Squirrly User Roles

Squirrly SEO adds two WordPress roles, Squirrly SEO Admin and Squirrly SEO Editor, and gives Squirrly access to the roles you already have. You pick the role of a user in Users > All Users, in the Role field of that user.

This guide lists what each role can open in Squirrly SEO 14.2.8, how to change a role, and how to fix the message “You do not have permission to access this page. You need Squirrly SEO Admin role.”

What the Squirrly roles do

Squirrly checks four capabilities of its own before it opens a screen or saves a change. A role is just a set of these capabilities.

Capability	What it opens
sq_manage_snippet	The Live Assistant, AI Research, Bulk SEO for the user’s own posts, and LLM Indexing Submit URLs
sq_manage_snippets	The SEO Snippet of any page, Bulk SEO for all pages, the goals on Home and the AI Consultant
sq_manage_focuspages	Focus Pages, GEO Audit, AI Visibility and Google Rankings, including adding and removing pages and keywords
sq_manage_settings	Every settings screen, All Features, Technical SEO, the onboarding, and deleting keywords and labels from the Briefcase

The Squirrly SEO Admin role is a copy of the WordPress Editor role plus all four capabilities. It isn’t a WordPress administrator: the user can’t install plugins or change the WordPress settings, and Account Info stays with administrators.

Which role gets which access

When you activate Squirrly SEO, it creates the two Squirrly roles and adds its capabilities to the WordPress roles on the site. Every role that can edit posts gets at least the first one.

WordPress role	Squirrly capabilities	Same level as
Administrator	All four	Squirrly SEO Admin
Squirrly SEO Admin	All four	Squirrly SEO Admin
Editor	sq_manage_snippet, sq_manage_snippets, sq_manage_focuspages	Squirrly SEO Editor
Squirrly SEO Editor	sq_manage_snippet, sq_manage_snippets, sq_manage_focuspages	Squirrly SEO Editor
Author, Contributor and any other role with edit_posts	sq_manage_snippet	Author level
Subscriber and roles without edit_posts	None	No Squirrly menu

Any user who has the WordPress manage_options capability passes every Squirrly check, even if a security or role plugin removed the Squirrly capabilities from the Administrator role.

What each level can open

Screen or action	Author level	Squirrly SEO Editor	Squirrly SEO Admin
Live Assistant in the post editor	Yes	Yes	Yes
SEO Snippet box in the editor and Custom SEO in the admin bar	No	Yes	Yes
Bulk SEO	Own posts only	All pages	All pages
AI Research: Find Keywords, Briefcase, Labels, Suggested, History	Yes	Yes	Yes
Add keywords and labels to the Briefcase	Yes	Yes	Yes
Delete Briefcase keywords or labels, Send to Rankings, Briefcase backup	No	No	Yes
Focus Pages, GEO Audit, AI Visibility, Google Rankings	No	Yes	Yes
LLM Indexing, Submit URLs tab	Yes	Yes	Yes
Settings tabs of Optimize, Focus Pages, GEO Audit, Google Rankings and LLM Indexing	No	No	Yes
Optimize > Automation, Technical SEO, All Features, Redirects, Import & Data	No	No	Yes
Onboarding and the SEO Beginner / SEO Expert switch	No	No	Yes

Redirects needs the Squirrly SEO Advanced Pack. A menu item the user can’t use is left out of the Squirrly left menu, but some screens stay in the menu and show the permission message instead (see the error below).

How to give a user a Squirrly role

1. Log in as an administrator and go to Users > All Users.
2. Click the name of the user.
3. In Role, pick Squirrly SEO Admin or Squirrly SEO Editor.
4. Click Update User.

The user sees the new menu items at the next page load. A new user gets the role the same way, from the Role field of the new user form.

WordPress gives one role per user from this screen, so the Squirrly role replaces the old one. A user who must keep a role such as a shop manager role can get Squirrly SEO Admin as a second role with a role editor plugin. Squirrly checks every role of a user who has more than one, and one role with the capability is enough.

You do not have permission to access this page. You need Squirrly SEO Admin role.

The message replaces the screen when the logged-in user lacks the capability that screen needs. It has two versions in the plugin.

