Kirby Essentials Pro

Assets is one of the five speed modules. It sets font-display swap and defers scripts.

The hints print with the SEO head snippet, so there is no extra snippet to paste.

Media Engine, Assets and Page Cache cover LCP, FCP and TTFB.

Key features

• Font-display swap.
• Script defer.
• Hints print with the SEO head snippet.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Set 'assets' => true in the plugin modules list.
2. Make sure the SEO head snippet is printed in the theme header. The Assets hints print with it.

<?php snippet('essentials/seo/head') ?>

Related: SEO Media Engine Page Cache

Page Cache is one of the five speed modules. It stores the HTML that guests see for an hour, and purges it when you save.

Panel users and forms are skipped, so editors do not see stale pages. Saving a page clears the stored HTML.

Media Engine, Assets and Page Cache cover LCP, FCP and TTFB.

Key features

• Guest HTML cache, kept for an hour.
• Purged when you save a page.
• Panel users bypass the cache.
• Forms are skipped.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Set 'cache' => true in the plugin modules list.

Related: Media Engine Assets Forms

Link Health is one of the five speed and crawl modules. It logs 404s with the referrer, so you can see which missing URLs people are still arriving at, and from where.

It feeds the Redirects tab: add the redirect from Site → Redirects.

SEO, Link Health and Social Cards cover crawl and click-through.

Key features

• 404 log.
• Referrer recorded with each 404.
• Feeds the Redirects tab.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Set 'linkhealth' => true in the plugin modules list.
2. Add a redirect from Site → Redirects for the URLs that still miss.

Related: Redirects SEO

Social Cards is one of the five speed and crawl modules. When a page has no photograph, it generates a 1200×630 share image so the link still shows a picture when it is shared.

The image is served at /essentials-card/{page}.svg.

SEO, Link Health and Social Cards cover crawl and click-through.

Key features

• Generated 1200×630 share image.
• Only used when a page has no photograph.
• Served at /essentials-card/{page}.svg.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Set 'cards' => true in the plugin modules list.

Related: SEO Media Engine

Analytics puts one tracker in the head from the Panel. You pick the provider the client already uses. You do not paste three snippets into the theme and hope they still match next year.

Key features

• GA4: measurement ID.
• Google Tag Manager: container ID, if the client already lives in GTM.
• Plausible and Fathom: lighter measurement.
• Matomo: when the data must stay on their host.
• Microsoft Clarity: session insight, used with care.
• Statistics scripts wait for consent when Consent is on.
• Do Not Track honoured when that toggle is on.
• Panel users and listed IPs skipped, so editors do not inflate the numbers.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Set 'analytics' => true in the plugin modules list.
2. Site → Analytics. Choose the provider. Paste the ID.
3. Print the snippet in the header. Optionally print a body part if the provider needs it.

<?php snippet('essentials/analytics', ['part' => 'head']) ?>

Related: Consent SEO

Gating puts a password in front of pages. Use it for client previews, price lists and “listed but not public” URLs. Logged-in Panel users skip the lock so editors can work.

Key features

• Password lock.
• Lock a list of templates, or a single page with a page field.
• Logged-in Panel users skip the lock.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Turn gating on in the plugin modules list.
2. Site → Gating. Set the password. Toggle the lock on.
3. Either list templates (post, product) or set essentialsGate: true on the page.

essentialsGate: true

Related: Billing Maintenance

Utilities is the conflict scan. It looks at installed plugins and names the ones that will double-output a sitemap, robots file, form or banner.

What it flags

• MetaKnight.
• Kirby SEO.
• Bnomei SEO.
• Standalone robots.txt plugins.
• DreamForm.
• Other cookie-consent plugins.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Open Site → Utilities after a migration.
2. Remove the leftover. Two sitemaps is how pages disappear from Google.

Related: SEO Forms Consent Redirects

Redirects is the migration tab. From → to, 301 or 302, plus a 404 log. After a rebuild the old URLs still exist in Google. This is the work for week one, not month three.

Key features

• From → to rules.
• 301 or 302.
• 404 log with hints for URLs that still miss.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Set 'redirects' => true in the plugin modules list.
2. Site → Redirects. Add the old path and the new path. Use 301 when the move is permanent.
3. Read the 404 list after launch and add rules for the URLs that still miss.

