General Settings
Strip the category base, set external link behaviour, and fill in missing image alt and title attributes.
On this page
- Permalinks: Strip Category Base
- When a category keeps /category/
- Requirements
- Links
- Images
- Add Missing ALT Attributes
- Add Missing TITLE Attributes
- Generate Alt Text with AI on Upload
- FAQ
- Will stripping the category base break links people already have?
- Why does one of my categories still have /category/ in its URL?
- Does Add Missing ALT Attributes change the alt text saved in my Media Library?
- Does Add Missing ALT Attributes use AI or credits?
- Related reading
The General screen holds the site-wide switches that change your URLs, your links and your images rather than any one page's metadata. It has three sections: Permalinks (strip the category base), Links (nofollow and new-tab behaviour for external links) and Images (fill in missing alt and title attributes, and optionally generate alt text with AI when images are uploaded).
Open it from Hydrogen SEO → General in wp-admin (in the Settings group of the sidebar). As on every dashboard screen, nothing changes until you click Save.
Permalinks: Strip Category Base
WordPress puts /category/ in front of every category address. Strip Category Base removes it:
| Before | After |
|---|---|
yoursite.com/category/news/ | yoursite.com/news/ |
yoursite.com/category/news/local/ | yoursite.com/news/local/ |
With the switch on:
- Every category link uses the new address: menus, the XML sitemap, canonical URLs, breadcrumbs, and anywhere else WordPress prints a category link.
- Child categories keep their hierarchy, as
/parent/child/. - Feeds, pagination and embeds keep working on the new addresses, for example
/news/feed/and/news/page/2/. - Old addresses redirect. A request for
/category/news/gets a 301 redirect to/news/, with any query string kept, so existing links and search results carry over.
When a category keeps /category/
If a published page already uses a category's new address, that category keeps /category/ so the page still loads. For example, a page at /news/ means the News category stays at /category/news/. With the /%postname%/ permalink structure, the same applies to posts: a post at /news/ also keeps the category at /category/news/. Rename the page, post or category slug if you want the short address.
Requirements
Strip Category Base needs pretty permalinks. If Settings → Permalinks is set to Plain (?p=123), there is no category base to remove.
If you import from Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO, SEOPress or Slim SEO, their strip-category-base setting is imported into this switch; see switch from another SEO plugin.
Links
- Nofollow External Links adds
rel="nofollow"to every external link in your content. - Open External Links in New Tab/Window adds
target="_blank"to external links in your content.
Nofollow tells search engines not to pass ranking signals through a link; most sites leave it off and mark individual sponsored or untrusted links instead.
Images
Add Missing ALT Attributes
Fills in alt text on images that have no alt attribute or an empty alt="". WordPress prints alt="" for every image that has no alt text set, including featured images and images placed in the block editor, so this covers them too.
The alt text used is, in order:
- The image's Alternative Text from the Media Library, when set.
- Otherwise the Alt Attribute Format. The default is
%title%, the title of the post the image appears in. For featured images on archive pages,%title%is the title of the post the image belongs to, not the archive. Type@in the field to insert other template variables, such as%file_name%.
One caveat: an image you left with an empty alt on purpose, because it is decorative, also gets alt text. If your site relies on alt="" to have screen readers skip decorative images, leave this switch off and write alt text for meaningful images in the Media Library instead. See image alt text.
Add Missing TITLE Attributes
Fills in the title attribute on images that have none or an empty one, using the Title Attribute Format (default %title%). Type @ in the field to insert variables.
Generate Alt Text with AI on Upload
When this switch is on, each image uploaded without alt text gets alt text written by AI, using 1 credit per image. It applies to images only; PDFs and other files are never sent.
- It is off by default.
- It is shown only while the site is connected to Hydrogen AI. If the site is not connected, a Connect link appears in its place; see connect your account.
- Images uploaded with alt text already filled in are left alone.
Credits are explained in credits, plans and billing. For writing alt text with AI on images already in your library, one at a time or in bulk, see image alt text.
FAQ
Will stripping the category base break links people already have?
No. Old /category/... addresses 301-redirect to the new ones, query string included, and every link the site prints switches to the new address.
Why does one of my categories still have /category/ in its URL?
A published page (or, with the /%postname%/ structure, a post) already uses that category's new address, so the category keeps /category/ to avoid taking the page's URL. Change one of the two slugs to free the address.
Does Add Missing ALT Attributes change the alt text saved in my Media Library?
No. It fills the attribute in the page's HTML when the image is printed. The Media Library alt text is untouched, and when it is set, it is what gets used.
Does Add Missing ALT Attributes use AI or credits?
No. It uses the Media Library alt text or the Alt Attribute Format, and works with no account. Only Generate Alt Text with AI on Upload uses AI and credits.