integration · wordpress

Install the WordPress plugin, paste two fields, articles arrive

A pull client, not a push endpoint. WordPress asks IT Master for new articles every 15 minutes over an ordinary outbound HTTPS request, then writes them as posts with the SEO fields, schema and featured image already filled in.

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Set it up yourself in a few minutes.

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reviewed 2026-09-02 · by the IT Master editorial team · how we check facts

setup

  1. 01Download the plugin ZIP from itmaster.uk/downloads/itmaster-wordpress.zip.
  2. 02In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, choose the ZIP, install and activate it.
  3. 03Open Settings → IT Master.
  4. 04Paste the website ID and website key shown next to your website in the dashboard.
  5. 05Press Save — the screen calls the feed with your key and confirms the connection or says what to fix.
  6. 06Choose whether articles publish on arrival or wait as drafts, and optionally pin a category and post author.
  7. 07Press Check for new articles now to import the backlog immediately; from then on the plugin checks every 15 minutes on its own.

Install, paste two fields, done

The plugin is a ZIP, served from itmaster.uk/downloads/itmaster-wordpress.zip, that you upload under Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin, then activate. Activation schedules one recurring event and nothing else happens until you connect the site.

Open Settings → IT Master. Two fields matter: the website ID and the website key, both shown in your dashboard. Paste them and press Save. The screen immediately calls the feed with that key and prints one sentence — connected, or the reason it was refused, written for a business owner rather than an engineer. A rejected key says the key was rejected and to copy it again, not "401".

Until a key is stored, an admin notice sits on every dashboard screen saying the setup is one step short. A plugin that installs, does nothing, and never says why is the worst state it can be in.

Requirements are WordPress 6.0 and PHP 7.4. Everything else ships with a working default — post status, category, author, images, SEO fields — and the advanced fields stay collapsed. How it works covers the research, writing and checking that happen before an article ever reaches this screen.

in one sentence

The IT Master WordPress plugin is a pull client: it polls a read-only article feed every 15 minutes using your website key, then writes each finished article into WordPress as a post with SEO fields, schema, featured image and FAQ already filled in.

It polls. It is not a webhook

WordPress asks IT Master for articles, not the other way round, and that is deliberate. A push webhook needs the site to be publicly reachable at a stable URL and to verify a signature. Not every small-business host gives you that, and some filter inbound requests before they reach WordPress at all. An outbound HTTPS GET works from anywhere.

WordPress ships hourly as its shortest cron interval, so the plugin registers its own 15-minute schedule. Each run:

  • sends the stored cursor to the article feed, authenticated with your website key as a bearer token
  • walks up to four pages of 25 articles per run, enough to drain a backlog in one tick
  • advances the cursor only after a page is processed, so a failed page is retried on the next run instead of being skipped
  • stops early when a page returns nothing new, or when the feed stops moving forward

WordPress cron only fires when someone visits the site, so a quiet site checks in less often. The settings screen has a Check for new articles now button for when you want one immediately. Stacks that would rather be pushed to can use the signed webhook or the REST feed described in the docs.

What arrives with each article

Every decision is made upstream, so the plugin maps rather than judges. One payload carries:

  • the article body as HTML, plus an excerpt
  • an SEO title and meta description
  • a JSON-LD graph built against the article's real author, citations and FAQ
  • a hero image with alt text
  • a list of questions and answers
  • tags, and the topic cluster the article belongs to

The FAQ arrives as structured data rather than as trailing HTML, so each consumer can render it its own way. The plugin appends it under a Frequently asked questions heading with every question as its own subheading. Dropping it would remove a whole section from every article and leave FAQPage schema describing content that is not on the page.

The hero image is side-loaded into the media library once and keyed to its source URL, so re-syncing an updated article does not download the same file again and the library does not fill with copies of one picture. Alt text comes with it. Tags are set from the payload. The category is either one you pin in settings or the article's own topic cluster. Right-to-left articles are wrapped with the correct direction and language so mixed-script paragraphs render properly.

Yoast and Rank Math get filled in, and nothing is duplicated

With Yoast SEO active, the plugin writes the SEO title, meta description and focus keyword into Yoast's own post meta. With Rank Math active, it writes Rank Math's. Either way the values look native in the editor, and you can override any of them by hand.

With no SEO plugin installed, the plugin outputs the meta description, Open Graph and Twitter tags and the JSON-LD graph itself — from the document head, and only on the articles it imported. If Yoast, Rank Math, All in One SEO or SEOPress is present, it emits none of its own. Two description tags, or two Article schema blocks, are worse than one imperfect set.

