Meta Tags

[delphi]

Thanks Brian, I added that code to where I thought it should go but it didn't seem to work so I must be adding it in the wrong place. Following this topic this is what I have done so far

I've edited meta.html with the following code:

<?php

//reinsert commas for keywords and strip double commas
function SepStr($str, $enddiv = ",", $minlen = 0, $begindiv = " ")
{
    $ar = explode($begindiv, $str);

    if ( $enddiv{strlen($enddiv)-1} != "" ) { $enddiv .= " "; }
    foreach($ar as $key => $val)
    {
        if (strlen($val) < $minlen)
        {
            unset($ar[$key]);
        }
    }

    $new = implode($enddiv, $ar);
    return $new;
}

$metakeywords = SepStr($title, ",", 4);
$metakeywords = ereg_replace(',,',',', $metakeywords);

//check to see if we are at home page
$metaurl=$_SERVER['PHP_SELF'];

if ($metaurl=="/index.php") {
    echo "<link href=\"http://www.gentree.net/genstyle.css\" rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\">\n";
    echo "<link rel=\"alternate\" type=\"application/rss+xml\" title=\"RSS\" href=\"http://www.gentree.net/tngrss.php\">\n";
    echo "<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Family history research for many surnames. Mainly UK based but some branches in Australia and Canada. UK counties include many branches in Suffolk, Lancashire, Leicestershire and London, plus others.\">\n";
    echo "<meta name=\"keywords\" content=\"suffolk, lancashire, leicestershire, london, tatlock, brockbank, willes, largent, downes, parrin\">\n";
    
} else {
  
//output Individuals META Tags
echo "<link href=\"http://www.gentree.net/genstyle.css\" rel=\"stylesheet\" type=\"text/css\">\n";
echo "<link rel=\"alternate\" type=\"application/rss+xml\" title=\"RSS\" href=\"http://www.gentree.net/tngrss.php\">\n";
echo "<meta name=\"description\" content=\"$title\">\n";
echo "<meta name=\"keywords\" content=\"$metakeywords\">\n";
}
echo "<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index,follow\">\n";
?>

I then commented out the keyword & description meta tags in the genlib.php file and edited the getperson.php file as follows:

tng_header( "$namestr b.$row[birthdate] $row[birthplace] d.$row[deathdate] $row[deathplace]", $flags );

If you can give me a better idea of where to add the code that would be great, thankyou.

[Rush]

I've edited meta.html with the following code

If you are using that code, make sure your file is called meta.php and not meta.html (and change the setting in the TNG admin too).

Rush

[delphi]

Thanks Rush

Unfortunately I am still having problems with this as I'm pretty much a novice with php. I have now managed to edit the getperson.php as follows:

if ( $allow_living_db ) {
tng_header( "$namestr b.$row[birthdate] $row[birthplace] d.$row[deathdate] $row[deathplace]", $flags );
}
else {
tng_header( $namestr, $flags );
}

This seems to work in one way as when I'm logged in I can see the meta details for living and deceased people, but when I log out and view as a guest I can only see the person's name in the meta tags for both living and deceased people so that is what a search engine will see. I need the guest view to show the fuller details for deceased people.

I have the site set up to show living data depending on the users rights and it shows abbreviated first names for living people.

Does anyone have any ideas where I'm going wrong :

[theKiwi]

Thanks Rush

Unfortunately I am still having problems with this as I'm pretty much a novice with php. I have now managed to edit the getperson.php as follows:

if ( $allow_living_db ) {
tng_header( "$namestr b.$row[birthdate] $row[birthplace] d.$row[deathdate] $row[deathplace]", $flags );
}
else {
tng_header( $namestr, $flags );
}

This seems to work in one way as when I'm logged in I can see the meta details for living and deceased people, but when I log out and view as a guest I can only see the person's name in the meta tags for both living and deceased people so that is what a search engine will see. I need the guest view to show the fuller details for deceased people. I have the site set up to show living data depending on the users rights and it shows abbreviated first names for living people. Does anyone have any ideas where I'm going wrong

