What steps should I follow to ensure that Squirrly SEO can fetch values directly from wp_postmeta, if importing them via Excel?
What is wp_postmeta?
Every post contains an associated set of data, referred to as metadata, which is stored in the wp_postmeta
table within your WordPress database.
Each entry in the wp_postmeta table is connected to a post and has a key-value pair, where the key is the name of the metadata element and the value is the metadata value.
Here’s a brief rundown of what each column in the wp_postmeta table represents:
- meta_id: A unique identifier for each metadata entry.
- post_id: The ID of the post this metadata is associated with.
- meta_key: The name of the metadata element.
- meta_value: The value of the metadata element.
In this setup, meta_key would be the name you give to a specific piece of information you’re storing about a post.
For instance, if you were storing the price of items as metadata, the meta_key might be “price”, and the meta_value would be the actual price of the item.
Now, if you want to import values from Excel, CSV, or another feed into wp_postmeta and want Squirrly SEO to be able to directly fetch the values from wp_postmeta, you just need to insert the following meta_key/value pairs in wp_postmeta:
- _sq_title (string) = with the title from Squirrly SEO Snippet
- _sq_description (string) = with the description from Squirrly SEO Snippet
- _sq_keywords (string) = with the keywords from Squirrly SEO Snippet, separated by commas

Note! (string) indicates the data type of the metadata value you are setting. In programming, a string is a data type used to represent text rather than numbers. It signifies that the value for _sq_title
, _sq_description
, and _sq_keywords
should be text.
That’s it! By adding/storing these meta_keys in wp_postmeta, Squirrly SEO will be able to retrieve the values directly from wp_postmeta for a particular post.