Squirrly SEO Integration
Tier: Basic — Plugin-based toggle integration. When Squirrly SEO is installed and the integration is enabled, SyteOps writes SEO metadata into Squirrly's native storage and applies a small wp-admin fix.
SyteOps uses Squirrly SEO as the SEO engine for Content Pipelines and the Review & Publish Portal. When the integration is on, the SEO title, description, and keywords that a pipeline generates — or that a reviewer sets in the portal — are written to Squirrly's native post meta (_sq_title / _sq_description / _sq_keywords) and to the canonical wp_qss snippet row that renders your page <title>. There is no separate settings screen to configure: enabling the integration is all that's required.
Earlier versions exposed a "Squirrly SEO Custom Settings" card on the System/API tab — ACF field mapping, social-image dimensions, post-type targeting, and meta-field guards. That card and the ACF field mapping have been removed: Content Pipelines now own SEO end-to-end and write Squirrly's native fields directly. Existing _sq_* data is unaffected (it was already the source of truth).
Official Squirrly SEO (Newton) documentation
These are maintained by Squirrly and describe how the plugin stores SEO data and which filters exist:
- Knowledge base home — search the Squirrly SEO (Newton) knowledge base
- Meta keys in
wp_postmeta(_sq_title,_sq_description,_sq_keywords) - Hooks:
sq_title,sq_description,sq_keywords - Database tables created by Squirrly (
wp_qssand Advanced Pack tables)
What It Does
- Pipeline & Review-Portal SEO writing — SEO title/description/keywords produced by a Content Pipeline's SEO stage, or entered in the Review & Publish Portal SEO panel, are written to
_sq_title/_sq_description/_sq_keywordspost meta and the canonicalwp_qssrow. - Settings-URL fix — Automatically corrects a known Squirrly SEO inline-script syntax error in wp-admin. Enabled automatically whenever the integration is on.
Requirements
- SyteOps installed and activated
- Squirrly SEO plugin installed and activated
- Squirrly SEO integration enabled in SyteOps
Setup
- Navigate to the Integrations tab in SyteOps
- Toggle Squirrly SEO ON
- Save
That's it — no additional configuration. With the integration on and the Squirrly SEO plugin active, Content Pipelines and the Review Portal write SEO data to Squirrly automatically, and the settings-URL fix is applied.
How SEO values are written
A Content Pipeline's SEO stage and the Review & Publish Portal SEO panel are two surfaces over the same Squirrly fields (_sq_title / _sq_description / _sq_keywords), plus the wp_qss snippet row that renders the page title.
The SEO title has special handling: by default it is auto-generated from the post title (clean — the description is not appended; that's the meta description's job). If a reviewer types a custom SEO title in the Review Portal, SyteOps marks it as a manual override and stops auto-recomposing it, so a later pipeline run won't overwrite the reviewer's title. Clearing the portal field returns the title to automatic.
Settings-URL fix
Corrects a malformed inline script from Squirrly SEO that wraps a URL in double quotes, causing a JavaScript SyntaxError on admin pages. It is enabled automatically whenever the Squirrly SEO integration is active — there is no separate toggle to manage.
Troubleshooting
SEO values not appearing on the front end
- Verify the Squirrly SEO integration is toggled ON on the Integrations tab.
- Confirm the Squirrly SEO plugin is installed and activated.
- Confirm the post actually ran through a Content Pipeline (or had its SEO set in the Review Portal) — SyteOps only writes SEO on those paths.
- Squirrly renders
<title>from itswp_qssrow; see the official docs above for how it reads stored values.
A reviewer's custom SEO title reverted to the auto-generated one
A portal-set title is preserved as a manual override. If a title reverts to the auto-composed post title, the override marker was cleared — re-enter the custom title in the Review Portal SEO panel.
For developer details, see the repository doc: docs/developer/integrations/squirrly-seo.md.