Joomla 1.5 auto meta data plugin for better SEO
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.
- Download the plugin’s zip file to your system.
- Login to your Joomla 1.5 administration panel.
- Go to the EXTENSIONS > INSTALL/UNINSTALL screen.
- Click BROWSE, select the ZIP file and click the “Upload File & Install” button.
- Navigate to the EXTENSIONS > PLUGIN MANAGER and enable the plugin.
- 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.
@Danny: This post is way old. Definitely check out SEO Simple, the updated version and see if that works....
I first tried the shcustomtag plugin which never worked.. I tried this after that which again did not...
Great article Ryan, how do you get pagination to work with this setup?
It is extremely annoying trying to figure out what you have going on there when your code spills out over...
Hi, thank you very much for the useful plugin, it will save me a lot of time. I’m still trying to...
A simple SEO plugin for Joomla 1.5 | Dao By Design Blog
[...] 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
Marcelo
You could add a function that does not leave the words cut in half
February 14, 2008 @ 11:25 pm
Milos
Please make 1.0.x joomla version.
March 31, 2008 @ 10:40 am
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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