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glenster
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Jan 15, 2008, 7:56 PM
Post #1 of 11
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Dynamic Meta Description
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Hi,
Thanks for a great product.
I would like my article pages to dynamically place the article summary paragraph into the META description of each article.
I tried placing $article.summary$ into the articlepage template, but it didn't work.
Anyone have a suggestion on how to do this?
cheers,
Glen
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Jake
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/ Moderator
Jan 17, 2008, 1:48 PM
Post #2 of 11
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Re: [glenster] Dynamic Meta Description
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Hi Glen,
What you described should work - if you add this line of code in between the <head></head> tags on your articlePage.html template, the generated page should auto-populate with the article's summary entered for the meta description:
<meta name="description" content="$article.summary:textOnly$" />
You'll need to re-publish your articles in order for this change to take effect on existing pages. 
*edited to include textOnly placeholder modifier
-----------------------------------------------------------
Cheers,
Jake Swanson - Product Specialist
support@interactivetools.com
Hire me!
Save time by getting our experts to help with your project. Template changes, advanced features, full integration, whatever you need. Whether you need one hour or fifty, get it done fast with Priority Consulting.
(This post was edited by Jake on Mar 13, 2008, 11:27 AM)
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glenster
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Jan 17, 2008, 2:52 PM
Post #3 of 11
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Re: [Jake] Dynamic Meta Description
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Thanks!
cheers,
Glen
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aeadviser
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Mar 12, 2008, 11:07 AM
Post #4 of 11
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Re: [Jake] Dynamic Meta Description
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I am also trying to make the meta description on all article pages different so Google does not flag them as "duplicate". To do this I am trying to use the article summary. I have tried using this:
<meta name="description" content="$article.summary$" />
but it is not working. When viewing the page source code, I either get:
<meta name="description" content=
OR
the html code referencing the summary image, such as:
<meta name="Description" content=" <span style="FONT-SIZE: 8pt; FONT-FAMILY: Georgia">
<img style="MARGIN: 5px" height="81" alt="princess party theme" src="http://www.alleventsadviser.com/artman2/uploads/1/princess-all-favors_thumb.jpg" width="109" align="left" border="0" /></span></a>
I never get the actual summary text. I have also tried:
<meta name="Description" content="$article.summary.embeddedMedia$" />
but this was not recognized. I have double checked the placeholder name and it is "summary".
any ideas? Thanks.
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Jake
Staff
/ Moderator
Mar 13, 2008, 11:27 AM
Post #5 of 11
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Re: [aeadviser] Dynamic Meta Description
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Hi aeadviser,
The code I posted above will actually cause problems if you use an image or other HTML code in your summary field - my apologies. The best and safest way to do this is to use the textOnly placeholder modifier, like this:
$article.summary:textOnly$
Let me know if this still isn't working for you.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Cheers,
Jake Swanson - Product Specialist
support@interactivetools.com
Hire me!
Save time by getting our experts to help with your project. Template changes, advanced features, full integration, whatever you need. Whether you need one hour or fifty, get it done fast with Priority Consulting.
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aeadviser
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Mar 14, 2008, 9:22 AM
Post #6 of 11
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Re: [Jake] Dynamic Meta Description
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Thanks Jake, Adding the textOnly works for adding in the summary description. However, in the meta description as viewed with "view source code", where ever the WYSIWYG editor puts in the " " code, the description includes a "blue diamond with a white question mark". Not sure what this means.
I don't know if this is a search engine issue or not, but does anyone know of a way to limit these non-breaking spaces from being inserted into the text? Or to get these removed from the meta description? If needed you can view this on most articles pages at www.alleventsadviser.com. Thanks in advance.
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Jake
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Mar 17, 2008, 11:45 AM
Post #7 of 11
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Re: [aeadviser] Dynamic Meta Description
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Hi aeadviser,
I looked around on your site but couldn't find any pages with this blue diamond problem (the blue diamond is a warning for an unrecognized character). Could you provide me with a link to one?
I don't think there's a way to do this with Article Manager, but since your pages are in PHP I might be able to cook up some PHP code to get that working correctly.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Cheers,
Jake Swanson - Product Specialist
support@interactivetools.com
Hire me!
Save time by getting our experts to help with your project. Template changes, advanced features, full integration, whatever you need. Whether you need one hour or fifty, get it done fast with Priority Consulting.
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aeadviser
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Mar 18, 2008, 2:18 PM
Post #8 of 11
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Re: [Jake] Dynamic Meta Description
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Thanks for looking at this. Here are a couple examples that show the blue diamond with question mark inside. It looks like it happens about 20% of the time on this site www.alleventsadviser.com.
First page: http://www.alleventsadviser.com/business/Business-Casual-what-s-that-114.php
Summary code for first page:
<a target="_BLANK" href="../../artman2/uploads/1/Casual_Business_W.jpg"><img src="../../artman2/uploads/1/Casual_Business_W_thumb.jpg" alt="Business Casual" style="margin-right: 5px;" align="left" border="0" height="80" width="53"></a> <a href="../../artman2/uploads/1/Business_Woman_In.jpg" target="_BLANK"></a><span style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Georgia;">Casual and business attire ideas for women and men are based upon understanding your companys business casual policies or dress code which may not be well documented.</span>
Second Example: no image http://www.alleventsadviser.com/parties/The_Search-261.php
Second page summary code:
<p><span style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Georgia;">A fun and simple game for an office party or other event. see also games</span></p>
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Jake
Staff
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Mar 20, 2008, 2:13 PM
Post #9 of 11
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Re: [aeadviser] Dynamic Meta Description
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Hi aeadviser,
Would you mind submitting a second-level support request for this? I think I'm going to need to look at how content was originally entered into Article Manager's database to work out the best solution here. You can submit a second-level support request here:
http://interactivetools.com/support/
I look forward to hearing from you.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Cheers,
Jake Swanson - Product Specialist
support@interactivetools.com
Hire me!
Save time by getting our experts to help with your project. Template changes, advanced features, full integration, whatever you need. Whether you need one hour or fifty, get it done fast with Priority Consulting.
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Harvey
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May 13, 2008, 8:29 PM
Post #10 of 11
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Re: [Jake] Dynamic Meta Description
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If you guys don't mind making the answer to the problem public, I'd like to know to. I also tried to include summaries as as meta tag descriptions too before stumbling on this thread.
I had the same problems that the first poster had.
I tried this $article.summary:textOnly$ but other spacing characters also show up on in the meta tag description, making this trick less useful.
Care to share the solution with all of us?
Cheers
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MikeB
Staff
/ Moderator
May 14, 2008, 2:47 PM
Post #11 of 11
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Re: [Harvey] Dynamic Meta Description
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Hi Harvey,
Thanks for the post!
The solution in this case was actually to use some PHP code to create the meta tag. You'll want to ensure that Article Manager is publish it's PHP pages and if it is you can use this code to create the meta tag:
<?php $metadescription = str_replace(' ', '', "$article.summary:textOnly$"); ?>
<?php $metadescription = preg_replace("/[^a-zA-Z0-9s][[:space:]]/", "", $metadescription); ?>
<meta name="description" content="<?php echo "$metadescription"; ?>" />
If using PHP won't work for you then you may just want to create a text-only field in Article Manager that you can add meta description content to from now on.
I hope this helps!
Cheers,
Mike Briggs - Product Specialist
support@interactivetools.com
Hire me!
Save time by getting our experts to help with your project. Template changes, advanced features, full integration, whatever you need. Whether you need one hour or fifty, get it done fast with Priority Consulting.
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