BlogAuthority Changelog — Release History
Release History

What’s
changed.

Every version, every fix, every new capability. This is the full public changelog for BlogAuthority — documented for users, partners, and agencies.

1.4.6 Content Rules
Latest Major Release
June 2026

The biggest quality-of-life update for content teams. Every AI call the platform makes now respects a single set of site-level rules defined in Settings — no per-module configuration required. Set it once, apply everywhere.

Content Freshness Controls
  • NewResearch Recency — tells the Research Agent how far back to look for topic ideas. Options: Last month, Last 3 months, Last 6 months, Last 12 months, Any time. RSS feed windows adjust automatically. Recommended for trend-driven sites: Last 3 months.
  • NewWriting Recency — instructs the AI writer not to present facts, statistics, trends, or events older than your chosen window as current. Every article prompt includes today’s date and a cutoff. Older material is framed as historical context, not current fact.
  • Note: Writing Recency reduces stale content but cannot guarantee it — the AI has a training cutoff. For strict freshness on trend-driven sites, pair this with a live research provider (Serper or ScrapeGraphAI).
Banned Punctuation
  • NewCheckboxes for the most common AI writing signals. Each checked item is enforced two ways: via system prompt instruction AND by stripping the character post-generation — a hard guarantee, not just a request.
  • Available controls: Em dash (the most common AI writing signal), En dash, Ellipsis, Exclamation marks, Curly/smart quotes.
Banned Words and Phrases
  • NewOne entry per line. Plain ban: the AI is instructed never to use the word. Find and replace: enforced mechanically post-generation on every response (e.g. utilize => use).
Style Rules
  • NewPlain-English instructions injected into every system prompt. For rules that cannot be expressed as a word list — passive voice, number formatting, acronym handling, and any custom editorial standard.
  • All Content Rules apply automatically to Research Agent, Article Creator, Lifecycle Engine, Keyword Pages, and Email Agent.
1.4.5
Fix
June 2026
  • FixedKeyword Page generation now opens the generated draft directly in the editor instead of reloading a blank new-post screen on Gutenberg sites.
1.4.4
Fix
June 2026
  • ImprovedKeyword Page Builder controls moved into a visible top Block Editor dock so the builder is no longer hidden in Gutenberg meta boxes.
1.4.3
Fix
June 2026
  • ImprovedRestored polished admin submenu grouping, workflow order, and module icons.
  • PreservedArticle Creator fix from 1.4.1 carried forward.
1.4.1
Fix
June 2026
  • FixedArticle Creator brief generation no longer returns a generic error due to a nonce/config timing issue.
  • AddedPage-local AJAX config fallback so Article Creator works independently of footer script load order.
  • ImprovedError messages now identify whether the failure was a nonce issue, provider issue, or parser issue.
1.4.0 Editorial Control and AI Revision Workflow
Major Release
June 2026

This release moved BlogAuthority beyond simple AI generation by giving editors meaningful control over topic context, article direction, and post-generation revisions. The Research Agent now works like a real editorial assignment desk.

New Features
  • AddedTopic-level context fields in Research Agent topics.
  • AddedCustom article instructions saved per topic before generating content.
  • AddedTopic-specific editorial notes passed into the article creation prompt.
  • AddedAI revision instruction box inside the WordPress post editor.
  • Added“Revise Draft with AI” workflow for modifying existing drafts with specific instructions — make it longer, change tone, improve punctuation, clean repetitive language, add specific information, refine editorial direction.
  • ImprovedStronger alignment between Research Agent topics and generated article drafts.
Draft Revision Safeguards
  • Preserves H2/H3 heading structure where possible.
  • Does not modify RankMath title, meta description, focus keyword, slug, category, or tags during revision.
  • Saves a backup of the previous draft content before applying AI revisions.
  • Sanitizes returned HTML before updating the draft.
  • Logs draft revision activity in the Activity Log.
  • Reloads the editor after a successful revision so editors can immediately review the updated content.
1.3.x Series
1.3.9
Fix
June 2026
  • FixedArticle Creator no longer shows a blank error state when brief generation fails.
  • AddedLLM error logging, JSON normalization, and deterministic brief fallback in Article Creator.
  • ImprovedError messages now identify the specific failure — provider, parser, or empty response.
1.3.5 Research Agent Queue Reliability
Release
June 2026

Focused on stabilizing the Research Agent topic queue after AI-generated topics were being created successfully but failing to appear in the interface.

