joost.blog

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# joost.blog

> Joost de Valk's personal blog about SEO, WordPress, the open web, AI, and building things.

## Pages

- [About Joost de Valk · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/about-me/): Internet entrepreneur from the Netherlands. Group Head of AI & Growth at Your.Online, investor through Emilia Capital, and founder of Yoast.
- [Drafts · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/admin/drafts/): Listing of draft posts.
- [Daily Supplements](https://joost.blog/admin/supplements/)
- [Building a site agents can use, from scratch · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/agent-native/): How cocktail.glass was built agent-ready from the first commit: one data source, Markdown negotiation, a stateless MCP server, and discovery.
- [What agent-ready looks like for a static blog · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/agent-ready/): I ran joost.blog through Cloudflare's isitagentready.com and got a 25. Here's what I built to close the gaps: markdown content negotiation, Content Signals, Link headers, an API catalog, an agent skills index, WebMCP tools, and a server-side MCP endpoint. Also: where the scoring gets it wrong.
- [Making WordPress plugins agent-ready · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/agent-ready-plugins/): In my last post, I discussed why a design system is the “visual rail” AI needs. But the “Architect” I’ve been describing doesn’t just care about how a site look
- [AI optimization is replaying early SEO, just faster · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/ai-optimization-is-replaying-early-seo-just-faster/): If you were around for early SEO, the current AI-content wave should feel familiar. The difference is speed: what used to take years now takes weeks.
- [Ask Joost: AI-powered answers from my blog · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/ai-powered-answers-ask-joost/): I built an AI-powered Q&A feature that lets you ask questions about anything I've written. Here's how it works, and why I built it on Cloudflare Workers AI.
- [Ask Joost's AI · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/ask-joost/): Ask a question about SEO, WordPress, open source, or the web and get an AI-powered answer grounded in Joost de Valk's posts and videos.
- [Astro SEO: the definitive guide. · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/astro-seo-complete-guide/): Eighteen years after 'WordPress SEO: the definitive guide,' here's the Astro version — the full SEO stack for 2026, from JSON-LD to agent discovery.
- [Automatically convert WebP files to PNG · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/automatically-convert-webp-files-to-png/): I love CloudFlare. It makes websites lots faster. One of the things it does is change PNG files to WebP automatically when your browser (f.i. Google Chrome) sup
- [Building an Autonomous Feedback Agent · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/autonomous-feedback-agent/): What if your users could submit a bug report and have a pull request ready for review before you’ve even seen the ticket? That’s what we built for Rondo Club, a
- [Block the abuse, not the future · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/block-the-abuse/): Anti-AI CAPTCHAs treat every agent as an attacker. They break legitimate automation, punish paying customers, and bet against the way the web is going.
- [Blog · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/blog/): Articles, essays, and opinions by Joost de Valk on WordPress, SEO, open source, AI, and the future of the open web.
- [Blogging about not SEO · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/blogging-about-not-seo/): I’ve been wanting to do this for a while: blogging for fun, on a domain separate from Yoast.com. Blogging about stuff I do outside of Yoast, which, surprisingly
- [Almost nobody gets XML sitemaps right · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/broken-sitemaps/): I built Sitemap Inspector to keep sitemaps readable. It became a bug finder: Adobe, Anthropic, GOV.UK, Man City, Semrush and X all ship sitemap errors.
- [Build websites like it’s 2005 (and win in 2025) · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/build-websites-like-2005/): Last week was a whirlwind, first diving deep into AI and WordPress while working with the WP CLI as MCP host team at Cloudfest, then heading off to SMX Munich f
- [Building a trusted web, step 1. · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/building-a-trusted-web-step-1/): One of the biggest long-term trust problems of the web is reliably figuring out who published something first. Who was first has deep implications for ownership
- [AI · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/ai/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the AI category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Development · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/development/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the Development category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Open Source · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/open-source/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the Open Source category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Personal stuff · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/personal-stuff/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the Personal stuff category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Productivity hacks · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/productivity-hacks/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the Productivity hacks category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Research · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/research/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the Research category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [SEO · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/seo/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the SEO category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Short · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/short/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the Short category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Strategy · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/strategy/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the Strategy category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Travel · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/travel/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the Travel category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [WordPress · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/wordpress/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the WordPress category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Yoast · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/category/yoast/): Articles by Joost de Valk in the Yoast category — SEO, WordPress, open source, AI, and the open web.
- [Cleaning up WordPress option clutter · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/cleaning-up-wordpress-option-clutter/): Note: this plugin has received a ton of updates since its inception. It’s now