Here's what I have as a note on how to do this... To change page title on getperson.php replace line 79 tng_header ($namestr, $flags); with

if ($row[allow_living]) {
tng_header( "$namestr b. $row[birthdate] $row[birthplace] d. $row[deathdate] $row[deathplace]", $flags );
} else tng_header ($namestr, $flags);

You can see the result of this here

http://roger.lisaandroger.com/getperson.ph...&tree=Roger

Cheers

Roger

[delphi]

Thanks for your help, that works great :grin:

[TNGUSER]

Changing the information sent to the tng_header function worked perfectly for me. Just checked Google and my people are now being listed as:

Marie Madeleine Lévesque b.29 Sep 1710 Rivière-Ouelle,,Kamouraska ...

Marie Madeleine Lévesque b.29 Sep 1710 Rivière-Ouelle,,Kamouraska,Québec,Canada, d.1781.

www.hooverfamily.com/genealogy_new/getperson.php?personID=I963&tree=HOOVER - 18k -

instead of:

Marie Fortin

Marie Fortin. ... Documents · Histories · Headstones · Notes · Sources · Places · Dates & Anniversaries · What's New · Reports · Database Statistics Help ...

www.hooverfamily.com/genealogy_new/getperson.php?personID=I2713&tree=HOOVER - 15k -

Steve, is this the tng_header change you did to see better results with Google?

3) Search for a line that looks like: tng_header( $namestr, $flags );

4) Replace that line with: tng_header( "$namestr b.$row[birthdate] $row[birthplace] d.$row[deathdate] $row[deathplace]", $flags );

If anyone reading this topic would also comment....after reading all of the suggestions and code (I'm not familiar with PHP) I'm not clear if meta tags need to be added in addition to changing tng_header. If so, do I copy/paste one of the suggested codes into meta.html, meta.php or genlib.php?

Thanks for your help.

Carol

[TNGUSER]

If you are using that code, make sure your file is called meta.php and not meta.html (and change the setting in the TNG admin too).

Rush

Rush,

I posted a question to Steve (#31 on this topic) but no reply as yet. You have a good handle on how to get the most from meta tags.....would you take a look at my question to Steve and reply?

I'm lost when it comes to PHP and HTML. I'd like to do whatever I can to "encourage" Google to search and rank my TNG pages. I'd appreciate it if you could give me step by step directions for any suggestions you might have to alter TNG files.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Carol

[Rush]

Carol,

I would be happy to write up what I did with my pages. Mine varies a little bit to get a few more keywords in there, but you should be able to modify it any way you wish.

I have a T-ball game tonight (well not me, my son does ). I will start on it when I get back and try to have it back to you tonight.

Rush

[Ken Roy]

I'd like to do whatever I can to "encourage" Google to search and rank my TNG pages.

Carol

Hi Carol,

One of the ways to get Google to index your pages is to upload a GENDEX file to Darrin's GENDEX site.

[TNGUSER]

Hi Carol,

One of the ways to get Google to index your pages is to upload a GENDEX file to Darrin's GENDEX site.

Hi Ken,

I'm not sure I understand how GENDEX works or what the file is comprised of. I created one not too long ago but there weren't selectable options for info to include in the file. Does that mean it's an exact duplicate of a site including sources and notes? How does GENDEX handle living persons information?

I also took the suggestion posted by another TNG member to register on the NEPTIS Webring for TNG sites. I'm just waiting for the "approval" email.

Carol

[Rush]

Carol,

The GENDEX pulls birth / death information out of your database into a file. You submit that file to the GENDEX database where it will display the info. It doesn't include source / notes information.

I believe information of living is dependent on how you have it set in TNG. For me, I display the first initial and last name in TNG. This is how it appears in the GENDEX after I submit the file.

HTH,

Rush

[TNGUSER]

Carol,

The GENDEX pulls birth / death information out of your database into a file. You submit that file to the GENDEX database where it will display the info. It doesn't include source / notes information.