Fixes and Improvements
  • FixedResearch Agent queue insertion failures that prevented generated topics from appearing in the Topic Queue.
  • AddedResearch queue schema repair before Research Agent runs and before individual topic insertion.
  • HardenedBA_DB::ra_add() so AI-generated topic fields are safely trimmed before database insertion.
  • ImprovedHandling for longer AI-generated titles, categories, keywords, summaries, and metadata.
  • AddedDetailed Activity Log reporting for database insert failures.
  • ReducedRepeated duplicate UI error messages when multiple topic inserts fail in the same run.
1.3.4
Fix
June 2026
  • HardenedAI Research provider and key resolution for the Find Topics flow.
  • AddedParser fallback and strategy fallback when the LLM returns malformed JSON.
1.3.3
Feature
June 2026
  • AddedAI Research provider — uses your configured LLM key to generate strategy-aligned topic ideas based on your site’s niche, audience, goals, and tone.
  • ImprovedFree Mode now uses the LLM as a fallback before returning generic starter topics.
  • AddedEmergency fallback so Research Agent never silently returns zero topics when site context is available.
1.3.2
Fix
June 2026
  • FixedResearch Agent returning zero topics on fresh installs with no posts, no GSC data, and no RSS matches.
  • AddedStrategy-profile fallback topic generation from site name, niche, audience, goals, and tone.
  • ChangedDefault niche fallback changed from “fashion and lifestyle” to the WordPress site tagline.
1.3.0 Article Creator
Major Release
June 2026

Introduced the Article Creator module — a two-phase editorial workspace that separates SEO brief from full draft, giving editors a review checkpoint before AI writes a single word of body content.

New and Fixed
  • AddedArticle Creator module. Phase 1 generates an editable SEO brief — headline, title tag, meta description, keyword, and structured outline. Phase 2 writes the full article following the exact outline, saves as a WordPress draft, and pre-fills RankMath fields. Supports word count targets from 400 to 3,000 words, article types, and per-section writing notes.
  • AddedBundled logo support for the admin sidebar menu icon, onboarding wizard header, and dashboard.
  • FixedLifecycle Expand now matches the article’s existing heading structure (H2 or H3).
  • FixedRankMath title and meta description are no longer overwritten during Lifecycle Refresh or Keyword Page regeneration on existing posts.
  • FixedSetup wizard Step 2 blank body — POST handlers moved to admin_init so redirect fires before any HTML output.
1.2.x Series
1.2.x
Fix
May 2026
  • AddedFreemius licensing integration (product ID 29971).
  • FixedSetup wizard appearing correctly on fresh ZIP installs.
  • FixedTest key button working before license activation.
  • FixedActivity log column self-heal for missing context and user_id columns.
  • FixedCron self-heal on every load preventing silent lifecycle gaps.
  • UpdatedTested and confirmed compatible with WordPress 7.0.
1.1.x Series
1.1.9.x
Feature
May 2026
  • ChangedPlugin renamed from blogauthority-platform to blogauthority to match Freemius slug.
  • AddedCTA Auto-Insert Rules with position support — after intro, before last H2, after post.
  • AddedSponsor Zone preview in Monetization.
  • FixedAnswer Blocks no longer appear publicly by default.
  • FixedCTA rules being silently discarded on save.
  • FixedContent Lifecycle editor sync after Expand, Refresh, and Inject operations.