- [Clickable WhatsApp links · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/clickable-whatsapp-links/): The simple things make life easy. One of them is WhatsApp. And more specifically: customer service through WhatsApp. I love it when companies
- [CMS Market Share · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/cms-market-share/): Monthly CMS market share data based on the HTTP Archive — WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, and more, tracked over time.
- [CMS market share June 2024 commentary · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/cms-market-share-june-2024-commentary/): This commentary focuses on the data found in my monthly CMS market share report, which is generated automatically every month. This is the first time I’m writin
- [CMS Market share measured “right” · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/cms-market-share-measured-right/): Today, I’m introducing a new CMS market share report on this site based on the HTTP Archive’s dataset. This report will be updated – automatically – every month
- [CMS Usage Statistics · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/cms-usage/): Monthly usage statistics for 343 content management systems, tracking millions of websites worldwide.
- [Quix — Alfred workflow for SEO & web analysis · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/code/alfred-quix/): Quix is an Alfred workflow that lets you quickly run SEO checks, speed tests, and web analysis tools on the current browser URL.
- [Code · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/code/): Code projects, WordPress plugins, and other software I've built and maintain.
- [Sitemap Inspector for Chrome · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/code/sitemap-inspector/): Browse XML sitemaps, find sitemap issues, and check redirects, noindex, canonicals, and Googlebot rules with this free Chrome extension.
- [Contact · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/contact-me/): Get in touch with Joost de Valk — via the contact form, Slack, social media, or postal mail.
- [Google’s agentic future leaves WordPress behind · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/deafening-silence-google-wordpress-agentic/): Google just announced a massive shift in how the internet shops, and the biggest platform on the web wasn’t even in the room.
- [Defending the open web is not enough · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/defending-open-web-not-enough/): Anil Dash calls it the endgame for the open web. The collapse has already started. The question isn't how to protect it, but what to build next.
- [Democratizing publishing · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/democratizing-publishing/): Matt blogged, in response to a question asked at WordCamp US: what does
- [Designing plugins to be uninstalled · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/designing-plugins-to-be-uninstalled/): I feel a particular class of plugins in the WordPress world should be more prominent. Plugins that help you do something, which you then delete when you’re done
- [Do you need a CMS? · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/do-you-need-a-cms/): For twenty years, wanting a website meant needing a CMS. That's no longer true. The real question people ask now is simpler: how do I get my content on the web?
- [Docusign to Documenso · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/docusign-to-documenso/): In my quest to move most of my SaaS services to self-hosted open-source software, I’ve taken on the next step: our document signing infrastructure. Everyone see
- [Elementor: WordPress’ secret growth driver? · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/elementor-wordpress-secret-growth-driver/): Is Elementor the secret behind WordPress’ growth in the last years? We know from my CMS market share analysis that WordPress has been growing fast. Could it be
- [EmDash: a CMS built for 2026 · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/emdash-cms/): Cloudflare launched EmDash, a CMS designed for AI-native development. Agent-first tooling, sandboxed plugins, edge deployment. Analysis from Joost de Valk.
- [FAIR, WordPress, and Knowing When to Stop · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/fair-wordpress-and-knowing-when-to-stop/): Over the past year, we, Karim & Joost, have written and talked extensively about the challenges facing WordPress. We’ve been critical. At times, very critical.
- [FAQ schema died twice. The fix is FAQSection. · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/faq-schema-cycle/): Google killed FAQ rich results on May 7, 2026. The lesson isn't that schema is dead. It's that GEO is starting the same cycle in AI search.
- [https://joost.blog/favicon-render](https://joost.blog/favicon-render)
- [Fixing the plumbing of the web · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/fixing-the-plumbing/): I shipped specification.website — the platform-agnostic spec of what every good website should ship. Plus the sitemap PRs that pushed me to build it.
- [The future of the website · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/future-of-the-website/): Websites aren't dying, but their job is changing: agent-readable surfaces, MCP servers, and verifiable authenticity. Where the website goes next.
- [GitHub Actions to keep your WordPress plugin healthy · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/github-actions-wordpress/): I absolutely love GitHub Actions and have been using them more and more for several purposes. As I’ve seen on some of the GitHub repositories I’ve been looking
- [Good-looking GitHub profile pages · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/good-looking-github-profile-pages/): After my blog post about healthy GitHub repositories, I learned that many people didn’t know how to create .github repositories and what you can do with those.
- [Google’s robots changes, the web & the law · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/googles-robots-changes-the-web-the-law/): Google announced a few days ago that they would change the way rel="nofollow" works for them. They would start treating nofollow as a “hint” instead of a
- [Gravity Forms notification routing with a lookup table · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/gravity-forms-notification-routing-with-a-lookup-table/): I had a need for complex routing of notification messages in Gravity Forms. The email could, depending on a dropdown field, go to some 50-60 different recipient
- [Gutenberg and Yoast SEO · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/gutenberg-and-yoast-seo/): I’m typing this as I sit in Track 1 of WordCamp Europe in Paris. Matt Mullenweg just announced Gutenberg as a plugin is available, so I installed it on here and
- [Why healthy doubt beats AI confidence theater · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/healthy-doubt/): AI will confidently sign off on anything. The question is whether you will too.
- [How to create a healthy GitHub repository · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/healthy-github-repository/): As a result of investing in a fair few companies and getting a lot more requests to invest, I look at GitHub repositories a lot. I often run into GitHub reposit
