Thread: how do i get metatags to work on topics pages?

I am trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong on topics pages.
The Title, Meta Description, Meta keywords are only being replaced by the default values, and not being replaced at all on any topics pages.
Is there a setting somewhere to turn this feature on?

The following are completely ignored (for all Topics)
Search Engine Page Title:
Search Engine Keywords:
Search Engine Description:

The tokens are there in the template.ascx and are, indeed being replaced, just with the defaults - so the problem must be a switch (and I can't seem to find it)

Help!

Which version are you running? Metadata for topics will replace the tokens, but only on topic pages hit through the topic engine (eg. when browsed to by t-topicname.aspx) and not when they are embedded in the skin or in an xmlpackage. Also, if you have caching turned on, have you tried turning the cache off and then clicking the reset cache link in the admin section?

Hi Peps,

STORE VERSION: AspDotNetStorefront ML 7.1.0.0/7.1.0.0
Web Server: IIS7

I'm having the same issue as mc9000. I have the Meta Tokens in both my template.ascx and hometemplate.ascx files as so:

<title>(!METATITLE!)</title>
<meta name="description" content="(!METADESCRIPTION!)" />
<meta name="keywords" content="(!METAKEYWORDS!)" />

Yet populating any of these tags in topic pages such as t-about.aspx or hometopintro does not reflect on the website even after resetting the cache on the server and web browser. All I get is the default values set in the AppConfig Parameters for SE_MetaDescription and so on! I've also tried restarting the IIS web server to no avail.

Any ideas how I can get meta information into my topic(s) and home page?

Kind regards,

Were you able to get this working? We are having the same issue on ML 7.0.2.1.

Hi dvdbglw,

No we did not find a solution to this and so are still waiting on someone from ASPDNSF or public to answer!

For our home page we could take out the meta tokens and just put in our meta tags directly into the hometemplate.aspx but we have no fix for the topic pages I'm afraid

Kind regards,

This works properly on all recent versions I have tested including 8.0.1.2 and 7.0.2.5. If it is not working, then one of two things is wrong:

You do not have your skin setup properly to use the (!METATITLE!), (!METADESCRIPTION!), etc. parser tokens, OR

You are not accessing the topic through the topic engine (eg. t-mytopicname.aspx).

Someone mentioned HomeTopIntro, which is only loaded on default.aspx. Your topic SE properties will NOT populate on the homepage, because it is not accessed through the topic engine (it is accessed through default.aspx). The reason we do not use these on pages not using the topic engine is simple... You could have 20 or 30 topics referenced on a single page. How do we know which one to use the properties for?

Good point Dan. Also, sasdaman, after further investigation, I found it actually was working correctly for me. I went to the home page (default.aspx) and viewed the source code. The meta tags were loaded from the AppConfigs. I then replaced default.aspx in the URL with t-hometopintro.aspx and viewed the source code. The SEO from the hometopintro fields then showed instead of the AppConfig values.

Our solution for our client:
Our client had entered SEO for all of their topic pages, so I had them remove the SEO from hometopintro and place it instead in the meta AppConfigs. This way when default.aspx loads they get the intended SEO.

Running this version:
AspDotNetStorefront ML 8.0.1.2/8.0.1.2 x64

The following are not replaced on ANY topic page nor on the default.aspx page:
This is what I get, no matter what I type into any of the topics:
<meta name="description" content="enter your site description here" />
<meta name="keywords" content="enter your site keywords here" />

Here are the tokens in the template.ascx file:
<meta name="description" content="(!METADESCRIPTION!)" />
<meta name="keywords" content="(!METAKEYWORDS!)" />

This has never worked since we first installed it neither on the default.aspx page nor any topic page t-****.aspx .
The titles come through, but the important stuff does not. For SEO, this is absolutely a necessity.

I can fix this myself, but this bug (or whatever the problem is) needs to be addressed, regardless, in future versions.

Anyone already have a custom fix? (to save time)

Default.aspx takes its meta information from the SE_Meta* AppConfigs. If you still have "enter your site description here" or "enter your site keywords here" in there, then you haven't changed those AppConfigs.

http://manual.aspdotnetstorefront.co...meta-tags.aspx

Originally Posted by dvdbglw

Good point Dan. Also, sasdaman, after further investigation, I found it actually was working correctly for me. I went to the home page (default.aspx) and viewed the source code. The meta tags were loaded from the AppConfigs. I then replaced default.aspx in the URL with t-hometopintro.aspx and viewed the source code. The SEO from the hometopintro fields then showed instead of the AppConfig values.

Our solution for our client:
Our client had entered SEO for all of their topic pages, so I had them remove the SEO from hometopintro and place it instead in the meta AppConfigs. This way when default.aspx loads they get the intended SEO.

Thanks DVDbglw. The AppConfig settings worked a treat for the home page & subsequent pages. All working like a dream

Kind regards,