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RankGrepDocumentation

Install the connector plugin

The RankGrep Connector gives WordPress real SEO title, meta description, heading and opening-paragraph fields, and renders them exactly as set.

Updated 17 Sept 20262 min read

On this page
  1. What it adds
  2. Install
  3. Updates
  4. Confirming it is active
  5. Deactivating

WordPress has no SEO title or meta description field of its own. The page title is the page's name, and themes decorate it freely when building the <title> tag. The connector adds the missing fields, so a value RankGrep writes is the value a visitor sees.

What it adds

  • SEO title: rendered through WordPress's document-title filter at a late priority, so it wins over the theme's own construction.
  • Meta description: printed in <head> on pages and posts.
  • H1 heading and opening paragraph: stored fields your theme can print. This half needs a small change to the theme; see Theme wiring.
  • A RankGrep SEO panel on every page and post editor, showing exactly what the site serves for that page, with character counts. You can edit or clear any field by hand. Clearing a field hands the page back to the theme.

Pages with no value set are left completely alone. Installing the plugin changes nothing on its own.

Install

  1. Deactivate any other SEO plugin. Two plugins writing meta tags on the same page conflict, and the connector shows a warning if it detects one.
  2. Download the plugin from the Connections page in RankGrep, or directly from rankgrep.com/rankgrep-connector.zip.
  3. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add Plugin → Upload Plugin, choose the zip, install and activate.
  4. In RankGrep, open Connections and connect the website. RankGrep detects the plugin automatically.

Updates

The plugin checks rankgrep.com for new versions and updates through the normal WordPress plugin updater. No account or licence key is needed.

Confirming it is active

bash
curl -s https://your-site.com/wp-json/rankgrep/v1/status

A working install answers with "active":true and the version. "supports_headings" reports whether the theme has been wired for headings.

Deactivating

Deactivating the plugin stops the fields being rendered; the values stay in the database and return the moment it is reactivated. A theme wired with the recommended wrappers keeps rendering with its own fallback text. A theme that calls the plugin's functions directly will error, which is why the wiring guide insists on the wrapper.