arc_meta - Improve Your SEO

monkeyninja · 2014-01-21 19:58:10

Current version: v1.4.2

Pre-release version: v2.0.1-beta.1 (for Textpattern 4.6)

Meta tag plugin for improving your site’s SEO and getting more out of social marketing. Adds meta fields to your article, section and category forms and the following tags:-

<txp:arc_meta_title />
<txp:arc_meta_description />
<txp:arc_meta_keywords />
<txp:arc_meta_robots />
<txp:arc_meta_canonical />
<txp:arc_meta_open_graph />
<txp:arc_meta_twitter_card />
<txp:arc_meta_organization />
<txp:arc_meta_person />

See the plugin’s announcement post on my blog for more details about what the plugin can do.

Full documentation and download link

Last edited by monkeyninja (2016-07-28 20:38:11)

tye · 2014-01-21 21:41:51

Have looked or installed it – but if it does what it says on the tin – outstanding work :)

douglgm · 2014-01-22 14:06:48

HI Andy. Already liking the plugin, but noticed one thing…

I’ve got my article page titles template set to “%a | %n” (default)

Then, in an individual article, I’ve set a Title in the Meta, Title field. This is different to the articles title.

In the Page code, I’ve got “<txp:arc_meta_title />”

But I’m still seeing the articles Title, rather than the Meta Title.

What am I doing wrong?

UPDATE: What’s I’m doing wrong is not making sure that I’m not looking at a cached page! Ignore me!

Last edited by douglgm (2014-01-22 17:40:57)

monkeyninja · 2014-01-22 19:14:00

@douglgm looks like you’re sorted. If you have any more problems let me know and I’ll try and help.

If anyone’s got any feedback or suggestions I’d be happy to hear them.

maniqui · 2014-02-08 19:21:13

Hi Andy,

what would be a “Comment Page” context? I don’t recall TXP having a comment page context.

monkeyninja · 2014-02-08 20:03:41

maniqui wrote #278724:

what would be a “Comment Page” context? I don’t recall TXP having a comment page context.

To be honest, I threw that in based on the conditionals set in the default template and never tested it properly. My understanding is that you can open the comments in a popup for which that is used, but just checking it now I can’t figure out how Textpatttern’s popup comments work.

Bad of me for not testing it sooner really. It just got added into the plugin at an early stage when I was putting it together for a site of mine with the long term plan of sharing the plugin. The plugins out there now and I never got round to testing it.

maniqui · 2014-02-08 20:08:07

Thanks for the clarification. You are right, there used to be (maybe still is!) a comment pop-up window. I didn’t recall it at all. :)

Destry · 2014-02-18 08:52:35

monkey,

Plugin is installed and the meta fields show up in the Write panel as expected. A description is added in the Meta description field (e.g., “Lorem ipsum delor…”). I’ve put this tag in the head section of my article template, <txp:arc_meta_description />, and I’m expecting to see something like this output in the tag’s place…

<meta name="description" content="Lorem ipsum delor...">

Correct expectation?

But nothing outputs. Just a blank space where the tag was inserted.

What should I check?

Destry · 2014-02-18 09:02:14

One suggestion… It would be nice to have an option in options(?) to not display the Title field under the Meta section if a site owner didn’t want to use it. (One less field that is shown — or needs explained — to “Freelancer” contributors.)

visualpeople · 2014-02-18 18:17:34

Destry —

This might not be your problem, but I ran across something similar and it took me a minute to figure it out.

If you’re looking at an article list, say a section front, it will ONLY use the description you have put in under that section “Presentation —> Sections —> ‘Meta Description’. Can be confusing if you’re looking at a section or category list that is showing only one article (I initially expected it to pull the meta description from the one and only article on that page).

monkeyninja · 2014-02-18 18:24:58

Destry wrote #279052:

monkey,

Plugin is installed and the meta fields show up in the Write panel as expected. A description is added in the Meta description field (e.g., “Lorem ipsum delor…”). I’ve put this tag in the head section of my article template, <txp:arc_meta_description />, and I’m expecting to see something like this output in the tag’s place…

<meta name="description" content="Lorem ipsum delor...">...

Correct expectation?

But nothing outputs. Just a blank space where the tag was inserted.

What should I check?

Sounds like you are doing it right so it should be working. Is your description definitely saving? <txp:arc_meta_description /> will only output a meta tag if there is a description set (to avoid cluttering the markup with unnecessary tags). Is the page you’re viewing the individual article page that you set the description for?

Destry wrote #279053:

One suggestion… It would be nice to have an option in options(?) to not display the Title field under the Meta section if a site owner didn’t want to use it. (One less field that is shown — or needs explained — to “Freelancer” contributors.)

I suspected the title field could cause some confusion. Any recommendations for relabelling it would be appreciated to make the field clearer.

If I was to add an option for hiding fields output by the plugin would you want it based on user permissions or a global setting for all users?

Destry · 2014-02-19 12:34:49

visualpeople wrote #279066:

If you’re looking at an article list, say a section front, it will ONLY use the description you have put in under that section “Presentation —> Sections —> ‘Meta Description’.

Thanks. That was indeed the problem. I only have one full article display in the “Articles” landing section, and I was overlooking the fact it needed to appear like this to see the individual description, /articles/article-title.

monkeyninja wrote #279067:

Any recommendations for relabelling it would be appreciated to make the field clearer.

Actually, I was going to suggest using “Meta-title”. Likewise “Meta-description” and, if possible, “Meta-keywords”. This is also consistent with how you label them in categories and sections, for example, and consistency is good.

I realize that’s a tad redundant with the legend label, but it’s the difference of being confusing (as is) to being quite clear, so +1 for redundancy and clear, in my opinion.

Speaking of keywords, are you making a keywords tag that pulls from the keywords field? I suppose that’s not really needed, as it can be done easy enough with native tags, but since it’s all features grouped under the Meta section, it makes sense to me. Options are good. ;)

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#1 2014-01-21 19:58:10