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  • #1

    Meta Tags with WordPress blog

    We are currently evaluating Zoom Search with a view to integrating into a WP 3.0 blog exceeding 200,000 pages. We understand the Enterprise version will suit our needs and realize that the cgi aspect may present some challenges further down the road but for now one step at a time.

    We want the drop down menu feature to display suburbs and understand this requires the meta tag <meta name="SUBURB" content="Canberra" /> to be placed inside the header of a page.

    By default WP supports Title, Description and Keywords meta fields. Inserting a custom meta tag is easily done on a post by post basis using Custom Fields and a plugin.

    But creating en masse thousands and thousands of pages with custom meta tags escapes our current level of expertise. We can insert any type of tag in the content area without any difficulty, but not in the header.

    As a work around we put the <meta name="SUBURB" content="Canberra" /> at the end of a default meta description field.

    This WORKED - well almost. See here:
    Code:
    http://www.states-background-check.com/blog/robinson-james-deakin-acupuncture-2/
    Look at the top left hand corner for the trailing code snippet - " />

    Other than that the drop down menu works as described. Do you have a work around for the meta tag to be placed elsewhere? It won't work in the keywords meta - we tried that.

    One more thing for now please. The results keep displaying the post content. We don't want that and have attempted to use the ZOOMSTOP tags without effect.

    thanks

    ..
    Tags: None
  • #2
    This is what you currently have in your HTML code:

    Code:
    <meta name="description" content="Robinson James can be found Deakin 2600 in Deakin 
Professional Centre Suite 1 46 Geils Crt and listed in local business directory category 
Acupuncture <meta name="SUBURB" content="Deakin" /> " />
    This is invalid and broken HTML and not supported. Placing a meta tag (or any HTML) inside the content of another meta tag is illegal and there is no telling what a client (be it a browser or a spider) will do when it encounters it. The fact that Zoom picked up the SUBURB meta tag there is just a fluke - there is no guarantee that it will continue to do so in future builds, as we simply won't be making our changes with the requirement to ensure that it will continue to work in this manner with invalid HTML.

    I also don't see any way of avoiding the "/>" from showing up in IE when doing the above (or indeed, it may show up even more broken in another browser - it's invalid HTML and as I said before, anything at all can happen when the rules are broken).

    Originally posted by cmodule00 View Post
    By default WP supports Title, Description and Keywords meta fields. Inserting a custom meta tag is easily done on a post by post basis using Custom Fields and a plugin.

    But creating en masse thousands and thousands of pages with custom meta tags escapes our current level of expertise. We can insert any type of tag in the content area without any difficulty, but not in the header.
    If there is no <head> tag (and closing </head> tag), then Zoom will look for the meta tag in the whole page. Otherwise, it has to obey the rules again.

    Every once in a while we hear from people being stuck with a limited CMS that restricts their ability to do certain things like this. It would be nice if these CMSes would actually cater for such needs (instead of forcing us to support invalid HTML) but we also understand that it may be difficult for users to wait for their CMS of choice to address such problems.

    We are considering adding an option to allow Zoom to look in the whole page for meta tags (and thus allow <title> and <meta> tags anywhere), maybe for the next major release (V7). It would have to be an option (with ample warning against it) as it would not only be encouraging invalid HTML, having such a feature enabled could also potentially slow down indexing.

    Originally posted by cmodule00 View Post
    One more thing for now please. The results keep displaying the post content. We don't want that and have attempted to use the ZOOMSTOP tags without effect.
    Not sure what you mean by "post content". Do you just want to suppress the context description from appearing in the results? This can be done from the Indexer: "Configure"->"Results layout"->Uncheck "Context description".

    Using ZOOMSTOP and ZOOMRESTART tags mean you actually exclude that content from being indexed. This means words in this section of the page will not match searches.
    --Ray
    Wrensoft Web Software
    Sydney, Australia
    Zoom Search Engine

    Comment

    • #3
      Thanks Ray for a most comprehensive response. Didn't know invalid placement of html offended legalities.

      It would be good if there was a suitable work around or substitution for the current custom meta tag option, particularly for those keen on exploiting the ever widening CMS capabilities of WP.

      The ZOOMSTOP prevents selected text from being indexed but NOT from being displayed in results is how I understand your advice above. It seems by default ZOOM displays the post content even though 'meta description' is selected and displayed within the sample browser window during set up.

      We only want the meta description to show in the rendered search results (apart from title and URL).

      ..

      Comment

      • #4
        No, ZOOMSTOP will also exclude content from appearing in the context description, as well as stopping it from being indexed.

        I just thought it odd you were excluding the "post content" from being indexed - like I said, I'm not sure what you mean by that (please elaborate if I'm wrong) - I thought that would be the main content of the page (like a blog "post").

        It's further unclear to me now that you mention meta description -- that's taken either directly from your meta description tag OR (if there is no meta description tag), it will extract the first indexable portion of the page (which should exclude the ZOOMSTOP sections). Given that your meta description tag may be considered broken, the latter is possible.

        It may help alot if you can point me to your search page with an example query that can illustrate the problem on a particular page, and what words you are not expecting to see, etc.

        If you are indexing pages immediately after adding ZOOMSTOP tags, it may also simply be a case of indexing from the cache. You can prevent this by going to "Configure"->"Spider options"-> and checking the option to "Reload all files (do not use cache)".
        --Ray
        Wrensoft Web Software
        Sydney, Australia
        Zoom Search Engine

        Comment

        • #5
          I actually had two meta descriptions appearing in the header, one auto-generated by the Thesis framework and another semi-auto generated by a posting plugin.

          I am unable to customise the former on a scaled level so I am stuck with it for now.

          Is there anyway to truncate the meta description rendered in the returned search results? ie 25 words

          The more we play with Zoom, the more we are liking it.

          ..

          Comment

          • #6
            You can customize the meta description length displayed and indexed under "Configure"->"Limits"->"Max. description length". But this is only available in the Professional and Enterprise editions.
            --Ray
            Wrensoft Web Software
            Sydney, Australia
            Zoom Search Engine

            Comment

            • #7
              Thank you we are eyeing Enterprise.

              ..

              Comment

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