

Norcross Aug 5th, 2013adminpost table

The WordPress SEO plugin by Yoast is very popular, and for a good reason. It uses solid methodology, and is easy enough for folks to use who may not have a solid background in SEO. He even has a developer API and solid documentation on it for those who want to dig a bit deeper.

That being said, there is a *lot* of data to be displayed. On the post editor, it’s not a big deal, as it’s contained in a metabox and can be minimized easily. But on the post table, it can crowd out other information, especially if you have other data being displayed in the post column. Below is a function that will remove the columns from the post table.

Remove columns from post table


This same function can be used on any post type, including pages and other CPTs. Simply change the manage_edit-post_columns to manage_edit-YOUR_POST_TYPE_columns

That’s it. The great thing about this function is that you can use it to remove other columns as well, for example the author column (if you’re the only writer on the site).

*UPDATE* my good friend Ipstenu reminded me that you can uncheck the boxes on the post table under the ‘screen options’ tab. This will only apply to the current user, however.

13 Responses to “remove WordPress SEO columns from post table”

    • Norcross

      yep (which I mentioned in the bottom of the tutorial) but that applies on a per-user basis. I tend to use this more on custom post types where I don’t want them anywhere, ever.

  1. Mike Spainhower

    add_filter( 'wpseo_use_page_analysis', '__return_false' );
    removes the post/page columns in addition to the extra metaboxes.

    • Norcross

      gotcha. the docs weren’t clear on that. however, this is intended for the post table itself, as the columns can crowd out information.

  2. Mathew Porter

    Cool functionality, as im the only author, the screen options tab offers me the functionality i need, but bookmarked this just in case.

  3. Javed

    Nicely Written and described. I just stumble upon your website. You solved all of my queries. Thanks.

  4. littleguy

    This only works for posts, to apply it to other content types, you need to add additional hooks for each post type.

    Here is an example of removing the SEO boxes for both posts and pages:

    add_filter ( 'manage_edit-post_columns', 'rkv_remove_columns' );
    add_filter ( 'manage_edit-page_columns', 'rkv_remove_columns' );

  5. Brachamul

    Hello, where exactly am i supposed to paste this little snippet ? I’ve tried adding it to functions.php, but that did not seem to, well… function.