I believe information of living is dependent on how you have it set in TNG. For me, I display the first initial and last name in TNG. This is how it appears in the GENDEX after I submit the file.

HTH,

Rush

Thank you Rush for this information. I'll do another GENDEX and upload to Darrin's site.

Carol

[TNGUSER]

Carol,

I would be happy to write up what I did with my pages. Mine varies a little bit to get a few more keywords in there, but you should be able to modify it any way you wish.

I have a T-ball game tonight (well not me, my son does ). I will start on it when I get back and try to have it back to you tonight.

Rush

Thank you in advance Rush for taking time to write out the code/info on meta tags. I look forward to hearing back from you and appreciate that you'll do this for me. However....Family First....so just whenever you have time to respond.

In case it makes a difference as to the code/tags you are working on, I copied and pasted into the tng_header file the code posted above. I've quoted it here...........

"Search for a line that looks like: tng_header( $namestr, $flags );

Replace that line with: tng_header( "$namestr b.$row[birthdate] $row[birthplace] d.$row[deathdate] $row[deathplace]", $flags );"

I made that change to my tng_header file.

Thanks much.

Carol

[Rush]

Hi Carol,

Sorry it took a little while to get back to you...I tend to get wrapped up in too many things sometimes

You pretty much have the right idea. I haven't worked on the meta.php file in awhile and it could probably use a little tweaking up. Anyways, I just made this change to my getperson.php file:

tng_header( $namestr, $flags );

to this

tng_header( "$row[lastname] Genealogy: $namestr born $row[birthdate] in $row[birthplace] - died $row[deathdate] in $row[deathplace]", $flags );

Then in my genlib.php I changed this:

echo "<title>$siteprefix$title</title>\n";

to this

 echo "<title>$title</title>\n"; 

Not a drastic change there, but I didn't want to repeat the site name on every page.

This way, I end up with meta tags that look like this:

<title>Comstock Genealogy: Amanda Elizabeth Comstock born 11 Jan 1906 in Arkansas, USA - died 6 Mar 1974 in Bakersfield, Kern, California, USA</title>

<meta name="Keywords" content="Comstock Genealogy: Amanda Elizabeth Comstock born 11 Jan 1906 in Arkansas, USA - died 6 Mar 1974 in Bakersfield, Kern, California, USA">

<meta name="Description" content="Krieger - Lawrence Genealogy: Comstock Genealogy: Amanda Elizabeth Comstock born 11 Jan 1906 in Arkansas, USA - died 6 Mar 1974 in Bakersfield, Kern, California, USA">

For good or for bad, I did this more for the organic (human) eye than search engines.

I wanted to have the last name and Genealogy right on the front of the title to be displayed on the search engines. Thought it was a little more 'catching' than a long site name that might obscure the individuals name when viewed on search engines.

There are so many factors that go into page ranking with various search engines. And for Google, quality inbound links are critical. MSN and Yahoo might place a little more emphasis on metas...

With Google I have the following:

Keywords: krieger, genealogy

Ranked: 1

(ok not a common surname, but when I started, I was ranked 60 something)

Keywords: lawrence, genealogy

Ranked: 22

(Much more common and 22nd position isn't very strong, but wasn't even in top 100 a year ago)

Names like Comstock and Reynolds, I can't break the top 100 yet.

HTH some...

Rush

[TNGUSER]

Hi Carol,

Sorry it took a little while to get back to you...I tend to get wrapped up in too many things sometimes

You pretty much have the right idea. I haven't worked on the meta.php file in awhile and it could probably use a little tweaking up. Anyways, I just made this change to my getperson.php file:

tng_header( $namestr, $flags );

to this

tng_header( "$row[lastname] Genealogy: $namestr born $row[birthdate] in $row[birthplace] - died $row[deathdate] in $row[deathplace]", $flags );

Then in my genlib.php I changed this:

echo "<title>$siteprefix$title</title>\n";

to this

 echo "<title>$title</title>\n"; 

Not a drastic change there, but I didn't want to repeat the site name on every page.

