Deactivate or uninstall RankKit SEO

Deactivating RankKit SEO pauses it and keeps all its data. Deleting (uninstalling) it removes RankKit SEO's tables, settings and history from the database, but keeps your SEO titles, descriptions and other per-post SEO fields on purpose, so reinstalling later does not lose years of work.

This page explains exactly what each step removes and keeps.

Deactivate

Go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and click Deactivate under RankKit SEO (or RankKit SEO Pro).

When RankKit SEO is deactivated:

• Its output stops: SEO titles and meta tags, schema, RankKit SEO's sitemap changes, redirects, llms.txt, robots.txt rules, the security hardening switches and everything else it adds to your site.
• All its scheduled tasks are cleared (audits, email reports, rank tracking, index checks, broken link scans and the daily cleanup).
• AI agents can no longer connect.
• All data is kept. Reactivate the plugin and everything is back as it was.

Important Your redirects stop working while RankKit SEO is deactivated. If you are switching to another plugin, move your redirects first (export them, or import them into the new plugin).

Uninstall (delete)

After deactivating, click Delete under RankKit SEO on the Plugins screen and confirm.

What is removed

Data	Details
The Change Log	Every logged change and pending approval.
Redirects	All redirect rules.
404 log	Logged 404 errors (Pro).
AI crawler visits	The AI bot tracking history.
AI visibility answers	Stored AI answers (Pro).
Broken link data	The link checker's results (Pro).
Rank tracker history	Keyword position history (Pro).
All RankKit SEO settings	Including role permissions, AI provider key, agent tokens and agent activity, the Google connection, email report settings and security switches.
Backups	Every RankKit SEO backup stored in the database.
Stored results	The latest audit, audit history, focus pages, PageSpeed results, AI briefs and other cached reports.
Scheduled tasks	Every RankKit SEO cron event.
Cached post data	Google index status and focus page diagnoses stored on posts, and a temporary status flag used by schema templates.

On multisite, this is done for every site in the network.

What is kept

Data	Why
SEO fields on posts and terms: SEO title, meta description, focus keywords, noindex and nofollow, canonical URL, social title, description and image, schema, cornerstone flag and primary category	So reinstalling RankKit SEO, or switching back from another plugin, brings your SEO back without retyping it. These are stored as post and term meta starting with _speedrank_.
Image alt text	Alt text is a standard WordPress field, not RankKit SEO data.
Locations and schema templates (Pro)	They are saved as WordPress posts of their own types.

The kept fields are invisible without RankKit SEO and do not affect your site. If you install RankKit SEO again, it picks them up.

Keep a copy before you delete

Uninstalling deletes your backups and redirects. If you might need them:

1. Go to RankKit SEO → Tools → Export & import.
2. Turn on Settings and role permissions, SEO fields of every post and term and Redirects.
3. Click Export and keep the JSON file.

You can import that file into RankKit SEO on this or another site later. See Backups, export and import.

Switching between Free and Pro

RankKit SEO and RankKit SEO Pro share the same data. Activating one deactivates the other, and deleting one while the other is still active does not remove any data. So you can delete the free plugin after installing Pro (or the other way round) safely.

Moving to another SEO plugin

Most SEO plugins can import from other plugins, but check whether yours reads RankKit SEO's fields before you delete RankKit SEO. Keep RankKit SEO deactivated (not deleted) until you have checked the new plugin's titles, descriptions and redirects on a few pages.

FAQ

Does deactivating RankKit SEO delete anything?

No. Deactivation only stops RankKit SEO and its scheduled tasks. All settings and data stay until you delete the plugin.

I deleted RankKit SEO and reinstalled it. Where are my settings?

Settings, redirects, backups and the Change Log are removed on delete. Your per-post SEO titles, descriptions and other fields are still there. Import an export file if you made one, or set up the settings again.

Does the cleanup run if I deactivate with WP-CLI?

Yes. Since version 1.1.1, deleting the plugin after a WP-CLI deactivation still runs the cleanup.

Can I remove the kept SEO fields too?

RankKit SEO does not delete them, by design. If you are sure you will never need them, a database cleanup tool can remove post and term meta whose key starts with _speedrank_. Make a full site backup first.