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Publishing

Connect your site once. Approved articles then publish on their scheduled day.

Where to connect

Open your site in Searchlark and choose Integrations, or use the Connect step of the setup wizard. Each site has one destination. Saving a new one replaces the old one. Owners and admins manage integrations; editors and viewers see the status.

WordPress

The Searchlark plugin needs WordPress 6.4 or later and PHP 8.1 or later. The current version is 0.5.0.

  1. In Searchlark, open Integrations and click Download plugin (.zip). The file is also at searchlark-wordpress.zip.
  2. In WordPress, open Plugins, Add New, Upload, choose the file, then activate the plugin.
  3. Back in Searchlark, click Connect WordPress to create a site key. Copy it straight away. For your security it is shown only once.
  4. In WordPress, open Settings, Searchlark, paste the key and save. The plugin connects to Searchlark when you save.
  5. Searchlark shows Active once the plugin has connected. Use Check connection any time to test it.

What the plugin does:

  • Creates a post for each approved article, and updates the same post later. It never makes duplicates.
  • Sets the title, description and focus keyword in Yoast SEO, Rank Math or SEOPress. With All in One SEO it sets the title and description. Without an SEO plugin, it prints its own title and description.
  • Adds FAQ structured data.
  • Applies the site health fixes you approve (page titles, meta descriptions and image alt text) and undoes them on request.
  • Searchlark tells your site about new work with a signed request. The plugin also checks in every 15 minutes, so a missed request is picked up.

Lost the key, or moved the site? Click Generate a new site key and paste the new one in WordPress. The old key stops working.

Ghost

  1. In Ghost Admin, open Settings, Integrations, and add a custom integration called Searchlark.
  2. Copy its Admin API key and your site URL.
  3. In Searchlark, paste both into Ghost site URL and Admin API key, then click Connect Ghost.

Articles are published as Ghost posts with the excerpt, SEO title, meta description and structured data. If a post was deleted in Ghost, the next update creates it again.

Webflow (beta)

  1. In Webflow, open Site settings, Apps and integrations, and generate an API token with CMS read and write access.
  2. Open your blog collection and copy its ID, the slug of its rich text field and, if you have one, the slug of a summary field.
  3. In Searchlark, fill in Collection ID, Public URL of the collection, Rich text field slug, the optional summary field and the token, then click Connect Webflow.

Each article becomes a live item in that collection. Webflow is in beta: we haven't yet run it against a live Webflow site, so check the first article there.

Shopify (beta)

  1. In Shopify admin, create a custom app with the write_content scope and install it.
  2. Copy the Admin API access token, then find the blog's ID and handle under Online Store, Blog posts.
  3. In Searchlark, fill in Store domain, Blog ID, Blog handle, Storefront URL and the token, then click Connect Shopify.

Each article is published to that blog with a summary. Shopify is in beta: we haven't yet run it against a live store, so check the first article there.

Signed webhooks

For custom sites and headless CMSs. Searchlark sends a POST with a JSON body to your endpoint when an article publishes.

  1. Create a public https endpoint that accepts POST requests with a JSON body.
  2. In Searchlark, choose Webhook, enter the Endpoint URL and click Save webhook.
  3. Copy the signing secret. It is shown only once.
  4. Check the X-Searchlark-Signature header on every request, and use the Idempotency-Key header so a retry never creates a second post.
  5. Click Send test event to make sure your endpoint answers.

The payload, signature format and a verification example are in the API reference. Until Apr 1, 2027 the signature is also sent as X-Kestrel-Signature.

Review first or Autopilot

Choose the mode during setup or later in Site settings.

  • Review first (recommended): articles wait in your review queue until you click Approve and schedule. Nothing publishes until you approve it.
  • Autopilot: fact-checked articles publish on schedule. An article with a high-risk fact-check flag still waits for you.

In both modes, articles publish on their scheduled day once your site is connected. Approved articles wait while no connection works. To publish a scheduled article today, open it and click Publish now. After you edit a published article, click Update live post to send the changes.

When publishing fails

  • Searchlark tries up to three times. If the last try fails, the article is marked Failed and the editor shows the reason your site gave.
  • With WordPress, Searchlark asks the plugin again every 15 minutes. If the plugin hasn't confirmed the post after 24 hours, the article is marked failed. Check that the plugin is active and connected.
  • Fix the cause (an expired key, a removed plugin, an endpoint that is down), then open the article and click Retry publishing. The Failed filter in Content lists every article that needs it.
  • We email you when your site rejects an article, with the reason, at most once an hour per article. Turn this off under Workspace settings, Account, Email notifications.

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