Administration of META-tags

I feel the handling of META-tags is a bit cumbersome. It would be nice if there was a way to assign META values in an easy way on a per page basis. The current practice is to predefine the available META tags and keywords in the Resources section and then select the appropriate ones when editing each page. My problem with this is that I’m planing a redesign of a site with several hundred pages and predefining every keyword would force me to jump back and forth between the Resources section and Page edit whenever I need to add new keywords. Scrolling an endless list of keywords doesn’t appeal to me either.

My suggestion would be too use the already existing Description field and add a Keywords field in the General tab of the Document settings. These could then be included in the template with [*description*] and [*keywords*].

As for other META tags the present system with predefined tags is ok. But it could use some changes. The Keywords field can be removed as per my suggestion above. The META tags definition is a little bit confusing with both a Name field and a Tag list. The Name is just for internal uses, ie keeping order among several items, right?

The display of META tags in the Document settings also leaves room for improvement. How do I know which ones I’ve selected? There is no way of knowing (except viewing the webpage and choosing View Source). A list with available choices and another list with the selected ones perhaps?

Hi Pont !

First of all, welcome to the community !

You can accomplish your work by using powerfull "TVs" (Template Variables).

Make a TV called "keywords" can be used in template as [*keywords*], assign that to a specific template or all templates as you feel better.

Put default values there.

Now whenever you edit a document, or create a new document its very easy to edit/update keywords of all documents.

Same goes to meta tags !

I hope this makes sense !

If you still have questions/suggestions in mind, just don’t hesitate to post here !

Best regards,

zi

Hi!

Thanks for the warm welcome!

I must admit that I’m just starting out here so a lot about MODx is new and a bit mystifying.

Anyway...

I had thought of using TVs but didn’t like the idea.

First - why is there a meta-generating functionality built in to the system if it’s not meant to be used? The functionality is a bit cumbersome but with a few changes it will work fine.

Second - if I go the TV road the Keywords ends up at the very bottom of the editing frame, far away from the other settings at the top. It feels more natural for me having all that together. The Description is already there. What could be more natural than to have the Keywords there as well? It seems like such basic meta functionality that it should be present on every page without extra workarounds with TVs.

If I can dream a little...

I’d have to agree. Likewise I am new to MODx, only a few days into it and loving it. The Keyword issue was one I as going to have to tackle later, and I was / am confussed by the META section under resources, like Pont said, then field name, tag and value. Wasn’t sure what I was meant to put in the name field (but need to read the docs on this).

I don’t want to have a list of keywords that I can choose from, I want to enter my own keywords on a per page basis when I create it like Pont suggested. I can understand that some designers may not like their web editors having the ability of entering non standard keywords, so maybe the ability to add custom keywords when editing a page can be allowed in security settings?

Well thats my 9c worth (up 7c due to rising crude oil prices)

I believe that the various ways you can choose to add meta-tags (or any other content you can dream up) to your documents in MODx is one of the great benefits of such a lightweight framework, though it can definitely be daunting when getting started with the current manager interface. I’ve used a variety of ways to implement these on different sites, using TV’s, snippets that looked at the longtitle field for keywords and summary for description, or chunks just included on all the pages. It all depends on the end result you want, and the path you want to take to get there.

As for the current built-in meta system, I think allowing the user to bulk edit these assignments to more than one page at a time would be a great usability improvement, but otherwise, I like the way it works. But again, I’ll only use in situations where it’s appropriate.

TV’s really are the best solution to entering keywords on a per page basis. In future versions, we’ll probably allow you to sort TV’s above the current content block (which is really just a global TV assigned to all documents, without all the bells and whistles), in which case your keyword textbox or dropdown list, or whatever, would be available in a more logical location in the editor.

I know I’m being stubborn here, but I still feel the functionality should be included in MODx without workarounds.

