@davewest and @mc123456789

Gentlemen - I apologize for some of the innuendo in my posts - I totally misunderstood the 'automatic' meta tag system and how it worked. Somewhere in a thread some time back about SEO and meta tags I read something to the effect that 'to save a lot of time and effort if you do not manually enter meta data for every product then the ZC system will do it for you selecting product name and description (to the value of characters set in configuration .....' - there was no mention of keywords however they were not really of any interest to me in that there is so much said that bots do not take any notice of keywords etc etc.

There was also no mention that when triggered it submits site meta title AND product meta title separated by a colon = spammy .... and same with description.

Also if one reads the FAQ on the subject https://www.zen-cart.com/content.php...ngines-to-find it is very vague and lacks a detailed explanation of how the system works and what to do and what not to do - and the statement in red type appears to relate to the paragraph in which it is contained ONLY, the way I read it certainly indicates that. (the statements about SEO and meta tags is, well ... at best someones opinion and likely somewhat misleading dependent on your leaning)

I have no problem in offering to re-write that FAQ ..... if it is vetted by you guys first before I submit it to ensure I have got it right. IMHO it should NOT contain opinions of meta tags and their place in SEO (or not) - simply this is how it works and this is what you do (optionally this way ... or that way).

Dave I agree (now) that it is not a code problem, but it is a problem in that setting the radio buttons to what you select and then confirm/upgrade doesn't result in a warning or an error.

MC ... for those that do not read the 'new' FAQ and do what I have done I'm not sure that the default of doing nothing should result in two lots of meta title being combined - that in itself is spammy

Also there should be an explanation of what 'custom keywords' in meta_tags.php actually means and what it is designed for and importantly what it is not designed for (I entered my keywords in that field resulting in two lots of keywords combined - very spammy)

As a suggestion for future development of ZC it would make sense to me to incorporate the adding of meta data on the product page so it is done at the same time as the product is entered with default pre-loading being product name and product description of that product with only keywords to be added - changing product name and description to 'custom' text would be selectable as an override. For the inexperienced at least the prime data will be there for the spiders to see as meta.

The way it is at present there could be a few others out there with double meta unknowingly on their sites.

Maybe this is being considered already - combining it with structured data markup would be ideal.

Anyway - just some thoughts.

So again thank you for your support (and lindasdd)

cheers,
Mike

at present I add keywords only and the system does the rest (keywords obviously trigger the system)