# JPKCom Rank Math Options — Guide & Tips

> Use JPKCom Rank Math Options to unlock the robots.txt/.htaccess editors despite DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT, remove Rank Math credits and disable telemetry, with zero configuration.

Source: https://www.jpkc.com/db/en/guides/jpkcom-rank-math-options/

JPKCom Rank Math Options is a lightweight companion plugin for [Rank Math SEO](https://wordpress.org/plugins/seo-by-rank-math/). Rank Math disables its robots.txt and .htaccess editors whenever the WordPress constant `DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT` or `DISALLOW_FILE_MODS` is set. This plugin re-enables them through the official `rank_math/can_edit_file` filter and trims a few Rank Math defaults most operators end up disabling anyway. There is nothing to set up: activating it is enough.

> **Please note:** because that is the only condition Rank Math checks, re-enabling the editors means overriding those constants where they are set. On Apache, `.htaccess` is effectively server configuration — activate this plugin only where that is intended.

Verified against **Rank Math 1.0.275**.

## Guide

### Requirements

- WordPress **6.9** or newer (tested up to WordPress 7.1)
- PHP **8.3** or newer
- **Rank Math SEO** must be installed and active — the plugin header declares `Requires Plugins: seo-by-rank-math`, so WordPress prevents activation otherwise
- Network-ready: can be network-activated on multisite and takes effect on every site

### Installation

1. Upload the `jpkcom-rank-math-options` directory to `/wp-content/plugins/`, or install the ZIP via **Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin**.
2. Activate the plugin (network-wide on multisite) under **Plugins → Installed Plugins**.
3. Make sure **Rank Math SEO** is active.
4. Open **Rank Math → General Settings → Edit robots.txt** or **Edit .htaccess** — the editors are now available.

### Configuration

There is nothing to configure — activating it is enough. If you want to disable the behaviour temporarily without deactivating the plugin, you can unhook the filter from another plugin or your `functions.php`:

```php
remove_filter( 'rank_math/can_edit_file', '__return_true' );
```

## Tips & Tricks

- **Why the editors are missing in the first place:** Rank Math checks a single condition — whether `DISALLOW_FILE_EDIT` or `DISALLOW_FILE_MODS` is defined and true in your `wp-config.php`. If neither is set, the editors are already available and this plugin changes nothing there. Multisite makes no difference of its own. (Up to version 1.0.9 a different explanation stood here — the multisite reasoning was simply wrong.)
- **Cleaner source & sitemap:** The "Powered by Rank Math" HTML comment in the frontend and the "Generator" line in the XML sitemap are removed.
- **Telemetry off — actually, since 1.0.10:** Rank Math's switch is the standalone `rank_math_mixpanel_optin` option. The plugin filters every read of it to `false`, so `Optin::can_track()` reports off no matter what is stored, and it also blocks writes to that option, so an opt-in never reaches the database. Deactivating this plugin therefore leaves tracking off rather than quietly switching it back on. **Relevant for existing installations:** up to version 1.0.9 the plugin rewrote a `usage_tracking` key in `rank-math-options-general` — a field that is never stored there and does not govern the tracking state either. Tracking was therefore **not** actually switched off. If you relied on that, this update matters.
- **Spec-compliant llms.txt:** Rank Math prepends an intro paragraph to the generated `llms.txt`; the plugin strips it so the file starts with the site's H1 as the spec expects. Since 1.0.10 this runs through the `rank_math/llms_txt/remove_credit` filter that Rank Math has since added for exactly this. The previous approach compared the request path against the literal `/llms.txt` and therefore never ran on a subdirectory installation — precisely the case it was written for.
- **Tidy admin bar:** The Rank Math menu node is removed from the WordPress admin bar (frontend and backend).
- **No database writes:** The plugin only hooks into Rank Math filters — no UI, no options, no database entries of its own.

## Further reading

- Source code on GitHub: <https://github.com/JPKCom/jpkcom-rank-math-options>
- Rank Math SEO: <https://wordpress.org/plugins/seo-by-rank-math/>
- [This project's changelog](https://www.jpkc.com/db/en/changelog/jpkcom-rank-math-options/)