@john,
Here is what appears to have happened or be happening.
First, to answer your question (and it relates to mssbee’s second to last post): No, the advice in the section, “The SEO title output for the plugin doesn’t work as expected” did not work. (@mssbee, the forced rewrite did not work either. I’ll keep the results to myself since the author of the plugin believes that since I didn’t pay for his, as he calls it, “AND IT’S A FREE” plugin; I’ll reciprocate and let him find out what I’ve discovered on his own. You can contact me offline if you wish.
I made a back-up of the current header file of the theme on the site, and then made the change; and it was needed because it appears that the plugin made a number of massive changes to the file. After making the edit, saving, dumping my browser cache, and refreshing; the problem(s) persist. What I really don’t like is the issue that we installed the current version of the plug-in when the WP dashboard indicated to us that we had updates that needed to be installed. (To maintain security, both for ourselves and the resources of our hosting provider, we stay on top of updates.) In five years of using WP, we have NEVER experienced such an update of a plugin or a theme that made such dramatic changes to a site; with the exception of two themes, which in both cases, either the author contacted us before hand and let us know that the upgrade had special requirements; or, the automatic update forewarned us of exigent conditions. Lesson learned. In this case, I believe we lost total control of the files affected, and not due to any intent of our own. (Commentary: I would hope that WP reviews their policies on updates, that if a plugin is allowed to be listed in the WP Plugin directory, besides offering a free version and not allowing ads to outside fee-based services, that they require some new conditions that plugins need to create a temp directory (ies) on a site and copy-and-paste copies of all files the update is going to change, so that if something goes wrong, a roll-back can be efficiently completed.)
We have had a great relationship with the hosting company we use (four years) and I’ll ask them to roll us back to pre-update. We have had a number of new users register in the interim, but we will backup and manually record them so as to not be irresponsible.
So, if either of you have any other ideas, I’m open; but I think the roll-back to a point before the update, and then an uninstall and clean-up should work. There are plenty of great SEO experts we can utilize; and yes, just so the record is straight, we do actually pay for themes and plugins we find meet our needs. Thanks again for your help; it was and continues to be appreciated.
Richard
