Funkydunk's COOL mod for total meta tag control
 

I had Funkydunk do an x-cart customization for my 3.3.5 stores so that I could have total control over the title and meta tags for each category to score higher in the search engines. It works perfectly, and I want to share it with the rest of you. I have no idea if this works in 3.4.0, but it's fine in 3.3.5...3.3.6 will probably work fine too.

First, patch your SQL database with this info:
Then replace the <title> tag of your home.tpl with this line, making sure you replace the COMPANYNAME.COM with whatever you want to show after your *product descriptions*

Next, replace your skin1/admin/main/category_modify.tpl file with this one:
Then replace your (store)/admin/category_modify.php file with this:
Finally, this can replace your meta.tpl file (be warned, I have the editorns.js script called from the root directory instead of the default path meta.tpl comes with. If your store isn't in a directory called (store) then you will want to leave those lines out:
Now when you go in to edit a category, you will have Page Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords available. ALSO, the meta keywords WON'T just be added to the regular meta keywords that are specified in the old meta.tpl.

Enjoy!
Cameron

:D

I forgot to mention that under your company options you can specify general meta tags / title tag for the non category pages.

Does the Meta Tags for the category tranfer to the product pages???

Is there a way to change a product page's meta tags other than change them every time you create an HTML catalog?

Thanks,
Greg

Actually, no. The products pull their meta info from the tags you set under the "company options"

That is extremely bad news.... Bummer

are meta tags really that important?
 

Seems like less and less importance is placed on the meta tag now days. Most engines seem to use the first paragraph or text on your index page. Can someone tell me the benefit of using this mod, beyond the obvious of having nice metas.

the title is important though
 

Yes, metatags aren't very important, BUT page titles are very important. If you use the HTML Catalog feature, this mod is great.

Just added this to my site and I'm very pleased with it! Hopefully there will be a way to incoprorate this with the product pages as well. Thank you funkydunk!

The question is does this mod work with 3.4.2-3? Also, I just want to make sure its worth it. Right now each page has the same Title and Meta with the description of the product way down on the page. :roll: Not good from what I have seen so far.
Will this mod make it so the each product page (when converted to HTML catalog) will have a unique Meta and Title?

Chris

Does it of a must to use HTML CATALOG
 

Friends

When using this - Should it be require to use HTML CATALOG
Also, It is hard to understand how it will work, Does the HTML function amend the html pages when changes are made. Or does it will be require to do all from square one. The manual is very unclear with regard to this all.


Thanks

You should be using the html catalogue if you are concerned about better search engine positioning. The php based store does not index as well as pure html.

I always drop my existing catalog when i generate a new one. I don't see any advantage to keeping the existing pages. **EDIT** Never drop your catalogue if possible. Some of those pages may be indexed and you will lose valuable traffic to 404 errors.

Does this Meta Mod work with 3.4????

Funkydunk, any reason why my title is sticking to the page
 

Funkydunk, thanks for offering the mods.

I had no problems inserting the codes and seeing what it does.
However when making category modifications I am seeing one there.

when I add title metas etc. then hit update, everything disapears. seems like it will not take the update.


next is:

when I go into company options and make changes to comapny title, meta keywords. Seems like this does update.

however, when I create my catalog (dump the old) and take a url to my browser I am only seeing the category name show up in the TITLE.

this is one of the most important things so I hope there is a simple way to fix or perhaps a small detail I have missed.

my cart version is:

X-Cart version 3.4.3
PHP 4.2.2




Thanks a lot man!

John Finney

Thanks as well for the mod.

I'm running 3.4.4 and it seems to be running fine. not sure if this deals with the mod or not but only thing I have ran into though is when viewing the Cart the page comes across as <title>#NAME?</title>

And on the checkout pages the title comes across empty.

Jfinn, be sure that the MySQL patch was successful. It sounds like what you're having happen could be caused by missing information SQL info for the mod.

Rodneyw, here is some modified code for the title tag:
The 'pictures' is in there because of an extra page that I added to the cart and I wanted a unique title for it. That can be applied to any extra pages you add to your xcart site.

Cameron

well I found my issue, it was in the language library.

The following entries had #NAME? listed as the value ..

{$lng.txt_subtitle_cart}

{$lng.txt_subtitle_checkout}

{$lng.txt_subtitle_thankyou}

Out of curiosty does anyone have an idea why this happened or is it a default setting that needs to be changed on initial installation??

Just as a FYI the modifications to the Mets.tpl file will break the webmaster mode in x-cart 3.4.4

Here is the "patched" version of the meta.tpl file that I am using with this to make it work.

:D Great Mod!

8O Shouldn't this be moved to the "Custom Templates" section of the forum?

