Joomla 1.5 auto meta data plugin for better SEO

NOTE: This project has been renamed, updated and changed to SEOSimple. This page is simply left for archival purposes.

This plugin automatically generates description meta tags from content to help with SEO. Currently the only parameter is the ability to set how long the description should be (default 200 characters).

autoMetaDescSEO_1.0.zip - Latest Version v1.0

What it does

Search engines often use a Web page's meta description in the SERPs, and as such it is important that these meta descriptions have relevant text related to the page's content.

This simple Joomla 1.5 plugin simply takes the starting chunk of text from the page's content and applies that as the value for the meta description tag in the page's head.

An important practice to get in the habit of when using this plugin (and for writing on the web in general) is using the journalistic principle of the "inverted pyramid". Essentially, write a keyword-rich summary in the first paragraph of the article. Here are some good tips on writing for the web.

How to install

Install the plugin just like you'd install any Joomla 1.5 plugin.

  1. Download the plugin's zip file to your system.
  2. Login to your Joomla 1.5 administration panel.
  3. Go to the EXTENSIONS > INSTALL/UNINSTALL screen.
  4. Click BROWSE, select the ZIP file and click the "Upload File & Install" button.
  5. Navigate to the EXTENSIONS > PLUGIN MANAGER and enable the plugin.
  6. Optionally, you can also edit the plugin and change the length of text that the plugin will grab from the article. By default this is set to 200 characters.

Support

You're welcome to leave comments below or contact me directly regarding the plugin, but for support, bug reports, and feature requests, please use the official autoMetaDescSEO support forum.

Filed under: Miscellaneous | | Written on February 9, 2008

23 Comments »

[...] can get all the details about the plugin at its “official” homepage, but briefly, the plugin simply takes a set chunk of text from the page’s content and slips [...]

February 10, 2008 @ 6:50 pm

Comment by
Marcelo

You could add a function that does not leave the words cut in half

February 14, 2008 @ 11:25 pm

Comment by
Milos

Please make 1.0.x joomla version.

March 31, 2008 @ 10:40 am

Comment by
Ryan

Hey Milos, sorry, but we’ve barely enough time to improve the J!1.5 version. As there are huge improvements with J!1.5 over the J!1.0.x series, I’d highly recommend upgrading. J!1.0.x is quickly going to fall off the map for support and new features.

March 31, 2008 @ 10:53 am

Comment by
Rob

Nice plugin but one problem. I have a couple mods that I use just on the home page and when a articled is clicked or commented on, it uses up the full page. After enabling the plugin, my mods show on every page now. When I don’t want them too. Anyone else have this problem?

April 3, 2008 @ 10:56 am

Comment by
Ryan

Hi Rob, bizarre indeed. The plugin simply inserts a META tag in your page’s head – before any actual body HTML is rendered. I can’t see how this would have any effect on module positions.

April 3, 2008 @ 12:28 pm

Comment by
Rob

Thanks for the reply. It seems it happens only sometimes and I’m sure it has something to on my end that I screwed up ;) I was just curious. It is a very good plugin.

April 4, 2008 @ 12:00 am

Comment by
Lazy

Hi,

its a really fine plugin, thank you very much. Would be great if it could add keywords, too.

have a nice day

Chris

April 8, 2008 @ 4:38 am

Comment by
Vincent

You should better use :

$document->setDescription($thecontent);

to not duplicate the description metatag. You can also cleanup a little bit the content :

$thecontent = substr(strip_tags($row->text),0,250);
$thecontent = str_replace(array(”\t”,”\r”,”\n”,” ”),” “,$thecontent);
$thecontent = preg_replace(’/\s+/’, ‘ ‘, $thecontent);
$thecontent = trim(substr($thecontent,0,200));

April 28, 2008 @ 1:12 am

Comment by
Ryan

Hi Vincent – you’re absolutely right – all those changes and many more have been made for the new version – SEOSimple v1.0.

April 28, 2008 @ 9:11 am

Comment by
Bart

This is a great plugin but for me it only seems to work on the front page – maybe I’ve not got Joomla setup properly / using it correctly?

The description and meta tags on the front page are fine but all other pages it uses the same keywords as the front page and

June 15, 2008 @ 8:56 pm

Comment by
Danny

I first tried the shcustomtag plugin which never worked.. I tried this after that which again did not work.. something shud be wrong from my end..

July 3, 2009 @ 2:28 am

Comment by
Ryan

@Danny: This post is way old. Definitely check out SEO Simple, the updated version and see if that works. If it doesn’t – be sure to dig into what other components/plugins you’re using – if you have other addons that are trying to configure SEO stuff, they might conflict.

July 3, 2009 @ 8:19 am

Comment by
Peter

Has Not understood what sign on news?

July 16, 2009 @ 2:03 pm

Comment by
Javed

How can we set different Mata Title, Meta description and Meta Keywords for different pages

August 5, 2009 @ 3:34 pm

Comment by
Ryan

The purpose of the plugin is to auto-generate these items. To custom-set these values, you simply do it the usual way via Joomla’s article editor (it’s a core function of Joomla).

August 5, 2009 @ 4:20 pm

Comment by
Abu-ali

This is a great plugin but for me it only seems to work on the front page – maybe I’ve not got Joomla setup properly / using it correctly?

August 5, 2009 @ 10:32 pm

Comment by
Cocody

Very nice tool thanks for this.

August 7, 2009 @ 10:37 pm

Comment by
Linda

After enabling the plugin, my mods show on every page now.

August 8, 2009 @ 10:17 pm

Comment by
backlinks

A very nice plugin I have found and recommending to my clients as well. Thanks for this. Regards. Sagar

September 13, 2009 @ 5:04 am

Comment by
Web Design Company

Nice plugin..

A really liked it .but is there any option to edit meta tags at once for 50 pages ??

October 4, 2009 @ 6:25 pm

Comment by
Challenge Coins

This plugin works great, been running it on all my new Joomla installs and it seems to work as described.

January 9, 2010 @ 7:13 am

This is a great plugin, been using it for about a year and have had no issues

January 11, 2010 @ 10:37 pm

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