Meta Description Handler WP Registry grade A. No security issues foundWP RegistryNo security issues foundOpen the reportA

A comprehensive WordPress plugin for managing meta titles and meta descriptions for all pages, posts, custom post types, taxonomies, and archives.

Features

🎯 Complete Meta Management

• Posts & Pages: Add custom meta titles and descriptions to every post and page
• Custom Post Types: Full support for all registered custom post types
• Taxonomies: Manage meta data for categories, tags, and custom taxonomies
• Archives: Configure meta for date archives, author archives, and post type archives
• Special Pages: Set meta for search results and 404 pages

🔧 Admin Features

• Tabbed Interface: Clean, organized settings pages with tabs
• Live Preview: Real-time Google SERP preview while editing
• Character Counter: Visual feedback for optimal title (30-60 chars) and description (70-160 chars) length
• Bulk Overview: See meta status in post/taxonomy list columns
• Template System: Use placeholders like %post_title%, %site_title%, %separator%

🌐 SEO Features

• Meta Description: Automatic output in HTML head
• Document Title: Filters WordPress document title
• Robots Meta: Control noindex/nofollow per post or term
• Open Graph Tags: Automatic OG and Twitter Card tags
• Pagination Support: Page numbers in archive titles

🔌 Headless / API

• WPGraphQL: mdhSeo field on every enabled post type and taxonomy
• REST API: mdh_seo field on every enabled post type
• Context-free resolver: MDH_Resolver resolves titles and descriptions for any post or term outside the loop — the same code path the front end uses, so the API can never drift from what wp_head outputs
• Yoast SEO import: one-shot migration via WP-CLI, with a dry-run mode
• Optional auto-generation: descriptions can be left empty instead of derived from content

Installation

1. Upload the meta-description-handler folder to /wp-content/plugins/
2. Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
3. Go to Meta Handler in the admin menu to configure settings

Usage

General Settings

Navigate to Meta Handler → General Settings to:

• Set the title separator (default: |)
• Enable/disable meta fields for specific post types
• Enable/disable meta fields for specific taxonomies
• Configure homepage meta title and description

Post/Page Meta

When editing a post or page, you'll find a new meta box called "Meta Title & Description" with:

• Meta Title input with character counter
• Meta Description textarea with character counter
• Live Google SERP preview
• Robots settings (noindex, nofollow)

Post Type Settings

Navigate to Meta Handler → Post Types to configure:

• Default title format for each post type
• Default description template
• Archive page meta (for post types with archives)

Taxonomy Settings

Navigate to Meta Handler → Taxonomies to configure:

• Default title format for each taxonomy
• Default description template

Archive Settings

Navigate to Meta Handler → Archives to configure:

• Date archives (yearly, monthly, daily)
• Author archives

Special Pages

Navigate to Meta Handler → Special Pages to configure:

• Search results page title format
• 404 error page title and description

Template Placeholders

Use these placeholders in title formats:

Hooks & Filters

Filters

// Modify meta description output
add_filter('mdh_meta_description', function($description) {
    return $description;
});

// Modify document title output
add_filter('mdh_document_title', function($title) {
    return $title;
});

// Modify Open Graph image
add_filter('mdh_og_image', function($image) {
    return $image;
});

Headless Usage

The plugin normally writes meta tags through wp_head. A decoupled front end (Astro, Next.js, Nuxt…) never renders wp_head, so the same values are also exposed through WPGraphQL and REST.

WPGraphQL

Fields appear on every post type and taxonomy that is (a) enabled in Meta Handler → General Settings and (b) exposed to GraphQL (show_in_graphql).

{
  posts(first: 100) {
    nodes {
      slug
      mdhSeo {
        title
        description
        noindex
        nofollow
        ogImage
      }
    }
  }
}

REST API

GET /wp-json/wp/v2/posts?_fields=slug,mdh_seo

PHP

MDH_Resolver::post_title( $post_id );
MDH_Resolver::post_description( $post_id );
MDH_Resolver::post_payload( $post_id );   // title, description, noindex, nofollow, ogImage
MDH_Resolver::term_title( $term_id, $taxonomy );
MDH_Resolver::term_description( $term_id, $taxonomy );

Migrating from Yoast SEO

Yoast stores its own replacement variables (%%sep%%, %%sitename%%) inside the saved text, so values cannot simply be copied — they are translated into MDH placeholders during import. Variables with no MDH equivalent are removed from the text and reported, because leaving them in would print them literally in the title.

Always start with a dry run:

wp mdh import-yoast --dry-run --verbose

Then run it for real:

wp mdh import-yoast

What is migrated:

Yoast is never modified — its data stays in place, so deactivating MDH rolls everything back.

Verifying the migration

Dump the resolved values and compare them against a crawl of the live site before switching Yoast off:

wp mdh list --format=json > after-migration.json

File Structure

meta-description-handler/
├── meta-description-handler.php    # Main plugin file
├── uninstall.php                   # Cleanup on uninstall
├── README.md                       # Documentation
├── includes/
│   ├── class-mdh-admin.php         # Admin settings pages
│   ├── class-mdh-post-meta.php     # Post/page meta boxes
│   ├── class-mdh-taxonomy-meta.php # Taxonomy meta fields
│   ├── class-mdh-frontend.php      # Frontend output
│   ├── class-mdh-resolver.php      # Context-free title/description resolution
│   ├── class-mdh-headless.php      # WPGraphQL + REST exposure
│   ├── class-mdh-import.php        # Yoast SEO migration
│   ├── class-mdh-cli.php           # WP-CLI commands
│   └── class-mdh-helpers.php       # Helper functions
├── assets/
│   ├── css/
│   │   └── admin.css               # Admin styles
│   └── js/
│       └── admin.js                # Admin JavaScript
└── languages/
    └── meta-description-handler.pot # Translation template

Requirements

• WordPress 5.0 or higher
• PHP 7.2 or higher

Changelog

1.1.2

• %site_title% and %site_description% now decode HTML entities. WordPress stores the site name encoded (Producent wyrobów); a browser expands that inside <title>, but a headless front end receiving it through the API would print it literally.

1.1.1

• General Settings → Auto-generated descriptions — when off, content without its own description gets no <meta name="description"> at all instead of one stitched together from the first paragraph. Matches how Yoast behaves with an empty description template, so migrating from it no longer invents descriptions where there were none.
• Content-derived descriptions now strip shortcodes, decode HTML entities and drop bare URLs

1.1.0

• WPGraphQL mdhSeo field on enabled post types and taxonomies
• REST mdh_seo field on enabled post types
• New MDH_Resolver — resolves meta outside the loop; MDH_Frontend now uses it, so the frontend and the API can no longer disagree
• Yoast SEO importer with variable translation and dry-run (wp mdh import-yoast)
• wp mdh list for before/after comparison of resolved meta

1.0.0

• Initial release
• Full support for posts, pages, and custom post types
• Taxonomy meta support
• Archive settings
• SERP preview
• Character counters
• Open Graph tags
• Twitter Card tags

License

GPL v2 or later

Support

For support, please create an issue in the GitHub repository.