Is there a plug-in that makes adding meta details easier or more straight forward it?

[mc12345678]

Yes, that's my understanding of how it works. You should of course check the view:source of your page to make sure the auto-generated meta tags are to your liking.

Also, I believe I'm right in saying that auto-generated meta tags are overwritten by any manually-added meta tags that you might already have.

Generally speaking it appears you are correct about the "priority" of building the meta data. The operation of this is covered by includes/modules/YOUR_TEMPLATE/meta_tags.php (where YOUR_TEMPLATE/ would be removed if it is not overridden/modified. This is in conjunction with includes/languages/YOUR_LANGUAGE/YOUR_TEMPLATE/meta_tags.php with the same about the template override.

[jasonshanks]

Yes, that's my understanding of how it works. You should of course check the view:source of your page to make sure the auto-generated meta tags are to your liking.

Also, I believe I'm right in saying that auto-generated meta tags are overwritten by any manually-added meta tags that you might already have.

I went to that page "product info" I actually had those options already selected ( they might have been set to on by default) But my products that I don't manually enter metadata for only show the default metadata for the main page. Here's an example.

https://www.missingcord.com/hp/ac-ad...2880-18v-2.23a

I created the product above about 1 week ago. I never added the meta details for it. While those 3 options where in effect that you showed me.

In google search it just gives me the site name , tagline and the item title . None of the description. Do i need to enable something to force it to use the details ?

[torvista]

Coincidentally I have been looking at meta tags just now...

If you have nothing in the keywords and description meta tag fields, ZC will set the options (at the top of the page) all to yes to construct the page title, with the exception of the field that says title, which is really additional text to add to the title.
So, that's the page title auto-generated. You can however, remove the model and price from that auto page title by options in Configuration->Product Info.

In the same case (no keywords and description set), a description meta tag will be generated from the main product description, to the length specified on the same admin page as above.

Keywords I didn't investigate much, but seem to be product name and model and all categories + defined constant keywords.

[jasonshanks]

Coincidentally I have been looking at meta tags just now...

If you have nothing in the keywords and description meta tag fields, ZC will set the options (at the top of the page) all to yes to construct the page title, with the exception of the field that says title, which is really additional text to add to the title.
So, that's the page title auto-generated. You can however, remove the model and price from that auto page title by options in Configuration->Product Info.

In the same case (no keywords and description set), a description meta tag will be generated from the main product description, to the length specified on the same admin page as above.

Keywords I didn't investigate much, but seem to be product name and model and all categories + defined constant keywords.

hello,

First off thank you for helping me. So if I understand you correctly. I can get it to auto generate a meta description for the search just by turning off "Meta Tags - Include Product Model in Title" & "Meta Tags - Include Product Price in Title" ? This way I can just set the "Meta Tags Generated Description Maximum Length?" to a high enough word count to grab what i want from the product description ? Making it so I wouldn't even have manually do this anymore ?

[torvista]

I can get it to auto generate a meta description for the search just by turning off "Meta Tags - Include Product Model in Title" & "Meta Tags - Include Product Price in Title"

I don't understand how you came to that conclusion. Those options do what they say: for the page title, nothing to do with description.

If there is nothing written in the keywords and description fields for a product, ZC will use the product description (limited in word length as per the Admin switch) in the meta description tag.

[jasonshanks]

oh! sorry I guess i didn't understand you guys there. In my case that didn't happen with the product I posted about. It just grabbed the item name and the meta description for the site in general to fill out the search result for the product.

[torvista]

It just grabbed the item name and the meta description for the site in general to fill out the search result for the product.

What search result?

You should be looking at the meta tags in the page html to verify what is happening each time you change things. Make notes.

[lankeeyankee]

dbio recently added meta tags to the products handler. Use this to bulk upload. Don't use the default unless you don't want to change anything, we always change the description so it can reflect per-product or category messaging. The description is what is shown on search engines' search results, under the link title. So it's important to get it right.