SEO meta tags on pages with header.php included

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(7 posts) (3 voices)

Started 1 year ago by Jesse
Latest reply from badlydrawnrob

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Jesse
Member
Hi Guys,
I've sent a couple emails via the contact form with no reply... so we'll see if anyone has any ideas here.

We run all of our sites using includes for the header and footer as a template system. Then we set variables in each page for the Title, Description, and Keywords. So an average content page looks like this:
```
<?
$pageTitle="My Site";
$pageDesc="What my site is about";
$pageKey="key,words,go,here";
?>
<? include('includes/header.php') ?>
<p><h1>Welcome to Site</h1>

<? include('includes/footer.php') ?>
```
Then of course in the header.php file there is code like this:
```
<title><?=$pageTitle?></title>
```
So of course this doesn't work with the Pagelime SEO options, as it's looking for the title and meta tags in the particular file. So far the best hack I have come up with is something like this:
```
$pageTitle="<title>My Site</title>";
$pageDesc='<meta name="description" content="My Site" />';
$pageKey='<meta name="keywords" content="key,words,go,here" />';
```
The only problem now is that if the user puts an apostrophy into the keywords or desc it breaks. And I mean really breaks. It publishes a file that is quite screwed up and doesn't parse due to a php error.

So I'm a bit stuck because as of now as adding new pages is a bit useless if you can't change their page titles. Anyone have any suggested workaround here?

Thanks so much!
-Jesse
Posted 1 year ago #

Emil
PageLime Founder

Hi Jesse,

Great workaround... I can see how those apostrophe issues are causing trouble.

Here's a better workaround until we figure out some way to fix this issue on our end. Use output buffering to create tags that won't break the quotes, and Pagelime will publish content into them. Then load the content of said output buffer into the variables just as you did above, and you should be good to go!

I tested this and it seems to work well. Give this a shot and let me know.

<?php
/* these variables will hold the full meta keywords and description eventually */
$metaDesc = "<!-- no description -->";
$metaKeywords = "<!-- no keywords -->";
?>

<?php ob_start(); ?>
<meta name="description" content="hello world" />
<?php $metaDesc = ob_get_contents(); ?>
<?php ob_end_clean(); ?>

<?php ob_start(); ?>
<meta name="keywords" content="key,words" />
<?php $metaKeywords = ob_get_contents(); ?>
<?php ob_end_clean(); ?>

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Page Title</title>
<?php print $metaDesc; ?>
<?php print $metaKeywords; ?>
</head>

Posted 1 year ago #

Jesse
Member

Thanks so much for the reply and effort. I've taking that code and integrated the title tag and compressed the tags a bit.. So here is my final:

<?
ob_start(); ?>
<title>My Title Here</title>
<? $pageTitle = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
ob_start(); ?>
<meta name="description" content="My Site Description" />
<? $pageDesc = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
ob_start(); ?>
<meta name="keywords" content="key,words,go,here" />
<? $pageKey = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
?>

Then In the <head> of header.php I've got:

<?=$pageTitle?>
<?=$pageDesc?>
<?=$pageKey?>

So it's not squeaky clean but it's not bad!

Posted 1 year ago #

badlydrawnrob
Member

Hey Jesse,

I was forwarded your thread by Emil, as I had a similar request here

My PHP is sketchy at best so don't really understand the code behind this but am I right in thinking you place:

<? ob_start(); ?> to <? $pageKey = ob_get_contents(); ob_end_clean(); ?>

At the top of every PHP page, then below this include header.php with the following:

<?=$pageTitle?> <?=$pageDesc?> <?=$pageKey?>

Wherever you want the meta data to go? Will this then update the variable with whatever keywords / description the client puts into the SEO popup WYSIWYG ... as well as not breaking with said characters such as comma?

Sorry for the slew of questions, just checking if I have the right idea!

~ Rob

Posted 1 year ago #
badlydrawnrob
Member

Oops, I meant "apostrophe" ;)

Posted 1 year ago #
Jesse
Member

You got it Rob.. put that first group of code that I posted at the top of every page above the include line. Then in header.php put the 3 lines that pull the variables somewhere in the <head> section.

Yes it works with the SEO popup and No it doesn't break with apostrophes :)

Posted 1 year ago #
badlydrawnrob
Member

Perfect, I'll try that out first thing. Ingenious ;)

Posted 1 year ago #

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SEO meta tags on pages with header.php included

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