TEARDOWN 126 · REVIEWED 2026-08-21
SmartCrawl
SmartCrawl is WPMU DEV's WordPress SEO plugin, handling schema markup (150+ types), sitemaps, meta tags, and WooCommerce SEO for free. Its Pro tier adds site-wide SEO health audits, automatic internal linking, instant search-engine indexing, and location-based redirects — but Pro isn't sold as a standalone SmartCrawl purchase; it comes bundled with WPMU DEV's entire Pro plugin suite.
The on-page checks, sitemap, and schema output are a weekend WordPress build; the real catch is that SmartCrawl Pro isn't sold on its own — the cheapest Pro tier ($50/yr) buys WPMU DEV's entire Pro plugin bundle (Smush, Forminator, Defender, Hummingbird, and more), not a single-purpose SEO upgrade.
What you lose building it yourself
- ✕SEO health audits and automated site-wide crawls with auto-fixes
- ✕Automatic internal linking (keywords turned into links across the site) and instant indexing that notifies search engines the moment content changes
- ✕Location-based redirects and white-label reports for clients
- ✕The rest of the WPMU DEV Pro plugin suite (Smush Pro, Forminator Pro, Defender Pro, Hummingbird Pro, and more) bundled into any Pro tier
Why people still pay
The free plugin already covers schema, sitemaps, and meta tags; Pro is really only worth it if you already want WPMU DEV's other Pro plugins too — paying for SmartCrawl's site-wide audit and auto-linking on their own means also paying for tools (Smush, Forminator, Defender) you may not use.
BUILD YOUR OWN · WEEKEND SCOPE (ON-PAGE CHECKS)
A basic version — meta tags, an auto-generated sitemap, basic JSON-LD schema, and simple redirects — is realistic for an AI coding tool to build into a WordPress plugin in a day or two, using WordPress's own functions and no paid API. Matching SmartCrawl Pro's site-wide crawl-and-fix audit or its automatic internal linking takes real, ongoing engineering — and even then, you're not buying what WPMU DEV actually sells, which is the whole plugin bundle.
StackWordPress Plugin Boilerplate (PHP) for hooks and admin UI · native WP functions for sitemap XML output · JSON-LD templates for common schema types (Article, Product, FAQ).
Build a WordPress plugin in PHP that adds a meta box to the post editor showing: title length with a visual indicator at 60 characters, meta description length at 155 characters, and whether a user-entered focus keyword appears in the title, first paragraph, and URL slug. Register a sitemap.xml rewrite rule listing all published post and page URLs with last-modified dates. Output basic Article JSON-LD schema (headline, author, datePublished) in the page head for single posts, and add a simple redirect manager mapping an old URL to a new one via a settings page, returning a 301. Use plain PHP and native WordPress functions only — no external libraries or paid APIs.
Similar tools
Free alternative: The SEO Framework — a free, open-source (GPL) WordPress SEO plugin with no upsell tiers, covering the same on-page basics — meta tags, sitemaps, schema; it has no site-wide crawl-and-fix audit, automatic internal linking, or instant indexing to match SmartCrawl Pro, and isn't tied to a bundled membership.
Vendor's own claim
"Yes! But when you do, we also give you the full Pro plugin suite for 1, 3 or 10 sites without requiring you to sign up for Premium."
https://wpmudev.com/pricing/ · RETRIEVED 2026-08-21
QUESTIONS
Can I buy just SmartCrawl Pro without the rest of WPMU DEV's plugins?
No — WPMU DEV's own pricing FAQ confirms that buying any Pro tier (from $50/yr for 1 site) includes the entire Pro plugin suite — Smush, Forminator, Defender, Hummingbird, and more — not a SmartCrawl-only purchase.
Is the free version missing key features compared to Yoast or Rank Math?
Not on the core basics — free already includes 150+ schema types, sitemaps, meta/social tags, and WooCommerce SEO presets. What's Pro-only is the site-wide health-audit crawl, automatic internal linking, instant indexing, and location-based redirects.
What does the site-wide SEO health audit actually do?
It crawls the whole site on a schedule, flags SEO issues, and can auto-fix some of them — a different job from the on-page checks, and one of the main reasons Pro exists.