Regards,

Glen

Database patch
 

Could you help me here a bit. I am not sure just how to patch the database. Could be that all of this is new to me! Please help this old FORTRAN programmer!

In admin - patch/upgrade copy the sql query into the sql query box and press submit.

Database patch
 

Thanks Funkydunk! That was pretty painless even for me. Now, is there anything else I need to do to get this new code to work? Do I have to rebuild the catalog?

I am having a hard time following the code from php to where it does something on the page. Here again, all of my programming has been in traditional (1980's!) languages. This notion of style sheets is causing me to stay up late at night!

Again, thanks for your help to this old dog trying to learn new tricks...

Re: Funkydunk's COOL mod for total meta tag control
 

Hi the only part i dont understand is how to First, patch my SQL database. Can you tell me how to do this exactly?

Thanks,
Ern

copy the patch and paste it into the sql query box in admin-> patch/upgrade then press enter.

:D

This one is a life saver!

Thanks FunkyDunk!

change the bit in the home.tpl to:

minor problem using it in 3.4.4
 

i used this mod a few months ago with an earlier version (which i don't remember). I upgraded xcart to 3.4.4. Now a line break is placed at the beginning of the description. It adds a new break every time I hit submit. I can't seem to be able to figure out where it is being inserted.

Did anyone else have this problem?

http://designeleven.com/screenshot.gif

I get it too but I have just been removing them each time I update the dialog. Maybe funkydunk will figure it out. But even if he does not, It's a small price to pay for the benifit received.

Solution for 3.4.4
 

Here's my upgrade of FunkyDunk's mod to version 3.4.4. There were problems with the extra line break, the use of other languages, and it handled the icon using the old image method. This will correct all of those.

replace /skin1/admin/main/category_modify.tpl with this:

replace /admin/category_modify.php with this:

Of course, if you are not upgrading to 3.4.4 you must still run the SQL commands and make the other changes in FunkyDunk's original post.

Thanks for that :)

Here is the updated code into a 3.4.7 script:

Hi Funkydunk,

I've read through this entire thread, and the mod looks fantastic. However, I'm not a programmer, and there seem to be several iterations of the same file, and some posters have only added updates for specific builds... so I'm now a bit confused :) I'm running 3.4.7. The updated code you've posted above... is this the only file I need to change (I'm assuming it's a change to category_modify.php), or do I still need to change the sql database and all the other things mentioned further up the thread? If that's the case, can you please give me a list of what actually needs changing, or even better, the actual code for each file appropriate for version 3.4.7.

Thanks a lot :D

Dave

follow it from the top of the thread - all the original code works fine.

The last bit is just to change the display of it in home.tpl.

3.48 worked great as far as I can tell.
 

Funky, Cameron and anyone else who has contributed.
Thanks!

I used the same mods all the way thru and seems that it worked well on 3.4.8. Haven't started to enter data yet but the correct fileds are in place.


One that that I struggled with at first was the concept of cutting and pasting the mysql statement. I use PHPmyadmin and this method gave me errors each time.

Not that anyone needs to use myadmin, but if you do just simply cut and paste one line at a time and build your columns this way. Use this method if you are getting errors like myself.


The suggested way would be the reccommended insert into the update patch section within the cart itself. I didn't see this at first but the info is definately in the threads.

Thanks again,

Re: Funkydunk's COOL mod for total meta tag control
 

I implemented the above code and didn't realize that I had to change the values, so now I have dolphin keywords and descriptions on pages that I don't modify.

How do I fix this?

Re: Funkydunk's COOL mod for total meta tag control
 

Just figured it out. I can change the values in the "Company Option" section. :D

:lol:

I've followed the thread and modified everything but I'm getting parse errors on the category_modify.php. I think it has something to do with spaces in the code? I've checked the original x-cart 3.4.8 code and it's identical to the line the error is supposedly on. When I copy the line from the original and paste it in Funkydunk's 3.4.7 mod the error goes away. But the code is exactly the same just with a space or two! So far this has worked until one error that won't go away. Line 151 of funkydunk's code-

if ($category_path != $category_name && !func_query_first("select * from $sql_tbl[categories] where category='$category_path'")){


anyone know why i'm getting these errors? the admin/category_modify won't even load. If I restore it to the original, it works fine.

This is the code for 3.4.8

Re: minor problem using it in 3.4.4
 

I have upgraded to 3.4.8 and have applied the mod from the beginning of the thread. I don't think I have missed a step somewhere but I'm still having the line break issue at the top of the Description block.

Did this get fixed and I missed it somewhere or is it still an issue.

That little line break is annoying ....help! Please.

dlee

This must be because there is a return or new line in the category_modify.tpl around the description field.

Take the extra space around the value of that field out and it will stop doing this.

hth