Needed: META Descriptions on each document

My conclusion is, that we desperate need a META Description input-box on each document edit form. This is one of the most underrated and underestimated issue in SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and so many CMS fail to deliver that.

The reason is, that if Google finds the searched term in META Description, it shows META Description. If not, it shows som text form the webpage, where the searched term is present. I’m not sure if I’m 100% correct for march-2006, but it is something like that.

This is so big marketing issue - you can work on that one sentence (META Description) for weeks to tune it into perfect ad with the greatest possible click-through rate. People really decide based on this an this really means *LOTS* of money on revenues during the lifetime of corporate website.

Ad/SEO agencies/pros are paid hundreds to work on META Descriptions, it really has big ROI.

The reason why this customization is so popular in the SEO-pros comunity is a fact, that you actually don’t have to make any effort on making better position in SERP (Search Engine Result Page) - that is much more difficult, cost time and money - you just improve what you have.

SEO-pro can turn off implementing MODx just for this reason. Solving this by TV is inconvenient workaround for major issue. It’s not easy for newbie to implement such a TV, it’s on the wrong place in the form...

But just for the philosophical reason we should not imlement big things by workarounds. I really vote for implementing a META Description directly into document properties/table.

If you need different description meta tag in each page, you can simply use description field in document settings>general.
Than create a description meta tags and set value to [*description*].
The output of your meta description will be the content of description field of you document.

Heh. MODx strikes again! The difficult is made simple, and the impossible made easy. I love it

I am going to start keeping a record of all these simple little tips for using it to the best advantage.

for big sites i create 2 or more meta description, for example:

one with [*description*] value and another (or more) with a default description to use with a lot of documents that dont need a custom description.

Here’s an idea as an extension, but it’s probably what you’re doing anyway:

1) Create a Chunk to use as your default/fallback Meta Description that is just text, {{DefaultMetaDesc}}. This make it simple for non-coding clients to edit.:

2) Create a [*MetaDecsription*] TV to use in all Template header files.

3) For the default content of [*MetaDecsription*], use an @EVAL binding:

• if the page’s description field is present use that
• if it’s not, use a fall back default text of chunk created in step 1

someone please fix the code as I’m not a coder

4) To every template, add the following to your header:

Wow!! thanks Ryan!

Quote from: rthrash at Mar 15, 2006, 04:52 PM

someone please fix the code as I’m not a coder

@EVAL return ([*description*] > '')? [*description*] : '{{DefaultMetaDesc}}';

I think it’s more better, both for the IF clause and for stability, to use:

Well, I not sure if you really need the quotes for ’{{DefaultMetaDesc}}’

I have asked the same question for META description yesterday here and I have not used @EVAL. When you write your Template Variable (TV), lets call it MetaDescription and you can give a default value and you assign it to one or more templates. Then you place the code:
in your template file.
Now, when editing a document you will have the default value allready in the field assigned, if you want to change it go ahead, if not the default one is used.

This is what I have done to my template. Well, I am not the MODx expert because I’ve spent just some hours with it yet and I could be wrong. But it’s a bit easier.

Boby