mmmm...Meta Tags - help/guidance needed

[Lost and Confused]

Are meta tags automated or do I need to do each one individually (thousands of products). It's been a about two months now and my website appears but my products don't. How do I reap the benefits from metatags without having to do each on. Is there an on or off button so that I know it is actually working.

Please advise.

Thanks
Petals N Please

[delia]

The default setup of Zen Cart inserts the product name and model into the meta tags on the product page but you must alter the languages/english/meta_tags.php to insert your own site title, keywords etc.

You can overwrite the product meta tags individually if you want. When you are looking at the product in admin, click on the symbol to the far right. It's a black and white thing - kinda hard to describe. The only thing is that you must fill it all out. Leave nothing blank because you have just overwritten all the meta tags on that product page. Reverting to default is also a bit tricky so be sure you want to do that.

[Lost and Confused]

Thanks Delia

[waylander2010]

Hi all,
I was pulling my hair out with the long automated list of category titles and title name in description etc. I wanted my meta tags to be automatic as I found typing in the product and then having to go into the biohazard and do the keywords for every single product to be very time consuming.

I simply wanted to type in product title and have that automatically convert to Meta Tag Title, then out of my product description I wanted the meta tag description and meta tag keywords to be automatically produced.

The problem I found (and I know a lot of people say that keywords and meta tags are worthless these days but I would rather have them than not) was getting the Product description into a list of keywords deliminated with the comma automatically and not one long full sentence. Plus getting rid of the unwanted categories etc.

So this product description: Sony Bravia HD ready LCD TV
Became these meta tag keywords: Sony,Bravia,HD,ready,LCD,TC,

I have little knowledge of working php files and I was lucky a friend of a friend sent me the name of a guy who in 5 minutes flat fixed everything.

(The example below is not what I sell but I have used TV's as the example).

So now when I view source I do not have this any-more:

<title>Sony Bravia HD ready LCD TV : </title>
<meta name="keywords" content="This is a Sony Bravia HD ready LCD TV....,SONY TV, SONY CAMERA, SONY MUSIC CENTRE, SAMSUNG TC, AND ON AND ON UNTIL ALL MY CATEGORIES ARE IN THIS SECTION" />
<meta name="description" content=" *********** Ltd for all your Electrical needs, Sony Bravia HD ready LCD TV - This is a Sony Bravia HD ready LCD TV " />

Is now:

<title>Sony Bravia HD ready LCD TV : </title>
<meta name="keywords" content="This,is,a,Sony,Bravia,HD,ready,LCD,TV," />
<meta name="description" content=" Sony Bravia HD ready LCD TV - " />

I know the list of keywords now includes this, and is, etc but now that I know these will be included I just word my description different:

Sony Bravia HD LCD TV.

So I get my keywords done etc and I just now need to concentrate on product input - boy oh boy thanks Acedweb - you saved my a lot of time and effort matey

I had tried everything - I read all the forum messages and tinkered with my meta tags.php file plus all the other files suggested, I set the admin interface section correctly (EG: catalog/product type and Config/product info etc) with varying degrees of success but I still could not get it right - after three days I was given up! So people it can be done.

Cheers V, you are a star matey.

Richie

[acedweb]

Hi all,
I was pulling my hair out with the long automated list of category titles and title name in description etc. I wanted my meta tags to be automatic as I found typing in the product and then having to go into the biohazard and do the keywords for every single product to be very time consuming.

I simply wanted to type in product title and have that automatically convert to Meta Tag Title, then out of my product description I wanted the meta tag description and meta tag keywords to be automatically produced.

The problem I found (and I know a lot of people say that keywords and meta tags are worthless these days but I would rather have them than not) was getting the Product description into a list of keywords deliminated with the comma automatically and not one long full sentence. Plus getting rid of the unwanted categories etc.

So this product description: Sony Bravia HD ready LCD TV
Became these meta tag keywords: Sony,Bravia,HD,ready,LCD,TC,

I have little knowledge of working php files and I was lucky a friend of a friend sent me the name of a guy who in 5 minutes flat fixed everything.

(The example below is not what I sell but I have used TV's as the example).

So now when I view source I do not have this any-more:



Is now:



I know the list of keywords now includes this, and is, etc but now that I know these will be included I just word my description different:

Sony Bravia HD LCD TV.