This way, I end up with meta tags that look like this:

<title>Comstock Genealogy: Amanda Elizabeth Comstock born 11 Jan 1906 in Arkansas, USA - died 6 Mar 1974 in Bakersfield, Kern, California, USA</title>

<meta name="Keywords" content="Comstock Genealogy: Amanda Elizabeth Comstock born 11 Jan 1906 in Arkansas, USA - died 6 Mar 1974 in Bakersfield, Kern, California, USA">

<meta name="Description" content="Krieger - Lawrence Genealogy: Comstock Genealogy: Amanda Elizabeth Comstock born 11 Jan 1906 in Arkansas, USA - died 6 Mar 1974 in Bakersfield, Kern, California, USA">

For good or for bad, I did this more for the organic (human) eye than search engines.

I wanted to have the last name and Genealogy right on the front of the title to be displayed on the search engines. Thought it was a little more 'catching' than a long site name that might obscure the individuals name when viewed on search engines.

There are so many factors that go into page ranking with various search engines. And for Google, quality inbound links are critical. MSN and Yahoo might place a little more emphasis on metas...

With Google I have the following:

Keywords: krieger, genealogy

Ranked: 1

(ok not a common surname, but when I started, I was ranked 60 something)

Keywords: lawrence, genealogy

Ranked: 22

(Much more common and 22nd position isn't very strong, but wasn't even in top 100 a year ago)

Names like Comstock and Reynolds, I can't break the top 100 yet.

HTH some...

Rush

Rush....thanks for taking time to write this out for me. I apologize for not responding sooner but my husband had a heart attack on Monday and bypass surgery on Thursday. Incredibly he was released yesterday so things are slowly getting back to normal.

I'll implement your suggestions and let you know how Google responds to the changes.

Thanks again.

Carol

[Rush]

Oh my gosh! I sincerely hope he is on a well road to recovery and please wish both of you my best.

Rush

[TNGUSER]

Oh my gosh! I sincerely hope he is on a well road to recovery and please wish both of you my best.

Rush

Thanks Rush for your good wishes. My husband is on the road to recovery but it's going to be a slow process to get him back to his active self before his heart attack and bypass surgery.

I've checked Google and haven't seen any change in my status since adding your suggested content. I haven't inclulded Meta Tags on my site to include Description, Keywords, Content because I don't know where or how to add them. Should I in addition to your suggestions?

Carol

[Rush]

That is good news!

I just have to throw in a disclaimer here I'm far from an SEO expert and really the only people who know for sure how Google works are those who write and implement the code. A lot of recommendations for Google SEO are based on conclusion drawn from testing, some hints Matt Cutts drops out there once in a while and guess work. Given that, the validity of a few points I bring up would be easy to debate...

After years of reading about SEO, here are a few things that I've come across:

Google doesn't rely heavily on Keyword and Description tags like it did in the past. However, there is some talk about placing emphasis on the Title tags. It would seem Google likes fresh content added frequently to the site. So what constitutes 'fresh' content? Articles, reviews, news, stories, etc. I don't really consider the addition of individuals to TNG as 'fresh' content as there really isn't that much text there and the pages are very repetitive throughout my site, like 'birth, death, married, etc'...

Though, it's talked about Yahoo and MSN still put some weight on Keyword and Description tags

For a higher page ranking in Google inbound links from other sites are the key. It would seem that deep linking (links from other sites that point to pages 2 or 3 levels into your site and not just your home page) are better at boosting you ranking in the search results pages. All ways try to build inbound links naturally if possible. FFA (free for all) and paid link pages are not really such a good idea and could get you thrown right out of Google. On the flip side, people also mention that Google will not punish you for inbound links as you have no control over who links to your site.

