Understanding the SEO Bar Column in Your Post and Page Lists

What Is It?

When you open your Posts, Pages, or other content list screens in wp-admin, you’ll notice an SEO Checks column. It shows a color-coded status badge for each item, so you can see how well it’s optimized without opening every post individually.

Where You’ll See This Column

• Posts, Pages, and custom post types (e.g., Products, Portfolio items), as long as SEO checks are enabled for that content type.
• Category, Tag, and other taxonomy list screens.
• The Users list screen, showing an SEO score based on that author’s content.

A few internal/system post types (such as page builder library templates or form entries) don’t show this column, since they aren’t public-facing content that search engines index.

What the Badge Colors Mean

How to Use It

Click the badge on any row to open the same SEO Checks panel you’d see inside the post/page editor, right from the list screen. From there, go to the Analyze tab; there you can review every check that passed, failed, or needs attention, and fix or ignore individual items without leaving the list view.

Turning the Column On or Off

This column is controlled by a single setting: SureRank → Advanced → Features Management → Page Level Checks.

Turning this feature off removes the SEO Checks column (and the popup it opens) everywhere it appears: posts, pages, taxonomies, and users. There’s no separate option to hide just the column while keeping page-level checks active.

Frequently Asked

Why don’t I see this column on one of my custom post types? 

Confirm the post type is public and that page-level SEO checks are enabled. Some post types (page builder templates, form submissions) are excluded by design since they aren’t indexable content.

Why is a badge stuck on “No Data”?

 This usually means the check request didn’t complete when the page loaded, often due to a temporary connection hiccup. Try refreshing the page. If it persists, clear any caching plugin and check whether a security plugin or firewall is blocking REST API requests on your site.

Does this column slow down my admin? 

No. SureRank caches each item’s SEO check results and only recalculates them when the content has changed, so loading a list screen doesn’t trigger a fresh analysis every time.