/old-blog-post    →    /journal/old-blog-post    301

Related: Link Health Utilities SEO

Maintenance shows a holding page (HTTP 503) while you rebuild. Panel users still get in. Listed IPs still get in. Visitors see the message you wrote.

Pair it with a staging host that stays noindex if the rebuild will last more than an afternoon.

Key features

• Holding page served as HTTP 503.
• Your own message.
• Panel users get in.
• Listed IPs get in.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Site → Maintenance. Write the sentence.
2. Add the office IP.
3. Toggle the page on.
4. Toggle it off before you call the site live.

Related: Gating Redirects

Embeds stops YouTube, Vimeo and similar frames from loading until marketing consent is given. The visitor sees a short note and the cookie control instead of a third-party player.

That is Consent doing real work, not only drawing a banner.

Key features

• YouTube, Vimeo and maps.
• Placeholder until marketing consent.
• A short note and the cookie control in place of the player.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Turn Consent on as well. Embeds read the marketing flag.
2. Print the embed snippet where the video or map should appear.

<?php snippet('essentials/embed', ['url' => $url, 'title' => 'Product film']) ?>

Related: Consent

Search is on-site find. No Algolia. Visitors use /search?q= or the snippet. You can limit which templates are included so drafts and utility pages stay out.

Key features

• Search at /search?q=.
• A search snippet.
• No hosted index required.
• Limit search to the templates you choose.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Set 'search' => true in the plugin modules list.
2. Site → Search. Optionally list templates such as default, post.
3. Print the snippet where the search box should appear.

<?php snippet('essentials/search') ?>

Related: Related Feeds

Security sends a small header pack: Referrer-Policy, X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options, Permissions-Policy. Optional HSTS when the whole site is HTTPS.

It is not a firewall and it will not stop a bad plugin. It clears the usual missing-header report so the launch checklist is shorter.

Key features

• Referrer-Policy.
• X-Content-Type-Options (nosniff).
• X-Frame-Options (same-origin frames).
• Permissions-Policy.
• Optional HSTS.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Turn the module on in the plugin modules list.
2. Turn HSTS on only when every host for this site already redirects to HTTPS.

Related: SEO Maintenance

Feeds writes RSS at /feed.xml. Pick the templates (usually post or journal pages) and a limit. Some readers and some tools still subscribe this way.

Key features

• RSS at /feed.xml.
• Choose the templates that go in.
• Set an item limit.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Site → Feeds. Set templates and item count.
2. Confirm the URL in the browser after launch.

Related: Search Related

Related adds two template methods: more-like-this pages, and a table of contents built from headings. Related uses tags when they exist, then siblings.

Use the table of contents on long wiki pages. Use related at the end of journal posts.

Key features

• Related pages by tag, then siblings.
• A table of contents built from headings.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Turn the module on in the plugin modules list.
2. Call the methods in your template.

<?= $page->tocHtml() ?>
<?php foreach ($page->relatedPages() as $item): ?>
  <a href="<?= $item->url() ?>"><?= $item->title() ?></a>
<?php endforeach ?>

Related: Search Feeds Authors

Authors is a people list on the site: slug, name, role. A page points at a slug. The byline method prints it.

It is ready to hook into Person schema later through SEO.

Key features

• People directory: slug, name, role.
• Byline method for articles.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Site → Authors. Add each person.
2. On a page, set author to that person’s slug.
3. Print the byline in the template.

<?= $page->authorByline() ?>

Related: SEO Related

Accessibility is a quick sweep, not a formal audit. It looks for a missing title, images without alt, and descriptions too thin to make sense out of context.

It will not pass WCAG on its own. It catches the mistakes that happen every week.

Key features

• Plain-language pass helper for a page.
• Flags a missing title.
• Flags images without alt text.
• Flags thin descriptions.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Turn the module on in the plugin modules list.
2. Put the output in a Panel info field or a template an editor checks before publish.

<?= $page->a11yText() ?>

Related: SEO

Activity writes who changed which page. The file is site/logs/essentials-activity.log. Site → Activity shows the recent lines.

Turn it on when more than one person edits. It will not replace a full audit log for a regulated client, but it answers “who changed the title”.

Key features

• Records who changed which page.
• Log file: site/logs/essentials-activity.log.
• Recent lines shown in Site → Activity.

Turn it on and set it up

1. Turn the module on in the plugin modules list.
2. Open Site → Activity to see the recent lines.

Related: Authors