advanced-seo-plugin

A comprehensive SEO plugin for Payload CMS v3. It injects a meta sidebar group into configured collections, registers a global-seo global for site defaults, and exports composable utilities for title/URL generation, hreflang alternates, OG image generation, and JSON-LD structured data.

This README documents the plugin features and shows how to use them in common scenarios (Payload config, Next.js App Router, and small helper examples).

What this plugin provides

• Meta sidebar group (per-document)
  • meta.title, meta.url (canonical), meta.image, meta.description, meta.noindex, meta.nofollow, meta.alternates (hreflang), meta.jsonLd
• global-seo Global for site defaults and toggles
• Auto-generation hooks
  • generateTitle and generateURL (run on save / beforeChange)
  • generateAlternateURL (run on read to auto-fill hreflang alternates)
  • generateOgImage (run on change/publish to create an OG image when missing)
• Helpers and builders
  • resolveMeta — resolve final title/description/image/url/robots/alternates/jsonLd
  • toNextMetadata — build Next.js Metadata objects from docs/globals
  • JSON-LD builders: webPageJsonLd, articleJsonLd, productJsonLd, organizationJsonLd, breadcrumbJsonLd, buildJsonLd
  • Field factories / UI components: overview, SERP preview, upload field, alternates, etc.
• Fully typed (TypeScript) exports for config and return values

Installation

pnpm add advanced-seo-plugin
# or
npm install advanced-seo-plugin

Quick start (Payload config)

Add the plugin to your payload.config.ts and enable it for the collections you want to enhance.

// payload.config.ts
import { buildConfig } from 'payload'
import { advancedSeoPlugin } from 'advanced-seo-plugin'

export default buildConfig({
  plugins: [
    advancedSeoPlugin({
      collections: { posts: true, pages: true },
      // optional generators shown below
    }),
  ],
})

After registering the plugin you will see a new SEO (meta) group in the admin sidebar for each configured collection. Editors can set values manually or rely on the auto-generation hooks.

Plugin options and usage

All options are exported typesafe. The most-used options are shown below with examples.

• collections: Partial<Record<CollectionSlug, true>> — which collections receive the meta group
• disabled?: boolean — set to true to disable behaviour while preserving schema
• locales?: string[] — BCP47 locale codes used by generateAlternateURL
• mediaCollection?: string[] — media collection slug(s) used by the image picker (default ['media'])

Hook generators (each may return the expected value or null to skip):

• generateTitle(args) => string | null | Promise<string | null>
  • Runs on beforeChange when meta.title is empty. Use to apply site title templates.

Example:

advancedSeoPlugin({
  collections: { posts: true },
  generateTitle: ({ data }) => `${data.title} | My Site`,
})

• generateURL(args) => string | null | Promise<string | null>
  • Runs on beforeChange when meta.url is empty. Useful for canonical URL construction.

Example:

advancedSeoPlugin({
  collections: { posts: true },
  generateURL: ({ data }) => `https://example.com/blog/${data.slug}`,
})

• generateAlternateURL({ collectionSlug, doc, locale }) => string | null | Promise<string | null>
  • Runs on afterRead once per configured locale when the global-seo global has autoGenerateAlternates enabled and the doc has no manual alternates entered.
  • Return null to skip creating an alternate for a specific locale.

Example:

advancedSeoPlugin({
  collections: { posts: true },
  locales: ['en', 'fr', 'de'],
  generateAlternateURL: ({ doc, locale }) => `https://example.com/${locale}/blog/${doc.slug}`,
})

• generateOgImage({ collectionSlug, doc }) => Buffer | null | Promise<Buffer | null>
  • Runs on afterChange only when the document has no meta.image and the global-seo global has enableOgGenerator enabled.
  • Return a PNG/JPEG buffer; the plugin saves it to the configured media collection and writes the media id back to meta.image.

Example using a hypothetical renderer:

advancedSeoPlugin({
  collections: { posts: true },
  generateOgImage: async ({ doc }) => {
    // renderOgImageBuffer should return a Buffer (PNG/JPEG)
    return await renderOgImageBuffer({ title: doc.meta?.title ?? doc.title })
  },
})

Notes:

• Generators only run when a field is empty — manual editor input always wins.
• generateTitle and generateURL run in parallel on beforeChange.

