seo/update-archive-settings controls which archives exist and which are told not to be indexed: per post type, per taxonomy, the author, date and format archives, and whether each shows in search.
Disabling and noindexing are not interchangeable, and getting the distinction wrong is the main hazard here.
At a glance
| Ability | seo/update-archive-settings |
| Toolset | Yoast SEO — toolset/yoast-seo |
| Group | Yoast SEO › Settings |
| Requires | Yoast SEO, active on the site |
| Capability | manage_options |
| Safety | Writes data |
| Repeatable | Idempotent — running it twice leaves the same result |
| Ships in | AcrossAI Abilities Manager 0.0.34 and later |
Disabled redirects; noindexed stays
A disabled archive redirects away entirely. The URL stops existing — visitors and crawlers following a link to it are sent elsewhere, and any inbound link to that archive is effectively broken.
A noindexed archive is still there. It loads, it can be linked to, visitors reach it — it is simply not in search results.
For a date archive nobody links to, disabling is fine. For a category archive that appears in the site navigation, disabling breaks navigation while noindexing does exactly what was wanted.
This is also where sitemap membership is decided, because Yoast derives sitemap inclusion from indexing. Noindexing a post type removes it from the sitemap; there is no separate switch.
Author archives on single-author sites are the standard candidate for noindexing, since they duplicate the blog index.
Idempotent.
Input
| Name | Type | Required | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
settings | object | Yes | A map of setting key to new value. Keys outside this area are refused. |
What comes back
| Name | Type | What it is |
|---|---|---|
updated | array | The keys that changed. |
settings | object | The area after the write. |
success | boolean | Whether the call completed. |
message | string | A one-line summary of what happened, suitable for showing a human. |
error_code | string | Present only on failure — a stable machine-readable reason, such as a missing field, a wrong field type or an unmet confirmation. |
Example
Ask your assistant:
Stop the date archives being indexed.
It resolves to one call:
{
"ability": "seo/update-archive-settings",
"parameters": {
"settings": { "disable-date": false, "noindex-archive-wpseo": true }
}
}Worth knowing
- Disabled archives redirect away; noindexed ones remain reachable.
- This is where sitemap membership is decided — there is no separate sitemap switch.
- Author archives duplicate the blog index on single-author sites.
- Idempotent.
Related abilities
- List Sitemap Coverage — the effect on the sitemap
- Update Archive SEO Settings — their titles
- Get Robots Settings — everything that is noindexed
Get the plugins:
AcrossAI Abilities Manager · AcrossAI MCP Manager
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