One detail matters more than it sounds. The schema is built for the canonical path the engine expects, while your permalink structure may serve the same article at `/2026/09/slug/`. The plugin re-bases the page's own identifiers onto the real permalink and leaves every other node alone, so the organisation, author and image nodes keep the IDs that the rest of the graph points at. Schema describing a URL your site does not serve is markup about a page that is not there.

Your edits win, and takedowns propagate

The plugin only ever touches posts it created. It records its own slug in hidden post meta and finds its posts by that key, so anything you wrote, imported or published before installing is out of scope.

If you move one of its posts to draft, pending, private or the trash, it stays there. Content updates still land, but the status is left exactly where you put it. Silently republishing something an owner deliberately unpublished is the one thing an automation plugin must never do.

Each payload carries a content hash. If it matches what is already stored on the post, the sync skips the article entirely — no rewrite, no new revision, no touched modified date.

When an article is taken down in IT Master, because a fact changed or a product was discontinued, a tombstone comes down the same feed. The plugin moves that post to the trash by default: reversible, and it leaves a normal WordPress 404 behind. You can switch it to permanent deletion. There is no setting to keep a withdrawn article live, because the reasons an article is withdrawn are usually the reasons it should not stay up.

Settings, status and what uninstalling does

The rest of the screen is short. Articles can arrive published, or be held as drafts for a second review. The default is published: the article already passed the validation checks before it was sent, and two review queues for one article is how content stops shipping. You can pin a category, set the post author, turn image import off, turn SEO field writing off, and under Advanced change the post type or the API address.

Below the form is a status table — when the next check is due, when the last one ran, and what it did: how many new, updated and removed. When something is wrong, the reason is there in plain English rather than in a log file.

Deactivating unschedules the recurring event and syncing stops. Uninstalling deletes three options and the cron hook, and nothing else. Your articles stay. You paid for them per published article — see pricing — and removing a plugin is not consent to delete content. Reconnect later and the feed is walked again from the start: posts already imported are matched by their stored slug and skipped when nothing changed, so nothing is duplicated.

questions people ask

How long does setup actually take?

Upload the ZIP under Plugins, Add New, Upload Plugin, then activate it. Open Settings, IT Master, paste the website ID and website key from your dashboard, and press Save. That is the whole setup; every other setting has a working default. The screen tests the connection the moment you save and tells you in one sentence whether it worked, or what to fix. The first import runs within 15 minutes, or straight away if you press Check for new articles now.

Will it change posts I wrote myself?

No. The plugin stores its own slug in hidden post meta when it creates a post, and only ever looks for posts carrying that key. Anything you wrote, imported from elsewhere, or published before installing is invisible to it. Inside its own posts it is still conservative: if you move one to draft, pending, private or the trash, that status is left alone on every future sync. Content corrections still land, but nothing you deliberately unpublished is put back live.

Do I need Yoast or Rank Math installed?

No, though the plugin uses them if they are there. With Yoast active it fills Yoast's SEO title, meta description and focus keyword. With Rank Math active it fills Rank Math's equivalents. With no SEO plugin at all, it outputs the meta description, Open Graph tags and JSON-LD schema itself, only on the articles it imported. It never emits both sets, because a page that argues with itself about its own title and description gives a search engine a reason to ignore the markup.

What happens to my articles if I uninstall the plugin?

They stay. Uninstalling removes three WordPress options, the settings, the sync cursor and the last-run state, and clears the scheduled event. Posts, media and the SEO fields written into Yoast or Rank Math are untouched, because the articles are your content. Deactivating is gentler still: it unschedules the recurring event, so syncing stops and everything else waits. Reinstall and reconnect later and existing posts are matched by their stored slug rather than imported a second time.

How often do articles arrive, and can I control the timing?

The plugin checks every 15 minutes and imports up to 100 articles per run, so it clears a backlog quickly and then sits mostly idle. WordPress cron only fires on a page request, so a quiet site checks in less often than a busy one, and the Check for new articles now button forces a run whenever you want. How many articles there are to collect is decided upstream, where publishing is dripped on a steady schedule rather than dumped in a batch. If you would rather review inside WordPress first, set arrivals to save as drafts.

Does my WordPress site need to be publicly reachable?

No. The plugin pulls: WordPress makes an outbound HTTPS request to the article feed, and nothing needs to reach your site from outside. There is no inbound endpoint, no public URL requirement and no signature for you to verify, which is why it works on hosting that blocks or rewrites incoming requests. If you would rather be pushed to, the same articles are available over a signed webhook or a REST pull feed for custom stacks and headless front ends.

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