Meta tags

[Mike718NY]

When adding product details, there is a text box for "HTML HEAD"'
where it says add meta keywords and description.
Should they be entered like:

<meta name="keywords" content="shopping cart, storefront, ecommerce, asp.net" />

<meta name="description" content="Revolutionary e-commerce framework . . " />

Do search engines really use meta tags anyway these days?

[Logan Rhodehamel]

Yes, that is how they would be entered. Whether or not they use them is a matter of debate. It depends on the search engine. They are not likely to be given as much weight as other factors (like the actual page content), in my opinion. Keywords can work against you if the search engine determines you are trying to spam - like repeating the same word twenty times. Description might be used as a page summary in the search engine result.

[Mike718NY]

thanks Logan,

On a related note, when I load the old product database into the AC7 new one,
should I transfer the Product Name into the "HTML HEAD" field, like this:

<meta name="keywords" content="Vitalabs DHEA 100mg, 90caps" />

this would save a lot of time.
(I would have to add the ="description" later I guess)

Is this a good idea? thanks

[Logan Rhodehamel]

You know... I'm looking at this and I'm wondering whether there's not a much easier solution.

We can reason that the "summary" field is supposed to be a brief description, right? And then you have either the product name or our "search keywords" field, either of which could be good fits for meta keywords.

In our product display pages, we call a method called PageHelper.BindMetaTags. This code takes whatever you put into that HEAD area and writes it into the page. Instead of populating all these fields for your products, an alternative would be to modify this method (in App_Code/PageHelper.cs, around line 374):

Code: Select all

    public static void BindMetaTags(Page page, ICatalogable catalogObject)
    {
        if (catalogObject != null)
        {
            page.Header.Controls.Add(new LiteralControl(catalogObject.HtmlHead));
            if (catalogObject is Product)
            {
                Product p = (Product)catalogObject;
                HtmlMeta description = new HtmlMeta();
                description.Name = "description";
                description.Content = p.Summary;
                page.Header.Controls.Add(description);
                HtmlMeta keywords = new HtmlMeta();
                keywords.Name = "keywords";
                keywords.Content = p.SearchKeywords;
                page.Header.Controls.Add(keywords);
            }
        }
    }

So the above is an example of how you could do it, and this would not require any additional HEAD entries in the product table. Of course, then you have to make sure your search keywords are entered in the meta format:

keyword1,keyword2,keyword3

[jmestep]

Is there a way to strip HTML code that is the field we are going to use for the META description?

[jmestep]

This worked great and I figured out how to strip the HTML-- I'm using the product description field for the META description:
description.Content = StringHelper.StripHtml(p.Description);