SEO Field Reference

Why this page exists

Yoast SEO, Rank Math, All in One SEO and SEOPress store the same handful of fields, and no two of them use the same names. Writing to the wrong place fails silently: the value is saved, nothing errors, and the page doesn’t change. The names above come from the adapters SnippetGrove writes through, and we publish a name only after a live install has confirmed it.

Where the stored value and the page disagree

A correct key is not always enough. The reference above records four ways a value can be saved and still not reach the page:

• Yoast SEOrenders from its indexables table. Updating post meta directly leaves the old value on the page until that post’s indexable is rebuilt.
• All in One SEO has no post meta for these fields at all. They are columns of wp_aioseo_posts, behind its Post model.
• Rank Math and All in One SEOcan make a post’s X card inherit Open Graph. While they do, X text you stored does not appear.
• Rank Math 1.0.275 printed no SEO tags at all on a fresh install until its setup wizard was finished.

It also works the other way. An empty stored field does not mean an empty tag. Yoast rendered a templated description for a post whose _yoast_wpseo_metadesc was empty. So if you want to know whether anyone wrote a description, read the stored field, not the page.

Reading them from PHP

For the three post meta plugins, get_post_meta() with the key from the table is enough to read a value. All in One SEO needs its model:

// Yoast SEO, Rank Math, SEOPress: post meta
$desc = get_post_meta( $post_id, '_yoast_wpseo_metadesc', true );
$desc = get_post_meta( $post_id, 'rank_math_description', true );
$desc = get_post_meta( $post_id, '_seopress_titles_desc', true );

// All in One SEO: a row in wp_aioseo_posts, through its model
$desc = \AIOSEO\Plugin\Common\Models\Post::getPost( $post_id )->description;

Writing takes more care than reading. On Yoast, refresh the post’s indexable afterwards. On All in One SEO, set the property and call save() on the model, then check the value from a separate request. The model caches the post, so reading it back in the same request only returns the object you just changed.

What this page leaves out

SnippetGrove’s adapters also read focus keyphrases and category and tag (term) metadata. Neither was part of a live verification, so their names are not listed here. The same goes for canonical URLs, robots settings, schema and the premium editions of these plugins, which were not tested. We would rather leave a gap than publish a name nobody checked.

How it stays accurate

Each plugin row carries the version it was verified on, and each note carries its own version and date. These plugins change how they store data between major releases, so a version newer than the one listed has not been checked. Before you rely on a name in production, write a test value on a staging copy and check that your own site renders it.