As far as I understand, you can’t add [*description*] to a template and have it collect it’s content from the Description field in Document settings. I would have to use a snippet as OpenGeek described. Since my php coding skills are limited I need to take another road. Suppose I add a TV for a description meta tag. That would mean that I end up with two Description fields in Document settings. Not a good solution and bound to confuse less able users. Even less so if the functionality to sort TVs above the content area is realized.

So - I’m back to my initial wish. The Description field is already there but only serves internal purposes. Adding the ability to use it for meta tags through [*description*] would make it more useful. Other fields here have this functionality, like Title (if I remember correctly). And adding a Keywords field should be a useful and logical next step. Both these meta tags are used on the majority of web pages and it should be easy to set them on a per page basis out of the box.

And the rest of the meta tags functionality still needs a little refining...

Actually you can use [*description*] right in your template. It works the same way as [*content*], [*pagetitle*] and [*longtitle*]. I always output the description in a description meta tag.

I personally am not in the habit of using meta keywords at all. From what I understand if you do not abuse them they can be somewhat beneficial but because of all the keyword spamming that has gone on these days Google and others virtually ignore them.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/28356.htm

Quote from: aNoble at Aug 01, 2005, 12:29 PM

Actually you can use [*description*] right in your template. It works the same way as [*content*], [*pagetitle*] and [*longtitle*]. I always output the description in a description meta tag.

Great idea, just updated my site with it.... cheers

Thanks a lot aNoble! I didn’t realize that keyword was dead. Thanks for the link. And i promise - I Will research better before I post next time...

Quote from: aNoble at Aug 01, 2005, 12:29 PM

I personally am not in the habit of using meta keywords at all. From what I understand if you do not abuse them they can be somewhat beneficial but because of all the keyword spamming that has gone on these days Google and others virtually ignore them.

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/28356.htm

It’s not that Google totally ignores the meta keywords in a site...it’s that it uses them sparingly and doesn’t use meta keywords specifically for the categorization and spidering of a site. Yes, they are still used, but just not on the same level as they were some years ago. It’s still a good practice to use both the keyword and description meta tags...but just do so in a highly targetted manner. Abusing them will indeed make Google and other search engines ignore them. Personally, I don’t put too many keywords in my pages...just a few to aid the search engines in knowing how to categorize my site. And I use the MODx description field for my description metatag...seems to be the most logical use for it.

Having said that, I agree to some degree what you guys are saying about the keyword functionality in MODx. However, I think instead of outright changing the functionality, why not just enhance it a bit. The current functionality is great for assigning a global set of keywords for every page in a site. However, one thing I find greatly annoying is that I have to constantly remember to select keywords for every page I add to my site. What would be great is to have a checkbox or the like that will include all my keywords when I publish a new page. That way, if I decide, I can include either all or a select number of keywords for a page. There could be an option added to the configuration to ’Automatically use all keywords for every page’ or something along that lines. That way, every new page will have the new keywords checkbox already selected when you first publish a page. This is very similar to the way you can select to have every new page automatically published or cached.

Another way we could enhance the functionality is to have page by page keywords. This way you can add a few targetted keywords that are specific to a page along with the global keywords. Not only would you be able to select specific global keywords (or all of them) but you can add a few new ones to the specific page. I’ve had a few times when this sort of functionality would have helped.

As yet another enhancement is to have a way of creating groups of global keywords. The idea would be to have different "sets" for different purposes, again aiding the search engines by having different targetted keywords for different sections of your site.

Again, the keyword and description metatags aren’t completely dead just yet. They’re just not as heavily weighed as they used to be...but they’re still used to some degree and are still handy to have in your pages...even for Google. One other great possibility for this change in functionality is for the purpose of blog-like category parsing. Consider this...what if the keyword meta functionality in MODx served a dual purpose? Like WordPress, what if you were able to break your site down into targetted categories for the purpose of creating a blog or index of your site? Keywords could be used for this purpose as well as being used for the keyword metatags. Just a thought.