Message	Where it shows	What fixes it
“You need Squirrly SEO Admin role.”	Technical SEO, Optimize > Settings and Automation, All Features, Import & Data, LLM Indexing Settings, the onboarding	Squirrly SEO Admin or Administrator
“You need Squirrly SEO Admin role.”	Focus Pages, GEO Audit, AI Visibility, Google Rankings	Squirrly SEO Editor is enough here
“You need Squirrly SEO Editor role.”	Find Keywords, Briefcase, Labels, Suggested, History, Optimize Posts, Bulk SEO, Inner Links	Any role that can edit posts, unless the sq_load_snippet filter blocks it

How to fix the message

1. Log in with an administrator account.
2. Go to Users > All Users and open the user who saw the message.
3. Set Role to Squirrly SEO Admin and click Update User.
4. Log out, log in with that user and open the screen again.

If you are the administrator and still see the message, your account doesn’t have manage_options. That happens when a security plugin or a role editor changed the Administrator role. Restore the role in that plugin, or ask another administrator to add Squirrly SEO Admin to your account as a second role.

“You do not have permission to perform this action”

This shorter message comes back after a click, not on a whole screen. A Squirrly SEO Editor gets it on Delete Keyword in the Briefcase, for example, because deleting needs sq_manage_settings. Ask a Squirrly SEO Admin to do it, or change the role as above.

Hide the Live Assistant or the SEO Snippet for a role

Two filters turn Squirrly tools off for some users without changing their role. Add the code to a must-use plugin (a PHP file in wp-content/mu-plugins/) or to the functions.php file of your child theme.

// Remove the Live Assistant box for Authors
add_filter( 'sq_load_sla', function ( $load ) {
    $user = wp_get_current_user();
    if ( in_array( 'author', (array) $user->roles, true ) ) {
        return false;
    }
    return $load;
} );

// Remove the SEO Snippet and the research screens for Contributors
add_filter( 'sq_load_snippet', function ( $load ) {
    $user = wp_get_current_user();
    if ( in_array( 'contributor', (array) $user->roles, true ) ) {
        return false;
    }
    return $load;
} );

sq_load_sla removes the Squirrly Live Assistant box from the editor and the Squirrly column from the posts list. sq_load_snippet removes the SEO Snippet, and Find Keywords, Briefcase, Labels, Suggested, History, Optimize Posts and Bulk SEO show the Editor role message to that user. Deactivating features with hooks lists the other filters.

Troubleshooting

Users lost their Squirrly access after the plugin was deactivated

Deactivating Squirrly SEO removes the Squirrly SEO Admin and Squirrly SEO Editor roles and the Squirrly capabilities. Activate the plugin again and it adds them back, with the same names, so the users get their access back.

A role added by another plugin has no Squirrly access

Squirrly gives its capabilities to the existing roles when you activate it, and on each page load while the plugin isn’t connected to Squirrly Cloud. A role created after that gets nothing until you deactivate and activate Squirrly SEO from Plugins. The Squirrly roles are gone for those few seconds, as described above.

An Author can’t see the SEO Snippet box

That’s expected: the SEO Snippet needs sq_manage_snippets, which Authors don’t have. The Author can still edit the metas of their own posts in Bulk SEO, or you can give them the Squirrly SEO Editor role.

The Live Assistant is missing for one user

Check the role first, then any sq_load_sla code on the site. Squirrly Live Assistant is Not Showing in Edit Post lists the settings to check after that.

Frequently asked questions

Is Squirrly SEO Admin the same as a WordPress administrator?

No, it has the WordPress Editor capabilities plus full access to Squirrly SEO.

Can a Squirrly SEO Editor delete Focus Pages?

Yes, Focus Pages, GEO Audit pages and Google Rankings keywords only need sq_manage_focuspages, which the Editor level has.

Can Authors do keyword research?

Yes, every role that can edit posts can use Find Keywords and add keywords to the Briefcase.

Who can switch between SEO Beginner and SEO Expert?

Only a Squirrly SEO Admin or an administrator, because the switch saves a setting.

Related tutorials

• Squirrly SEO Live Assistant: the box every role with edit_posts gets in the editor.
• Bulk SEO & Snippet: where Authors edit the metas of their own posts.
• Focus Pages & Page Audits: the screens that need the Squirrly SEO Editor level.
• Deactivating Specific Features in Squirrly SEO Plugin Using Hooks: the sq_load_sla and sq_load_snippet filters and more.
• Install Squirrly SEO Plugin: activation, the Cloud connection and the onboarding.