Elements block and Yoast FAQ

Hi there,

do they appear if you add them to your Post Content ?

Hi David,

YES, they appear when I add them directly to post content.

Looks like Yoast only parses the Post Content for those FAQ elements - which is understandable as they won't know how to parse content outside of it. You may want to check with Yoast to see if they have a filter for changing its behaviour. Otherwise you won't be able to hook those elements in.

Hi David,

It is quit clear.

Thank you very much for helping!

Glad to be of some help.

Has the Generatepress answer to this question evolved beyond this during the last 18 months?

Hi there,

no changes. I done multiple tests and Yoast only seems to parse the content that is saved in the post editor for that specific post. It won't parse anything outside of that.
So adding them to a sidebar, a hook or injecting them using the_content filter won't work.

That's a significant downside to using GeneratePress, especially for larger sites that spend a great deal of time on SEO.

Is it the same with RankMath?

I wonder if there's a way to jury-rig this with output buffering and strategically placed hooks. Such that all the output would be buffered and then pulled into get_the_content() via filter or something.

Would this be remedied if, instead of using Elements to pull multiple reusable blocks together, we put block shortcodes into the actual content field?

Our SEO firm is going to pitch a fit, I think.

Its not a downside of GeneratePress, we don't make it a requirement to use the Elements module. And it does something that only themes who have copied it does :)

The issue lies with Yoast and RankMath.
I tested the following methods of adding them with both plugins:

1. Widget areas
2. Reusable blocks
3. filter the_content
4. use render_block filter to dynamically change the blocks content

All of those are core methods which can do something similar to GP Elements, and none of them work.
I believe this is because those plugins only work with the saved post content of the current post.

5. tested using a shortcode hook in the content and that didn't work either.

It may be best to ask Yoast or RankMath if its possible to get the data from the hooked in element.

Otherwise the alternative would be to look at a Custom Field method of building and displaying the FAQs and their relevant schema.

How many FAQs are required on each page ?

I'm not concerned about who/where the problem lies, some times products don't mesh together well, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. I'm only looking to find a solution. I have a site with a foundation of GP Elements and Reusable Blocks, and I have all our SEO data in Yoast. I've got to find a way to make it work.

My comment is not limited to FAQs. Our site is composed of 60+ reusable blocks, almost all of them for "body" content that would normally go into column post_content. They are all driven by dynamic data, if that matters, which is comprised of quite a few dozen custom fields. In any given Element, there may be 15-20 of the reusable blocks stacked together. And we have about 6 different Elements, each of which you could think of as a page template, but built with WP blocks instead of PHP.

I will experiment further with the hooks idea, but approach it from the Yoast side, and I will take your advice and bring it up to them to get their feedback. Thanks for your feedback!

You're welcome. Let us know how you get on!