Guru SEO AI gives WordPress sites a focused SEO foundation without requiring a cloud account or paid API service.
Core SEO works without any API key. Guru AI Advisor is optional. If you want AI assistance, choose OpenAI, Anthropic, or Gemini and connect your own API key for the selected platform.
The central Guru SEO AI principle is simple:
Analyze the output, not the editor.
For published content, Guru SEO AI analyzes the server-rendered public page instead of assuming that WordPress post_content contains the whole page. This matters when a site uses Divi, Elementor, Gutenberg dynamic blocks, shortcodes, theme templates, custom fields, or plugins that alter front-end output.
Guru SEO AI Free performs this live rendered-page analysis for the page or post you are editing. ZenSEO AI Pro expands the same truth engine into sitewide crawling, scheduling, history, external search intelligence, and advanced workflows.
Guru SEO AI never uses raw page-builder storage markup as if it were a real social or search description.
For published pages, Guru SEO AI can inspect:
Guru SEO AI prefers the actual primary page region, such as main, article, or role="main", and filters obvious template/global areas where appropriate.
If Guru SEO AI cannot verify a published page, it reports the retrieval problem. It does not silently substitute raw editor content and present that as equivalent to a verified live-page analysis.
Unpublished drafts are different. Because a draft might not have an authoritative public URL, Guru SEO AI clearly labels draft analysis as limited saved-content analysis.
When Guru SEO fields are empty on a published page, the previews can use verified live front-end metadata.
Google Search Preview priority:
Facebook Preview uses Guru SEO Facebook values first, then verified rendered Open Graph data and appropriate image fallbacks.
X Preview uses Guru SEO X values first, then verified rendered X/Open Graph data and appropriate image fallbacks.
Guru SEO AI does not select a random rendered body image just to make a preview look populated.
Core Settings keeps the main site identity controls together:
sameAs identity linksThe Default Social Image and Logo or Identity Image appear side by side on wider screens, each with a visible image preview plus Select, Change, and Remove controls. On smaller screens they stack for easier use.
The Logo or Identity Image is used as the Organization logo or Person image in core Schema. Guru SEO AI stores the WordPress attachment ID when possible while preserving URL compatibility with earlier v1.0 test builds.
Free includes deterministic JSON-LD for supported core cases:
Advanced Schema management belongs to ZenSEO AI Pro.
Guru SEO AI Free includes a real exact-path Redirect Manager:
Advanced redirect intelligence, regex/pattern rules, hit analytics, chain/loop analysis, and 404 monitoring belong to ZenSEO AI Pro.
Guru SEO AI includes preview-first migration from:
Redirect migration additionally supports:
Migration is non-destructive:
Guru AI Advisor is optional.
If no AI API key is configured for the selected platform, all non-AI Guru SEO AI features continue to work normally.
Guru SEO AI Free lets the administrator select one AI Platform at a time:
gpt-5.6-sol)claude-fable-5)gemini-3.1-pro-preview)The free Guru AI Advisor can:
For published pages, Guru AI Advisor is grounded in verified rendered-page evidence and deterministic Guru SEO AI findings. It is instructed not to invent rankings, search volume, traffic, backlinks, competitors, business facts, or explanations of Google’s ranking algorithm.
Free uses one selected AI provider at a time. The shared credential structure is designed so ZenSEO AI Pro can use all configured supported providers for advanced workflows.
A complete educational PDF manual is included with the plugin and linked from both the WordPress Plugins screen and the Guru SEO AI dashboard. The guide is written for beginners as well as experienced site owners. It explains not only where Guru SEO AI controls are located, but what SEO titles, meta descriptions, canonicals, robots directives, social metadata, rendered-page analysis, Schema, redirects, sitemaps, migrations, and AI assistance actually mean and when to use them.
Guru SEO AI core SEO features do not require an external service.
Guru AI Advisor connects only to the AI Platform selected by a site administrator and only after the administrator configures an API key and explicitly runs an AI action.
For an AI action on a published page, Guru SEO AI sends only task-relevant rendered page evidence to the selected provider. This can include rendered primary page text, headings, title, meta description, canonical, index/follow state, link counts, Schema types, permalink, configured Guru SEO AI values, and deterministic page-analysis findings.
Unpublished drafts use limited saved-content context because there may be no public front-end page available.
No page data is sent to an AI provider simply by viewing an admin screen.
Saved API keys are stored in the WordPress database unless the corresponding WordPress constant is defined. Saved keys are never printed back into Settings HTML.
Supported constants:
ZENSEO_AI_OPENAI_API_KEYZENSEO_AI_ANTHROPIC_API_KEYZENSEO_AI_GEMINI_API_KEYOpenAI:
* Service: https://openai.com/
* API documentation: https://developers.openai.com/api/
* Terms: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use/
* Privacy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy/
Anthropic:
* Service: https://www.anthropic.com/
* API documentation: https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/api/overview
* Commercial terms: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/commercial-terms
* Privacy: https://www.anthropic.com/legal/privacy
Google Gemini:
* Service: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api
* API documentation: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs
* Terms: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/terms
* Privacy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
Guru SEO AI does not include telemetry.
Core SEO data is stored locally in WordPress.
When Guru AI Advisor is used, task-relevant data is sent to the selected AI provider as described above.
API keys are used server-side. Blank secret-field saves preserve an existing key. Key removal requires an explicit action.
Guru SEO AI includes WordPress Privacy Policy helper content for the optional AI services.
ZenSEO AI Pro is a standalone commercial plugin. It does not require Free to remain installed or active.
ZenSEO AI Pro uses the same shared Guru SEO AI data for overlapping features. Deactivate Free before activating Pro. The editions retain shared SEO data, and Free does not run while Pro is active. Once Pro is active, the inactive Free plugin can be removed.
Pro expands the platform with features such as: