Search posts missing a particular custom field

Question

I am trying to search for posts that do not have yet set a particular custom field. The problem is that query down below returns an empty result.

$args = array(
    'post_type'  => 'post',
    'posts_per_page' => 5,
    'meta_query' => array(
        array(
            'key'     => 'verified',
            'value'   => 'yes',
            'compare' => 'NOT LIKE'
        )
    )
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );

Answer 1

Try using 'NOT EXISTS' instead of 'NOT LIKE' and remove the value ( it'll be removed by WP with NOT EXISTS ):

$args = array(
    'post_type'  => 'post',
    'posts_per_page' => 5,
    'meta_query' => array(
        array(
            'key'     => 'verified',
            'compare' => 'NOT EXISTS'
        )
    )
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );

http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Custom_Field_Parameters