Control of meta description - categories

[blaze]

Originally Posted by web20guy

"But alas the issue of duplicate content and Google is very real."

Just to clarify to you, the duplicate content filter will select the BEST PAGE to represent the content searched for -- this is at Google's Discretion too. There is NO PENALTY as Google says, but when you have 4700 pages and only 300 are being indexed, I'd say that the analogy of "no penalty" is kind of ridiculous, to say the least -- unless you are blocking or restricting urls.

So that is what you need to look up. There could be several reasons as to why Google only indexes 300+ pages out of 4700. First, have you checked your Google webmaster tools and looked over how many urls are not being indexed due to your robots.txt file? Check in the OVERVIEW SECTION and see how many are restricted. That can really answer a lot. If 4000+ urls aren't being indexed because of your robots.txt file, then you know the reason why. You should also check how many duplicate meta titles, descriptions, etc. are being recorded by Google. You can check that by going to DIAGNOSTICS >> CONTENT ANALYSIS.

If at the end of your research and the majority of "bad urls" is coming from Duplicate Meta Data, then I'd suggest you use this hack. If it's due to your robots.txt fle, then now you know just how many duplicate pages could have caused you problems and it's working. Although, I somehow doubt that's the case in your scenario.

Also, remember, if your robots.txt file has all the right things (pages) to block, then there is really no need for that code snippet in your meta.tpl file where it shows this:

{if $indexit eq "1" OR $pagename eq "story"}
    <meta name="robots" content="index,follow" />
{else}
    <meta name="robots" content="noindex,follow" />
{/if}

Now, here's the bad part -- even if you did everything right, Google doesn't have to index anything they don't want to. This is the one thing that drives webmasters crazy -- how some sites get more pages indexed than others. Some people think it has to do with page rank, the age of your domain, etc.; while others believe you need thousands of link backs to get more pages indexed. But whatever it is, Google is not sharing (nor ever will) on how and why they index certain pages the way they do. They only say have patience and everything will eventually fall into place.

This code hack I provided works well for me, I have 3097 urls blocked with 1,510 urls indexed, 0 Duplicate Titles and Meta data. I am also number one in Google for a powerful Keyword Phrase, with about 100 of other phrases pulling my site in the TOP TEN. However, my site was already number one when I used this hack and the only thing it did was bring about tons more different keyword phrases, which ultimately raised my traffic nearly 50%. So it does work.

Your site is a large site -- and depending on how many categories you have, it might be a bit overwhelming for you to do. I suggest you try with about 10 different categories (the most popular ones) and see if that makes a difference. If it does, then you can do the others. You should always test this out first if you have a ton of categories.

Finally, your last question. If you want Lensroll Networking to come at the end, you should be using this method at the very end just after the last {else} statement:

Instead of:

<title>{if isset($pretitle)}{$pretitle}{/if}{#PLIGG_Visual_Name#}{if isset($posttitle)} | {$navbar_where.text1} {/if} | {$navbar_where.text2}</title>

Use:

<title>{if isset($pretitle)}{$pretitle}{/if}{if isset($posttitle)} | {$navbar_where.text1} {/if} | {$navbar_where.text2} {#PLIGG_Visual_Name#}</title>

Alternatively, you can also remove {#PLIGG_Visual_Name#} altogether if you don't want your site name to appear at all in your titles.

Also, many people use this for their titles:

{if $pagename eq "story" || $pagename eq "topusers" || $pagename eq "cloud"}
<title>{$posttitle|substr:3} | {#PLIGG_Visual_Name#}</title>
{elseif $pagename eq "search"}
<title>{$posttitle|substr:22} search results | {#PLIGG_Visual_Name#}</title>
{else}
<title>{$pretitle}{#PLIGG_Visual_Name#}{$posttitle }</title>
{/if}

The above code works well, but I prefer to have more control when it comes ot categories and having stronger keyword phrases present.

I hope you understand all of this.

[Loz07]

Hey Blaze thanks heaps for this.

I have one question, in the meta.tpl you state that "category 1" should be changed for the ACTUAL name of the category.


However, you don't state whether it should all be one word, case sensitive if there are two or more words as the category.

ie..

This Is My Category Name


Should it be

"This Is My Category Name"

Or

"ThisIsMyCategoryName" which is the way in which the URL comes out when the category link is clicked on.

Thanks.

Loz

[Loz07]

Me again

I just noticed that the submit page still has pliggs default title there, how do I go about changing that also?

Thanks

Loz

[Loz07]

Sorry about this, but got another problem. After adding your hack to change titles, my MAIN categories produce an error, but my SUB-categories work fine.

I get this error

Fatal error: Cannot use object of type stdClass as array in /home/myusername/public_html/libs/dbtree.php on line 39

Any clues why it's doing that?

Cheers

Loz

[blaze]

Originally Posted by Loz07

Hey Blaze thanks heaps for this.

I have one question, in the meta.tpl you state that "category 1" should be changed for the ACTUAL name of the category.


However, you don't state whether it should all be one word, case sensitive if there are two or more words as the category.

ie..

This Is My Category Name


Should it be

"This Is My Category Name"

Or

"ThisIsMyCategoryName" which is the way in which the URL comes out when the category link is clicked on.

Thanks.

Loz

It should be whatever you named your category -- so if you named it "
"This Is My Category Name", then that's what you use. Forget about how Pligg renames the url.

[Loz07]

Cheers, but now my main categories wont work after doing this title change, any clues?

Cheers

Loz

[blaze]

I don't know what to tell you. It does work, but you have to follow it step by step and make sure there are not any open {if} statements. You also have to make sure that you include the $main_smarty->assign('category', $thecat); within the index.php file. It's hard to say how to fix it when you might have done something wrong or perhaps missed a step, or better yet, if you made other alterations to your files with other hacks. Perhaps there is a conflict going on with another hack you used?

[Loz07]

I copied and followed everything as instructed.

But it's ok, I don't think it's your mod Blaze... It's 9.9.0 version that is causing the problem.

I just deleted all the files and dropped the database and reinstalled the software again, created the categories and subcategories... when I try to load the main category, it wont load, only sub-categories load.

I'm surprised no one has noticed this in their vanilla install.

It's not something to do with the .htaccess file, cos no matter if the value is set to one, or two for SE Friendly URLs, I still get the error.

Thanks for your help all the same Blaze, i appreciate it.

[cpayment]

Originally Posted by blaze

Note: This fix is for v 9.82 AND v 9.9.0

Does it suit for v9.95?

This fix is also suit for v9.95.
Great work.
Thanks.

[sb225]

blaze
i have missed somewhere but not understanding where was the mistake
the only one which is not working for me is categories description and keywords
whenever i click on any category it shows same desription
take a look here starton.us / popular / blogs