Hello,
I apologize for the inconvenience you are facing with the table of contents in your posts. The issue you described, where the table of contents links to the original article instead of the one you are working on after publishing, can occur due to various reasons such as caching, plugin conflicts, or theme issues.
To address this problem, you can try the following steps:
- Clear Cache: Clear any caching plugins or server-side caching that might be causing the outdated table of contents to display.
- Plugin Conflict: Deactivate other plugins temporarily to check if any of them are conflicting with the table of contents functionality.
- Theme Compatibility: Ensure that your theme is fully compatible with Rank Math and does not interfere with the table of contents feature.
If the issue persists after trying these steps, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from our support team will assist you further in resolving the problem.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Sources:
How to Use a Table of Contents to Improve Content Readability » Rank Math
How to Add Rank Math’s Table of Contents Block » Rank Math
Why Isn’t Rank Math Detecting the Table of Contents? » Rank Math
I cleared the cache and it did not work and I am not sure how to check for plugin or theme conflicts.
Hello,
Please ensure that you are using the latest version of Rank Math plugin. If not yet, please do update them. You may refer to our changelog page here: https://rankmath.com/changelog/
We might need to take a closer look at the settings. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress login in the designated Sensitive Data section.
Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.

It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/
You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/
We really look forward to helping you.
Hello,
I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?
Thank you.
Hello,
We checked some of your posts but we can see the Table of Contents is same as your editor page. Also, we created a draft post but couldn’t able to replicate this issue.
In this case, please share the affected post URL or you can also share a screencast with us by using a tool like https://loom.com so that we can check the issue further for you.
Looking forward to helping you.
Thank you.
I recorded my screen, please see link with the video below. There you will notice how the published table of contents is different than the one while drafting the post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP7BRo_VK7E
Hello,
We deleted and added the Table of Content block pattern and the issue is resolved.
Please confirm the fix and let us know how it goes.
Looking forward to helping you.
Thank you.
Thank you, it appears to be fixed.
I have 4 more questions.
1.- Why did this happen?
2.- How do I prevent this from happening again?
3.- If it happens again, how do I fix it?
4.- Am I able to update the saved pattern which will then automatically update all table of contents of all posts? Or, would I need to create a new patter? If yes, how?
Hello,
1,2,3. This may have happened due to the caching system on your site. To fix this, try deleting the block and then add it again as we have done.
4. If you modify a synced pattern in one post on your site, the modification will be reflected in all other posts containing your synced pattern.
Hope that helps.
Hello,
We are glad to know that this issue has been resolved. Thank you for letting us know.
This ticket will be closed now, but you can always open a new one if you have any other questions or concerns. We are here to help you with anything related to Rank Math.
We appreciate your patience and cooperation throughout this process.
Thank you for choosing Rank Math.