Update post robots settings is a WordPress ability from SEOPress — usable via Easy MCP AI, which connects Claude, ChatGPT, and any AI assistant to your site.
Install Free Plugin →Update post robots settings
DestructiveUpdate the robots/indexing directives of a post.
Requires the SEOPress plugin on WordPress 6.9+ for the Abilities API — abilities are registered only when wp_register_ability() exists, gated by the plugin's own seopress_abilities_api_available() check. Each per-post ability additionally requires the current user to hold the WordPress 'edit_post' capability for the target post (and the post must exist); the global title settings ability instead requires the SEOPress capability for managing title settings, which defaults to manage_options and is filterable via seopress_capability().
What it does
This ability wraps SEOPress's RobotSettings REST controller (processPut) to update a post's robots/indexing directives from a settings map, such as _seopress_robots_index, _seopress_robots_follow or _seopress_robots_canonical. Only known SEOPress robots meta keys are accepted by the underlying controller; unrecognized keys are ignored. SEOPress marks this ability as destructive and idempotent in its own metadata because a single call can take a post out of the search index (setting it to noindex) or change its canonical target, so an AI assistant should confirm the intended effect with the user before calling it.
See it in action
You ask your AI assistant
"Set post 128 to noindex and nofollow, and update its canonical URL to https://example.com/best-espresso-machines/."
Inputs
| Name | Type | Required | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| post_id | integer | Yes | The ID of the post to update. |
| settings | object | Yes | Map of SEOPress robots meta keys to values, e.g. { "_seopress_robots_index": "yes", "_seopress_robots_canonical": "https://example.com/" }. |
Returns
An object with a single 'code' string field — "success" when the robots settings update completed.
Permission
The current user must be able to edit the target post (the WordPress 'edit_post' capability for that post ID).
More SEOPress abilities
Analyze post content
Run the SEOPress content analysis on a published post and return the SEO score, checks and recommendations.
Get global title & meta description settings
Retrieve the site-wide SEOPress title and meta description templates and separator configuration.
Get post robots settings
Retrieve the robots/indexing directives of a post (noindex, nofollow, canonical URL, primary category, breadcrumbs, etc.).
Get post SEO title and meta description
Retrieve the custom SEO title and meta description set for a specific post, page or custom post type entry.
Get post social settings
Retrieve the social (Facebook/Open Graph and X/Twitter) title, description and image metadata of a post.
Update post SEO title and meta description
Set or clear the custom SEO title and/or meta description of a specific post.