Yoast SEO: Surfaces API

In Yoast SEO 14.0 we introduced a formal way of integrating Yoast SEO into your code. We've added what's called a surface, called YoastSEO(). This surface gives easy access to lots of the features Yoast SEO has to offer.

Easily access SEO data for the current page

All of the SEO data for the current page can be easily accessed through our surface.

For example, this code provides the page's title as a variable:

$title = YoastSEO()->meta->for_current_page()->title;

This code immediately outputs the page's meta description:

echo YoastSEO()->meta->for_current_page()->description;

This code outputs the estimated reading time for the current page.

echo (string) YoastSEO()->meta->for_current_page()->estimated_reading_time_minutes, " minutes";

The current_page surface exposes every bit of data we have on the current page, which all work in the same way; it's a long list:

Variable	Type	Description
canonical	string	The canonical URL for the current page.
description	string	The meta description for the current page, if set.
title	string	The SEO title for the current page.
id	string	The requested object ID.
site_name	string	The site name from the Yoast SEO settings.
wordpress_site_name	string	The site name from the WordPress settings.
site_url	string	The main URL for the site.
company_name	string	The company name from the Knowledge Graph settings.
company_logo_id	int	The attachment ID for the company logo.
site_user_id	int	If the site represents a 'person', this is the ID of the accompanying user profile.
site_represents	string	Whether the site represents a 'person' or a 'company'.
site_represents_reference	array	false
breadcrumbs_enabled	bool	Whether breadcrumbs are enabled or not.
schema_page_type	string	The Schema page type.
main_schema_id	string	Schema ID that points to the main Schema thing on the page, usually the webpage or article Schema piece.
page_type	string	The Schema page type.
meta_description	string	The meta description for the current page, if set.
robots	array	An array of the robots values set for the current page.
googlebot	array	The meta robots values we specifically output for Googlebot on this page.
rel_next	string	The next page in the series, if any.
rel_prev	string	The previous page in the series, if any.
open_graph_enabled	bool	Whether OpenGraph is enabled on this site.
open_graph_publisher	string	The OpenGraph publisher reference.
open_graph_type	string	The og:type.
open_graph_title	string	The og:title.
open_graph_description	string	The og:description.
open_graph_images	array	The array of images we have for this page.
open_graph_url	string	The og:url.
open_graph_site_name	string	The og:site_name.
open_graph_article_publisher	string	The article:publisher value.
open_graph_article_author	string	The article:author value.
open_graph_article_published_time	string	The article:published_time value.
open_graph_article_modified_time	string	The article:modified_time value.
open_graph_locale	string	The og:locale for the current page.
schema	array	The entire Schema array for the current page.
twitter_card	string	The X card type for the current page.
twitter_title	string	The X card title for the current page.
twitter_description	string	The X card description for the current page.
twitter_image	string	The X card image for the current page.
twitter_creator	string	The X card author for the current page.
twitter_site	string	The X card site reference for the current page.
source	array	The source object for most of this page data.
breadcrumbs	array	The breadcrumbs array for the current page.
estimated_reading_time_minutes	int	The estimated reading time in minutes for the content.
post_author	string	The name of the post author

Whether you need the OpenGraph description or the robots array, this has you covered. Get used to opening your favorite IDE, typing YoastSEO()->meta->for_current_page()-> and see the type hints for the exact bit of data you need.

Deprecated properties

Variable	Type	Description
open_graph_fb_app_id	string	The Facebook App ID.

For other pages

Getting data for any page works in almost exactly the same way as getting data for the current page. You just need to provide an ID, or a URL.

E.g., get the canonical URL value for a post with an ID of 2.

YoastSEO()->meta->for_post( 2 )->canonical;

E.g., get the title of a page with a URL of https://www.example.com/example-page/:

YoastSEO()->meta->for_url( 'https://www.example.com/example-page/' )->title;

NOTE: If a URL doesn't exist in our Indexables table, then this method will return false.

Access to our helpers

Sometimes you need more than just the raw SEO data of a page. For instance, you need to know whether the current post type should be indexable at all. Well, our post_type helper can help with that:

YoastSEO()->helpers->post_type->is_indexable( get_post_type() );

This will return a simple boolean.

If you want a list of indexable post types, you should use:

$public_post_types = YoastSEO()->helpers->post_type->get_public_post_types();

The same works for taxonomies:

YoastSEO()->helpers->taxonomy->is_indexable( 'category' );

There are quite a few of these helpers, and not all of them may be equally useful to you. But do have a look around in your IDE and see which ones we have to offer, this too is a rather large list!