Google takes time to spider and index your site. I've seen some new pages get spidered and indexed very quickly (within a week or so) and I have some other pages that are 6+ months old that have yet to get indexed. Exactly why this happens isn't known for sure, but there are some factors that can contribute to pages not being included in the index such as errors in formatting and what not.

All that to say, there can be many factors outside of meta tags that can influence what Google does with your pages.

Could you post a link to your site to see how your tags are being displayed?

Rush

[rdmorss]

Don't bother with keyword meta tags. The engines ignore them due to past webmaster abuses, and the bots can look at your actual page content to find keywords. The description meta tag is useful only for providing the text that is displayed when a search engine lists your site in its search results pages.

[TNGUSER]

That is good news!

I just have to throw in a disclaimer here I'm far from an SEO expert and really the only people who know for sure how Google works are those who write and implement the code. A lot of recommendations for Google SEO are based on conclusion drawn from testing, some hints Matt Cutts drops out there once in a while and guess work. Given that, the validity of a few points I bring up would be easy to debate...

After years of reading about SEO, here are a few things that I've come across:

Google doesn't rely heavily on Keyword and Description tags like it did in the past. However, there is some talk about placing emphasis on the Title tags. It would seem Google likes fresh content added frequently to the site. So what constitutes 'fresh' content? Articles, reviews, news, stories, etc. I don't really consider the addition of individuals to TNG as 'fresh' content as there really isn't that much text there and the pages are very repetitive throughout my site, like 'birth, death, married, etc'...

Though, it's talked about Yahoo and MSN still put some weight on Keyword and Description tags

For a higher page ranking in Google inbound links from other sites are the key. It would seem that deep linking (links from other sites that point to pages 2 or 3 levels into your site and not just your home page) are better at boosting you ranking in the search results pages. All ways try to build inbound links naturally if possible. FFA (free for all) and paid link pages are not really such a good idea and could get you thrown right out of Google. On the flip side, people also mention that Google will not punish you for inbound links as you have no control over who links to your site.

Google takes time to spider and index your site. I've seen some new pages get spidered and indexed very quickly (within a week or so) and I have some other pages that are 6+ months old that have yet to get indexed. Exactly why this happens isn't known for sure, but there are some factors that can contribute to pages not being included in the index such as errors in formatting and what not.

All that to say, there can be many factors outside of meta tags that can influence what Google does with your pages.

Could you post a link to your site to see how your tags are being displayed?

Rush

Google accesses my site constantly and looks to me that it sees every record, photo and document I have. When I've checked Google Webmaster Tools there's no ranking and the crawl stats are low or nearly non-existent. Even though Google has accessed my site on a regular (probably daily basis) the last stats are as of July 4th. I didn't implement your suggestions until many days after that date.

This morning I uploaded my Gendex file to Darrin's site. A few minutes ago I Googled some of my surnames and woo-hoo my site came up on the first page along with some others. That's a first. Apparently with the changes you suggested and submitting my Gendex made all the difference, at least for now.

Thanks Rush for your help. I'll keep tabs on surname search results for significant changes as you recommended on another post.

By the way, thanks for your good wishes. My husband is on the road to recovery and really is doing remarkably well.

Regards,

Carol

[TNGUSER]

That is good news!

I just have to throw in a disclaimer here I'm far from an SEO expert and really the only people who know for sure how Google works are those who write and implement the code. A lot of recommendations for Google SEO are based on conclusion drawn from testing, some hints Matt Cutts drops out there once in a while and guess work. Given that, the validity of a few points I bring up would be easy to debate...

After years of reading about SEO, here are a few things that I've come across:

Google doesn't rely heavily on Keyword and Description tags like it did in the past. However, there is some talk about placing emphasis on the Title tags. It would seem Google likes fresh content added frequently to the site. So what constitutes 'fresh' content? Articles, reviews, news, stories, etc. I don't really consider the addition of individuals to TNG as 'fresh' content as there really isn't that much text there and the pages are very repetitive throughout my site, like 'birth, death, married, etc'...