Global SEO (admin global)

The plugin registers a global-seo global. Open Admin → Globals → Global SEO to configure:

• Site name and Twitter handle
• Default title, description, and default image
• Site-wide robots directive (e.g. noindex, nofollow) — used when per-doc checkboxes are not set
• autoGenerateAlternates toggle — enables generateAlternateURL behaviour
• enableOgGenerator toggle — enables generateOgImage behaviour
• JSON-LD templates you can reference from code

Use payload.findGlobal({ slug: 'global-seo' }) to read global values in server code.

Helpers

• resolveMeta(doc, { globals? })
  • Returns resolved values: { title, description, image, url, noindex, nofollow, alternates, jsonLd }.
  • Resolution order (highest → lowest):
    • title: meta.title → globals.defaultTitle → doc.title → ''
    • description: meta.description → globals.defaultDescription → doc.description → ''
    • image: meta.image → globals.defaultImage → null (always returned as URL or null)
    • url: meta.url → ''
    • noindex / nofollow: meta.{noindex,nofollow} → false (global robots used only when neither checkbox is set)
    • alternates: meta.alternates (auto-generated alternates merged by afterRead)
    • jsonLd: meta.jsonLd → null

Example:

import { resolveMeta } from 'advanced-seo-plugin'

const globals = await payload.findGlobal({ slug: 'global-seo' })
const resolved = resolveMeta(doc, { globals })
// resolved.title, resolved.image, resolved.alternates, etc.

• toNextMetadata(doc, globals?, options?)
  • Build a Next.js Metadata object for the App Router. Recommended for pages in app/.

Example (app router):

import { toNextMetadata } from 'advanced-seo-plugin/next'

export async function generateMetadata({ params }) {
  const doc = await payload.findByID({ collection: 'posts', id: params.id })
  const globals = await payload.findGlobal({ slug: 'global-seo' })
  return toNextMetadata(doc, globals, { openGraphType: 'article' })
}

What toNextMetadata sets for you: title, description, robots, alternates.canonical, alternates.languages, openGraph, and twitter with sensible defaults.

JSON-LD builders

Tree-shakeable builders help create structured data objects you can inject into the page head.

import {
  webPageJsonLd,
  articleJsonLd,
  productJsonLd,
  organizationJsonLd,
  breadcrumbJsonLd,
  buildJsonLd,
} from 'advanced-seo-plugin'

Examples:

const pageLd = webPageJsonLd({ name: 'Home', url: 'https://example.com', description: 'Welcome' })

const articleLd = articleJsonLd({
  headline: 'My article',
  url: 'https://example.com/article',
  author: { name: 'Jane Smith' },
  publisher: { name: 'Acme', logo: 'https://example.com/logo.png' },
  datePublished: '2024-01-01',
})

const merged = buildJsonLd(articleLd, { headline: 'Overridden headline' })

buildJsonLd(base, overrides) merges values while preserving @context and @type from the base template.

Field factories & admin UI components

All UI pieces are exported so you can compose custom admin layouts instead of using the default meta group.

import {
  OverviewField,
  MetaTitleField,
  MetaUrlField,
  MetaImageField,
  MetaDescriptionField,
  MetaNoindexField,
  MetaNofollowField,
  AlternatesField,
  PreviewField,
  structuredDataRow,
} from 'advanced-seo-plugin'

Common elements:

• OverviewField — character counts and warnings (title ≤ 60, description ≤ 160)
• PreviewField — Google SERP-style preview
• AlternatesField — array of { locale, url }
• structuredDataRow — JSON editor for meta.jsonLd

You can import these and include them in your own collection fields if you prefer a customized layout.

Examples and edge cases

• Manual values always win. Generators only populate when the meta field is empty.
• Auto alternates run only when global-seo.autoGenerateAlternates is true and no manual alternates exist.
• OG generation runs only when global-seo.enableOgGenerator is true and meta.image is empty. The plugin writes the created media ID back to meta.image.

Development

To develop locally (the repo contains a dev Payload app under dev/):

# Start the dev MongoDB
pnpm dev:db:up

# Start the dev server (Next.js + Payload dev app)
pnpm dev

# Run tests
pnpm test:int

# Build the plugin
pnpm build

Contributing

If you plan to extend generators or add new JSON-LD templates, follow the existing naming and typing conventions and add unit tests for the generator hooks.

License

MIT