How to Fix Multiple SEO Plugins Detected on Your Site

If you’ve received a critical SEO warning in SureRank saying: “Another SEO plugin, [Plugin Name], detected on the site.” or “ More than one SEO plugin detected on the site.”

This article will help you understand what this means, why it’s important, and how to fix it even if you’re not a technical person.

What’s the problem

When more than one SEO plugin is active, each tries to manage the same elements of your site titles, meta descriptions, canonical tags, schema, and indexing rules. Because both plugins write this information into your site’s code, they often overlap or conflict.

Examples of what can go wrong:

• Two different titles or meta descriptions appear in the code
• Multiple canonical tags point to different URLs
• Duplicate structured data is added, leading to schema errors
• Two XML sitemaps are generated, leaving Google unsure which one to follow
• Conflicting robots settings can block or allow the wrong pages

Instead of helping, running multiple SEO plugins at once makes your site harder for search engines to understand.

Why this matters

• Mixed signals to search engines: Google may ignore your metadata or choose the wrong canonical version
• Lost SEO value: Backlinks and authority can get split between duplicate versions of a page
• Structured data conflicts: Rich results may not appear if schema markup is invalid
• Complex troubleshooting: You may not know which plugin changed a tag or setting
• Performance overhead: Multiple plugins doing the same job slow down your site

What to do

Step 1 – Verify which SEO plugins are active

• Go to Plugins > Installed Plugins in your WordPress dashboard
• Look for SEO plugins that are marked “Active”
• SureRank will also list the ones it detects.

Step 2 – Choose one SEO plugin to keep

• If you’re using SureRank, you don’t need another SEO plugin
• If you’re transitioning from a different plugin, decide which plugin’s features or data you want to keep

Best practice: Keep only one SEO plugin active at a time

Step 3 – Backup your site

Before removing plugins, make a full backup (files + database). This ensures you can roll back if needed.

Step 4 – Migrate SEO data (if switching to SureRank)

• Use SureRank’s Import Tool to bring over titles, descriptions, and schema from plugins like Yoast, RankMath, SEOPress.
• After migration, spot-check a few pages to confirm the metadata is intact

Step 5 – Deactivate the extra SEO plugin(s)

1. In WordPress, go to Plugins > Installed Plugins
2. Click Deactivate on the SEO plugin(s) you don’t want to keep
3. Test your site and confirm everything looks correct
4. Once confident, click Delete to fully remove the extra plugin(s)

How to test after changes

• Open the page source and check that there’s only one set of meta tags and canonical tags
• Run a page through Google Rich Results Test to confirm the schema is valid
• Inspect a page in Google Search Console to confirm that the canonical and indexing match your settings
• Verify there’s only one sitemap submitted in Search Console.