Chasing the Walrus - A Blog Development

Ms Naughty · 2007-05-06, 09:13 PM

Walrus, thanks for posting this, I've just realised something awful.

I've been using Wordpress Meta Tag Generator from the very start and have dutifully written out unique descriptions for each post I've made.

But I've just checked the source code and guess what? The fucking plugin doesn't actually add my unique descriptions to my posts. It's just been adding the main blog description. So I've got about 300 pages on my site with exactly the same meta tag. No wonder Google hates me.

So I went to the original plugin page to see if I'd missed an instruction, but it's incredibly vague. Here's what it says:

"Using Meta Tag Generator

to generate meta tags on a per post or per page basis, use the key/value sets as:

* description – small description of the post or page
* keywords – keywords for post or page (also stacked with the default keywords assigned earlier)."

That's no use whatsoever.

Is there some kind of extra code that needs to go in the header for this plugin to work? Has anyone experienced any clashes with other plugins?

Someone has had the same problem but Wil's reply is "It's not my fault."

There's a possiblity that this plugin used to work with an older version but it's not happening now.

I also just had a go at adding your bit of description code into my header, but it excerpted the tags rather than the first paragraph and screwed up the layout.

What do I need to do to make the excerpt hack work properly? What's the "optional excerpt field"?

Walrus, you're a wonderful human being for helping me to discover this monumental stuff up. I'm just banging my head against the wall that I didn't discover it earlier. And now I don't know how to fix it.

Edit: I should add - when I go into "manage posts" the descriptions and keywords I added are there. They're in the database, but for some reason WP isn't pulling them out and putting them on the page with the rest of the content.

walrus · 2007-05-06, 09:44 PM

I've used this plug-in on 2.0.x WP blogs successfully so I'm going to have to believe that it is not 2.1.x compliant since, having read your post, I tested it on the new blog and it doesn't seem to work.

Guess I'll have to do some testing over the next week and see if I can find a meta tag generator that works with 2.1.x and pages.

Quote:

Originally Posted by grandmascrotum

I also just had a go at adding your bit of description code into my header, but it excerpted the tags rather than the first paragraph and screwed up the layout.

What do I need to do to make the excerpt hack work properly? What's the "optional excerpt field"?

When your on your write post page...or when you edit your posts, below where you edit in your posts you have a small section for adding files, below that is optional excerpts, trackbacks, and custom fields (where you added your information for meta tag generator) Not sure but I'll try to attach a screen shot

2007-05-06, 09:13 PM	#1
Ms Naughty old enough to be Grandma Scrotum Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Australia Posts: 1,408	Walrus, thanks for posting this, I've just realised something awful. I've been using Wordpress Meta Tag Generator from the very start and have dutifully written out unique descriptions for each post I've made. But I've just checked the source code and guess what? The fucking plugin doesn't actually add my unique descriptions to my posts. It's just been adding the main blog description. So I've got about 300 pages on my site with exactly the same meta tag. No wonder Google hates me. So I went to the original plugin page to see if I'd missed an instruction, but it's incredibly vague. Here's what it says: "Using Meta Tag Generator to generate meta tags on a per post or per page basis, use the key/value sets as: * description – small description of the post or page * keywords – keywords for post or page (also stacked with the default keywords assigned earlier)." That's no use whatsoever. Is there some kind of extra code that needs to go in the header for this plugin to work? Has anyone experienced any clashes with other plugins? Someone has had the same problem but Wil's reply is "It's not my fault." There's a possiblity that this plugin used to work with an older version but it's not happening now. I also just had a go at adding your bit of description code into my header, but it excerpted the tags rather than the first paragraph and screwed up the layout. What do I need to do to make the excerpt hack work properly? What's the "optional excerpt field"? Walrus, you're a wonderful human being for helping me to discover this monumental stuff up. I'm just banging my head against the wall that I didn't discover it earlier. And now I don't know how to fix it. Edit: I should add - when I go into "manage posts" the descriptions and keywords I added are there. They're in the database, but for some reason WP isn't pulling them out and putting them on the page with the rest of the content. __________________ Promote Bright Desire Last edited by Ms Naughty; 2007-05-06 at 09:24 PM..