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Add meta Description
True, a meta description could easily be added using a custom field, but in the light of this official google admission a meta description – in my view – should not only be part of the core for individual articles but also give the possibility to be added to article-lists such as the home, section and category landing pages.
Yiannis
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Re: Add meta Description
Funny, I had been thinking about the same this afternoon while coding some stuff up. Nice to hear a confirmation from Google that they actually (still) use that.
I’ve used a plugin in the past – jad_metadata. But I agree it is something that should be part of the core. That plugin re-uses the article excerpt.
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Re: Add meta Description
colak wrote:
a meta description – in my view – should not only be part of the core for individual articles but also give the possibility to be added to article-lists such as the home, section and category landing pages.
Easy enough to add a field for individual articles in the Write tab. Same for section tab. Categories — do you think there needs to be a separate field for each category?
Most of this can be done now, using a custom field for articles and hard-coding the rest, and rolling it all into a form. Not elegant, though, requiring a stack of conditional tags.
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#4 2009-09-22 15:59:30
- els
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Re: Add meta Description
jsoo wrote:
Most of this can be done now, using a custom field for articles and hard-coding the rest, and rolling it all into a form. Not elegant, though, requiring a stack of conditional tags.
But, on the other hand, allowing for infinite customization. I like that.
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Re: Add meta Description
Els wrote:
But, on the other hand, allowing for infinite customization. I like that.
Yes. Making something like this a core function means pre-determining what will happen in edge cases, e.g. what description does one want for a section/category list?
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Re: Add meta Description
You can do it with basic tags and no plugins so I don’t think it’s a necessary addition.
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Re: Add meta Description
adi_variables is a decent option for allowing editors to set & maintain meta descriptions for section & category list pages.
If you stick to naming the variables as <txp:section />-summary or <txp:category />-summary or similar it can be relatively painless to do the template logic.
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Re: Add meta Description
As I mentioned on the original request, I am aware of ways with which a meta description could be added.
i nevertheless feel though that in the light of the google admission, txp users wanting more custom fields as 10 are not enough for some, and in my view, the existence of a meta keywords field/tag which is not really used by the search engine, a meta description field/tag would make a lot of SEO sense and it would help non power users as it would/could be as simple a field as th keywords or the excerpts ones.
It is by no means a demand.
Yiannis
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NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.
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Re: Add meta Description
First I would like to declare that I am no fan of an extra meta-description field because the meta-description field content is a typical CMS issue for showing dynamic content depending on the context (and can be solved easily with TXP forms).
Second the meta-description case is a classical case where a smart admin side field could make sense. We don’t have dynamic smart fields on the admin side in TXP yet.
Definition ‘dynamic smart field’: A field which can be dynamically filled by a form; this way allowing the article author to see, control and optionally edit the content (for single articles).
In short: You create a form eg meta-description’ which contains all the content logic. For all cases of article lists you can pre-define what will show up. The same for single articles; using all TXP core & all available plug-ins in your installation (like rss_auto_excerpt). The ‘dynamic smart field’ showing up in single article edit view will be filled automatically after saving the article. The special case is that an (hint: low privileged!) author has an ‘edit’ option; this will add the possibility to override the automatically created content.
Do I need such a ‘dynamic smart field’? No.
If, when & for which context such a ‘dynamic smart field’ might make sense depends on the situation/perspective. A less privileged user in a corporate environment will like such overridable fields. From an admin/root publisher point of view handling the case through forms is sufficient (and safe).
The new TXP 4.2.0 unlimited custom fields feature might raise some greediness towards such usage cases. Let’s see how glz_custom_fields develops :-)
As always just my two cents…
Edit: Don’t miss Improved (and unlimited) custom fields in core for a wider discussion related to core features.
Last edited by merz1 (2009-09-23 10:51:44)
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Re: Add meta Description
My dynamic meta descrition and keywords is not viewing.
I’ve converted my main meta tags into TXP per the following example:
<title><txp:page_title /></title>
<meta name=“description” content=”<txp:custom_field name=“meta_desc” />” />
<meta name=“keywords” content=”<txp:keywords />” />
However, only the Title views. (I looked in my browser’s view source and saw empty tags). I did create a custom field via Admin>Preferences>advanced Preferences. I entered the description and keyword data within the Article. What might I be doing wrong?
Thanks so much…again!
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Re: Add meta Description
Yiannis
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NeMe | hblack.art | EMAP | A Sea change | Toolkit of Care
I do my best editing after I click on the submit button.
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Re: Add meta Description
laptophobo wrote:
My dynamic meta descrition and keywords is not viewing.
You might want to post it in another part of this forum (How do I? or Developer Support come to mind) to improve your chances to get this resolved :-)
This place here is more suited for feature requests and people might not see your call for help.
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