the keywords tag and in-content display

phiw13 · 2015-06-23 00:26:15

STR:
1. For any old (or new…) article, insert a few keywords, separated by a coma and optionally followed by a white-space (as in: foo, bar, baz)
2. In the appropriate article form, add a <txp:meta_keywords format="" /> (new syntax).
3. actual output: foo,bar,baz – note the lack of white-space after the comma.
4. expected output: foo, bar, baz

(Note that the issue isn’t new – it has always been there, afaik)

The lack of white-space is OK when used in the <head> as a meta tag. That is for robots. For in-content it is a bit sad, and damn unreadable (in most western languages anyway).

But thinking further, a French language user will expect a (unbreakable) white-space before the comma and one after the comma. The Japanese user on the other hand, won’t want any (additional) white-space before/after the comma, but would expect a Japanese comma (、) separating the keywords. Other languages have their own particularities.

I’m not sure what solution, if any, would be suitable to make that tag minimally more useful. At the most basic level, add a white-space after the comma would be a first step. An additional attribute (separator="") for other languages?

Bloke · 2015-06-23 07:49:27

phiw13 wrote #291841:

The lack of white-space is OK when used in the <head> as a meta tag. That is for robots. For in-content it is a bit sad, and damn unreadable

The Write panel is responsible for removing any newlines, tabs and spaces prior to storage. It reinstates the space for display purposes on the admin side, but you’re right, there should be a way to output the list in a more readable format on the public side.

I like the separator attribute. Would probably default it to empty so it preserves what we have now. But I’m willing to take views on whether to make the pretty version the default. After all, since keywords are no longer useful for <meta> tags, their only function is likely to be for visual display.

Bloke · 2015-06-23 07:57:48

And done.

phiw13 · 2015-06-23 08:32:05

Bloke wrote #291849:

And done.

:-)

Also:

Bloke wrote #291848:

After all, since keywords are no longer useful for <meta> tags, their only function is likely to be for visual display.

Yeah, for general purpose search-engines that is truth. I’m not so sure about specialised ones, though.

Bloke · 2015-06-23 09:04:45

phiw13 wrote #291852:

Yeah, for general purpose search-engines that is truth. I’m not so sure about specialised ones, though.

Oh, so some still pay attention to <meta name="keywords" />? I didn’t realise.

phiw13 · 2015-06-23 09:22:22

Bloke wrote #291855:

Oh, so some still pay attention to <meta name="keywords" />? I didn’t realise.

I don’t know for sure. A couple of months ago, a visitor talked to my co-editor (site is about linguistic and socio-cultural stuff), suggesting the addition of an in-content list of keywords for each article as scientists and their DB seem to like that. She seems to imply that they used in-house bots to search for articles. Those bots probably look at all kind of meta data.

(My co-editor added those using a custom field at the time, as it worked well for the authors workflow)

Destry · 2015-06-23 15:48:38

phiw13 wrote #291841:

…a French language user will expect a (unbreakable) white-space before the comma

That’s true in French for just about every punctuation mark except commas and periods; no space before those. Thank the Latin gods.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2015-06-23 00:26:15