- [HelpScout to Freescout · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/helpscout-to-freescout/): Everyone uses a lot of SaaS applications to manage their day-to-day business. So much that the cost of it becomes prohibitive. I’ve decided that I’m going to tr
- [How to get week numbers in your Mac menu bar · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/how-to-get-week-numbers-in-your-mac-menu-bar/): This post explains how to get the week number in your Mac’s menu bar. Simple enough, right? At some point, as you start planning ahead in basically anything, yo
- [Joost de Valk - Internet entrepreneur · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/): Joost de Valk - internet entrepreneur, Group Head of AI & Growth at Your.Online, founder of Yoast
- [Innovation in WordPress: a look at plugin development · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/innovation-in-wordpress/): Recent observations have highlighted a significant surge in new plugin submissions to the WordPress repository, as noted in this post. We also know that Automat
- [Introducing a new plugin: Progress Planner · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/introducing-a-new-plugin-progress-planner/): Ever since Marieke and I left Yoast, we’ve considered building a new WordPress product. We love working on something that people can use—something that will imp
- [Why your customers are scraping you · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/just-ship-an-api/): If you only give customers a web interface, they will automate it anyway. Here's why vendors should just ship a proper API instead.
- [Karen Sparck Jones · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/karen-sparck-jones/): A brief tribute to Karen Spärck Jones — computer scientist, IDF inventor, and the woman who said computing was too important to leave to men.
- [Leading marketing & communication for WordPress · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/leading-marketing-communication-for-wordpress/): Last week I was appointed Marketing & Communications Lead of WordPress. I think WordPress is one of the most essential platforms on the web and I’m really proud
- [My WordPress take on Markdown for Agents · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/markdown-alternate/): Today, Cloudflare announced Markdown for Agents, a feature that automatically converts HTML to markdown at the edge when AI agents request it. Reading their ann
- [Marketing WordPress – first steps · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/marketing-wordpress-first-steps/): I’ve had the question a few times now of what I’ve been up to since I got appointed lead marketing for WordPress. The first few weeks have been busy, but very i
- [MCP 2026-07-28: the spec catches up with the static web · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/mcp-goes-stateless/): The new MCP spec drops the handshake and sessions. What that changes in a hand-rolled endpoint on a static blog, and why tools/list can now live on the CDN.
- [Multi-currency awesomeness with EDD & Cloudflare · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/multi-currency-awesomeness-with-edd-cloudflare/): We’re getting ready at Emilia Projects (which is the “run our own projects part” of Emilia Capital) to sell our first plugin, the Pro version of Fewer Tags. We
- [Transitioning to a new role at Yoast · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/new-role-at-yoast/): At the end of this month, I will transition to a different role at Yoast. No, I will not leave Yoast. But, I am going to pursue some other dreams outside of Yoa
- [Share Obsidian links that actually work everywhere · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/obsidian-agent-links/): I’ve been playing with OpenClaw a lot, and I’m using Obsidian intensely with it. All my processes and even my OpenClaw’s core files live in my Obsidian vault. I
- [Composing OKF and ARD on specification.website · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/okf-ard/): Two standards landed in a week, both partly Google, neither aware of the other. OKF packages knowledge; ARD finds it. I composed both and filed the gaps.
- [The agency case for open source · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/open-source-agency/): Open source spent thirty years winning the cost argument. AI is making that irrelevant. What replaces it (the agency argument) is still open.
- [Open Source First is right, but not enough. · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/open-source-first-not-enough/): Open Source First is the right EU procurement principle. Funding the commons it depends on is the other half. What FAIR taught me about the supply side.
- [Optimize crawling, for the environment · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/optimize-crawling-for-the-environment/): Search engines rely on spiders / bots to crawl the web and find (new) content. Every time they find a URL, they crawl it and if it’s interesting to them, they’l
- [Optimize crawling: let’s turn things around! · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/optimize-crawling-lets-turn-things-around/): I wrote about crawl optimization last week, mostly about getting stuff that you don’t want crawled to not be crawled. There’s more to say about that, and I will
- [Organize your screenshots on MacOS · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/organize-screenshots-macos/): MacOS has great built-in screenshot functionality. The problem is that, by default, it saves screenshots to your Desktop, which in my case turned my Desktop int
- [A new path forward for WordPress, and for the open web · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/path-forward-for-wordpress/): In December, I wrote about the state of leadership in the WordPress ecosystem. I shared how too much power rests with one person, and how the lack of transparen
- [The people behind the WordPress platform · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/people-behind-the-platform/): By Marieke van de Rakt and Joost de Valk — on the volunteers who keep WordPress alive and what their work means for the platform.
- [Playground Blueprint Builder · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/playground-blueprint-builder/): I have been playing with the WordPress Playground a lot. As I did, I wanted a way to quickly make a copy of an existing site to a new Playground. It seems an id
- [Plugin demos with the WordPress playground · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/plugin-demos-with-the-wordpress-playground/): For years, plugin developers have been looking for ways to demo their plugins to users. Users don’t read readme.txt files or plugin pages on WordPress.org. They
- [How to deal with plugin security issues · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/plugin-security-issues/): Dealing with security issues for your WordPress plugin can be hard and even a bit scary, certainly when it’s happening to you for the first time. In this post I
- [A right-click / contextmenu logo popover · Joost.blog](https://joost.blog/popover-contextmenu/): I always like it when I right-click a logo on a we

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