Tons of value, for free!

We have been using Yoast to serve the SEO needs of Organic Themes for many years. They are a fantastic company providing great products and contributions to WordPress.

Yoast advertised a major sales event for 4 days within the WordPress dashboard. While the ad was annoying to some users, it did not break anybody’s site, nor did it affect the performance of the plugin.

Unfortunately, Yoast has been dragged over the coals for this decision. The banner should have been more easily dismissed and less distracting. That was their only mistake, which was rectified asap. Otherwise, it’s a free product! Advertising should be expected in free products.

I’ve heard the argument of what if you have 50 plugins, and they all displayed a dashboard notification. As long they can be dismissed, so what!? If you’re not paying for a product or service, and you get value from that free product or service, complaints should be reserved for performance and/or catastrophic problems.

Are we so entitled to the free work of others that we can’t tolerate a temporary banner ad in the WordPress dashboard?

We will continue to proudly use Yoast, and recommend their free plugin to our customers.