Managing SEO metadata and content categorization across hundreds or thousands of WordPress posts becomes overwhelming when changes need to happen quickly. The editorial team needed a way to efficiently update Yoast SEO index settings and bulk manage post categories without manually editing each post.

Solution

A custom WordPress plugin was developed to process bulk updates through CSV file uploads. The solution uses Action Scheduler to reliably handle large datasets, processing updates in the background without timeouts. A real-time progress indicator keeps users informed while changes are applied across the site.

Technical Implementation

• CSV validation ensures uploaded files contain properly formatted URLs before processing begins.
• Action Scheduler integration handles background task processing with configurable batch sizes and concurrent execution limits.
• Yoast SEO meta fields are automatically updated by setting or removing the noindex post meta field based on user selection.
• Category management allows bulk adding or removing category assignments across multiple posts using WordPress taxonomy functions.
• The AJAX polling system provides real-time feedback, showing the completion percentage as tasks are processed.
• Automatic log cleanup maintains system performance by clearing Action Scheduler logs after one week instead of the default 30 days.

Results

The editorial team gained the ability to update hundreds of posts in minutes rather than hours of manual work. SEO strategy changes can now be implemented site-wide with a simple CSV upload. The background processing architecture ensures updates completed reliably even for large content libraries, eliminating timeout errors that previously disrupted bulk operations.