Head Meta Pro enables you to configure the perfect HTML meta tags for your WordPress-powered site. You can define meta tags for each type of page-view, including single posts, pages, archives, search results and more. Head Meta Pro gives you granular control over your meta tags with shortcut variables like %DATE% to include dynamic, context-specific information. This post serves as a quick reference guide for all of the shortcut variables provided with the plugin.
Contents
- General shortcut variables
- Site-specific shortcut variables
- Post and Page shortcut variables
- Archive and Search shortcut variables
- 404 Not Found shortcut variables
General shortcut variables
- {{ — converts to <
- }} — converts to >
- %TAB% — tab space
- %BR% — new line / break
- %NULL% — nullifies and removes the meta tag
- %CURRENT_URL% — outputs the current URL
- %DATE_YEAR% — four digit representation of a year (e.g., 2025)
- %DATE_MONTH_m% — numeric representation of current month (from 01 to 12)
- %DATE_MONTH_n% — numeric representation of current month, without leading zeros (1 to 12)
- %DATE_MONTH_F% — full textual representation of current month (January through December)
- %DATE_DAY_d% — current day of the month (from 01 to 31)
- %DATE_DAY_D% — textual representation of a day (three letters)
- %DATE_DAY_j% — current day of the month without leading zeros (1 to 31)
- %DATE_DAY_l% — full textual representation of a day (e.g., Friday)
Site-specific shortcut variables
- %SITE_NAME% — site name/title
- %SITE_DESC% — site description
- %SITE_CHARSET% — site charset
- %SITE_LANGUAGE% — site language
- %SITE_THEME% — theme name
- %SITE_DESIGNER% — theme author
- %SITE_ADMIN% — site admin name
- %SITE_AUTHORS% — all site authors (max 10 authors)
- %SITE_CATS% — all site categories (max 500 characters)
- %SITE_COPYRIGHT% — copyright with year and site name
- %SITE_GENERATOR% — outputs “WordPress”
Post and Page shortcut variables
- %POST_TITLE% — post title
- %POST_DESC% — first 155 characters of post content
- %POST_AUTHOR% — post author
- %POST_CATEGORIES% — post categories
- %POST_CATEGORY% — first post category
- %POST_TAGS% — post tags
- %POST_TAG% — first post tag
- %POST_DATE% — post date
- %POST_URL% — post URI / permalink
- %POST_IMAGE% — featured image URL
- %POST_EXCERPT% — post excerpt
- %POST_TYPE% — post type
- %POST_ID% — post ID
- %POST_FORMAT% — post format
- %POST_TERMS% — all custom taxonomy terms associated with post
- %POST_TERMS_{taxonomy}% — all post terms for {taxonomy} (lowercase)
Archive and Search shortcut variables
- %ARCHIVE_TYPE% — type of archive (e.g., category, tag, month)
- %ARCHIVE_NAME% — name of archive (e.g., author name, search term)
- %ARCHIVE_PAGE_CURRENT% — current archive page number (for paged archives)
- %ARCHIVE_PAGE_COUNT% — number of pages in archive
- %ARCHIVE_POST_COUNT% — number of posts in archive
404 Not Found shortcut variables
- %404_URI% — URI of 404 “Not Found” page