So I get my keywords done etc and I just now need to concentrate on product input - boy oh boy thanks Acedweb - you saved my a lot of time and effort matey

I had tried everything - I read all the forum messages and tinkered with my meta tags.php file plus all the other files suggested, I set the admin interface section correctly (EG: catalog/product type and Config/product info etc) with varying degrees of success but I still could not get it right - after three days I was given up! So people it can be done.

Cheers V, you are a star matey.

Richie

Thanks for the praise mate. Its what I do. I think this needs to be included as a fix, because most users want the same setup of meta tags.. But then again, the fix works just fine on its own.

[CustomBooks]

This change eliminates categories AND custom keywords from the KEYWORD and DESCRIPTION metatags.

How do I:
Remove categories from both KEYWORD & DESCRIPTION
but still keep custom keywords in just the KEYWORD tag?

Also, my categories biohazard buttons are Black. How do I define meta tags for categories?

using Zen Cart 1.3.9f

Change this:

// Get all top category names for use with web site keywords
$sql = "select cd.categories_name from " . TABLE_CATEGORIES . " c, " . TABLE_CATEGORIES_DESCRIPTION . " cd where c.parent_id = 0 and c.categories_id = cd.categories_id and cd.language_id='" . (int)$_SESSION['languages_id'] . "' and c.categories_status=1";
$keywords_metatags = $db->Execute($sql);
while (!$keywords_metatags->EOF) {
  $keywords_string_metatags .= $keywords_metatags->fields['categories_name'] . ' ';
  $keywords_metatags->MoveNext();
}
define('KEYWORDS', str_replace('"','',zen_clean_html($keywords_string_metatags) . CUSTOM_KEYWORDS)); 

To read:

/*
// Get all top category names for use with web site keywords
$sql = "select cd.categories_name from " . TABLE_CATEGORIES . " c, " . TABLE_CATEGORIES_DESCRIPTION . " cd where c.parent_id = 0 and c.categories_id = cd.categories_id and cd.language_id='" . (int)$_SESSION['languages_id'] . "' and c.categories_status=1";
$keywords_metatags = $db->Execute($sql);
while (!$keywords_metatags->EOF) {
  $keywords_string_metatags .= $keywords_metatags->fields['categories_name'] . ' ';
  $keywords_metatags->MoveNext();
}
define('KEYWORDS', str_replace('"','',zen_clean_html($keywords_string_metatags) . CUSTOM_KEYWORDS));
*/
define('KEYWORDS',''); 

This will start the KEYWORDS to have no value ...

You will then need to check your pages to see what the results will be in order to customize them further ...

[CustomBooks]

Please...can someone help?

I've uploaded a fresh copy of
includes/languages/english/MY_TEMPLATE/meta_tags.php
and
includes/modules/MY_TEMPLATE/meta_tags.php

1. I am unable to add meta tags for categories. When I click on the black biohazard, the Categories / Products - Top screen comes up empty - no prompts, no way to add meta tags to categories.

2. How do I NOT list my categories in
meta name="keywords"
meta name="description"

[jxl1]

Changing Non-Category/Product Meta Tags

I've read a fair few topics on how to adjust the non-category/product meta tags but as a lot of this advice is old I wanted to clarify how you achieve this for the latest version of Zen Cart, I'm currently using v1.3.9e.

Firstly what I want to do is:

a) Stop my category names appearing in my Meta Description.
b) Disable the Site Title and Tagline from appearing on every page that has not been optimised. In fact I don't want the Title to appear on any page including the home page.
c) Generate the Meta tags for each of these pages individually.

Now I know the principle Meta Tag file is meta_tags.php and the other relevant file is html_header.php.

While I have made some changes to these files particularly the meta_tags.php file I can't resolve the issues I have outlined above.

Thus I am turning to the Zen Cart experts out there for any help that you can provide to fix this issue for me. BTW my site is Electronic Empire

Many Thanks,

Adil

[countrycharm]

Thanks for the praise mate. Its what I do. I think this needs to be included as a fix, because most users want the same setup of meta tags.. But then again, the fix works just fine on its own.

Want to share the fix with everyone or is it just for you guys.