Editing articles

Every article opens in the same editor: a panel that slides over the page you came from. In it you can steer an article before it's written, edit the text after, rewrite passages with AI, check the score, and publish. This page covers every control in the panel, how saving works for drafts and for published articles, and what "published" means for the REST API.

Open an article

• Click an article's title or row on Articles, a chip on Calendar, or an article in the Overview's Publishing schedule.
• On the Rank page, Plan it and Improve open the article they act on.

The panel takes most of the screen on a computer and the full screen on a phone. The open article is part of the page address (?article= followed by the article's id), so you can refresh, bookmark or share the link, and the browser's back button closes it. Older links in the form /dashboard/editor/<id> open the same article on the Articles page.

The panel layout

Previous and next walk the list you opened the article from, in the order shown there. On a narrow window, the side rail moves below the document.

What the panel shows at each stage

Write now reads Upgrade to write when the site has no article credits left. The card under it shows "Writing uses 1 article credit" and how many are left this month.

Steer an article before it's written

The writer works from three fields: the title, Target keyword and Meta description. Before an article is written, Meta description holds its brief: the angle and the gap it fills.

1. Click the title at the top of the document and edit it. Press Enter to move into the body.
2. Change Target keyword in the SEO section of the side rail.
3. Rewrite the brief in Meta description.
4. Click Write now. Your edits are saved first, then the article is written from them.

Writing spends one article credit. How the article is produced is explained in How articles are written.

Write an article yourself

1. Open an idea or a scheduled article that has no text.
2. Click Start writing under "Rather write it yourself?".
3. Type or paste your article. It autosaves as you go.
4. Click Publish when it's ready. Publishing your own article spends no credit.

Edit the text

Select text or place the cursor, then use the toolbar above the document.

URLs you type become links automatically. Links don't open when you click them in the editor, so you can edit their text.

Rewrite a passage with AI

1. Select the text you want to change. A small menu labeled AI appears above it.
2. Pick an action.
3. Wait for the spinner. The result replaces your selection.

Each action rewrites in your site's voice, using the brief from Brand voice and writing settings. Actions use no article credits but count toward the AI rate limit of 12 requests a minute per account (the default).

The AI receives your selection as plain text and returns plain text. Formatting inside the selection, such as bold, links or list structure, is replaced. Select within one paragraph for the cleanest result, and use Undo if you don't like the change. With nothing selected you see "Select some text first."

Rewrite a whole article

Rankbox doesn't regenerate an article that already has text: Write now appears only on articles with no text, so you never lose an edited version by accident. To change a written article, use the AI actions passage by passage, or edit it by hand. To start over, delete the article. If its keyword is in your site's keyword set, it shows up as a gap on Rank → Your market; click Plan it and write the new idea. That uses another credit.

How saving works

Saving depends on whether the article is published, because a published article is what your site reads.

The title, Target keyword and Meta description save with the body. If you clear the title, the previous title is kept. If a save fails, the status reads "Couldn't save" with Retry.

Rankbox asks before you lose work:

• Leaving a published article with unpublished edits shows "Publish your changes?" with Discard, Keep editing and Publish changes.
• Leaving a draft whose last save failed shows "Your latest edits didn't save" with Discard, Keep editing and Try again.
• Closing the browser tab with unsaved edits triggers your browser's own warning.

Publish and publish changes

Publish is disabled while the document is empty ("Write something first"). Publish changes is disabled until you change something.

The Webflow and Shopify connections leave alone a post you've edited or deleted in your CMS, so changes made in Rankbox afterwards don't overwrite it. See Webflow and Shopify.

What published means for the REST API

In the REST API, an article the dashboard shows as Published has the stored status finished. Only finished articles are returned by GET /articles; ideas, scheduled articles and articles being written are never visible to your site.

Every saved change to a finished article updates its updated_at time, so GET /articles?since= returns it again on your site's next sync. That's why the editor holds a published article's edits until you click Publish changes: half-typed sentences never reach your site. The body your site receives has the writer's image notes and link suggestions removed. See Articles endpoints and Syncing articles reliably.

Reschedule from the panel

For a Scheduled or Overdue article, the Details section shows Writes on (or Was due) with the date. Click the date, pick a day in the calendar, and the article moves there. Past days are disabled. The queue reorders to match, and a toast offers Undo. More ways to move articles are in Content plan and calendar.

The side rail

The score updates live as you type. Every check is explained in The SEO and GEO score.

Delete an article

1. Click More actions (…) in the header.
2. Click Delete article.
3. Confirm with Delete article in the dialog "Delete this article?". Click Cancel to keep it.

Deleting removes the article from Rankbox permanently and shows "Article deleted." It doesn't return the credit of a written article, and it doesn't remove a copy already sent to your website. An article that is being written can't be deleted until it finishes.

The same menu has Copy link, which copies the dashboard link to this article.

Keyboard shortcuts

Editor limits

• Headings. The editor keeps H1 to H3. A deeper heading (H4) in a generated article is saved as a normal paragraph once you edit and save the article.
• Tables. The editor has no table support. A table in a generated article is saved as plain lines of text once you edit and save the article.
• Images. You can't upload images in Rankbox. Add them in your CMS.
• Video. The article's YouTube embed is kept through edits and saves.
• Writer notes. Image notes and internal-link suggestions show in the document. Delete them by hand in articles you edit; see How articles are written.

Troubleshooting

Related

• How articles are written: what the writer produces and how
• The SEO and GEO score: every check in the side rail
• Content plan and calendar: statuses, scheduling and moving dates
• Brand voice and writing settings: the voice AI rewrites follow
• Articles endpoints: how published articles reach your site through the API