Though, it's talked about Yahoo and MSN still put some weight on Keyword and Description tags

For a higher page ranking in Google inbound links from other sites are the key. It would seem that deep linking (links from other sites that point to pages 2 or 3 levels into your site and not just your home page) are better at boosting you ranking in the search results pages. All ways try to build inbound links naturally if possible. FFA (free for all) and paid link pages are not really such a good idea and could get you thrown right out of Google. On the flip side, people also mention that Google will not punish you for inbound links as you have no control over who links to your site.

Google takes time to spider and index your site. I've seen some new pages get spidered and indexed very quickly (within a week or so) and I have some other pages that are 6+ months old that have yet to get indexed. Exactly why this happens isn't known for sure, but there are some factors that can contribute to pages not being included in the index such as errors in formatting and what not.

All that to say, there can be many factors outside of meta tags that can influence what Google does with your pages.

Could you post a link to your site to see how your tags are being displayed?

Rush

Rush,

I've been tracking Google and how it sees my site. You posted what you saw when you implemented the changes you suggested. When I did that this is what I see on my grandfathers record.

<html>

<head>

<title>MCENTYRE James Marion b. 31 MAR 1853 Ireland d. 27 APR 1919 Dillon, MT</title>

<meta name="Keywords" content="MCENTYRE James Marion b. 31 MAR 1853 Ireland d. 27 APR 1919 Dillon, MT">

<meta name="Description" content=": McEntyre Family ProjectMCENTYRE James Marion b. 31 MAR 1853 Ireland d. 27 APR 1919 Dillon, MT">

<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">

<style type="text/css">#mnav li:hover #third, #mnav li.sfhover #third {left: 130px;}</style>

What's with the colon after Description content? I've searched through all the major php files index, config, etc. but can't find where that entry exists. Notice too that Project and McEntyre are all one statement. Can't help but think that these things may prevent Google from searching my home page accurately?

By the way, I've checked Google using Webmaster Tools and my site is still ranked really low even though I did some searches and results pointed to my web site. Other searches do not. I'm clueless when it comes to this sort of thing so hope you can help.

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Carol

[Barbara]

Ok ... none of the posts above area truly clear.

Where do I add meta keywords and description ... I need the file that has the <head> </head> tags, where the metas are.

Never mind - found it ... genlib.php

[theKiwi]

Actually it's not the genlib.php file.

You should put them into the file meta.html that's in your TNG directory. The tng_header function in genlib.php will include the contents of that file when it creates the header for each page.

Roger

[christmanrd]

Hello all,

I have been reading and trying to following this thread. I've implemented the suggestions to my getperson.php and genlib.php and then when I look under the covers, I had to <Head> <Head> and one </head>.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" 
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<title>CHRISTMAN Genealogy: Jacob  CHRISTMAN, (Haplogroup J2) born 1711 in Wurttemberg, Germany - died ABT JUL 1761 in Upper Milford Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania</title>
<meta name="Keywords" content="CHRISTMAN Genealogy: Jacob  CHRISTMAN, (Haplogroup J2) born 1711 in Wurttemberg, Germany - died ABT JUL 1761 in Upper Milford Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania" />
<meta name="Description" content="CHRISTMAN Genealogy: Jacob  CHRISTMAN, (Haplogroup J2) born 1711 in Wurttemberg, Germany - died ABT JUL 1761 in Upper Milford Township, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania: Christman Family Genealogy Website" />
<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
<script src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&hl=en&key=ABQIAAAAozlTYU8i1p5aAXhcsT0dtxSv2Ty4qJkyduI1Hx0HCtIqNfTEUxQWo5B9IhdIo4plg_nZVTErQ8qZJA" language="Javascript" type="text/javascript"></script>
<style type="text/css">.media-prev {background: transparent url(media-prevbg.png) no-repeat 0 0;}</style>
 <HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>Christman Genealogy Website</TITLE>

<META NAME="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="Compiled Genealogy Research for the surname Christman">
<META NAME="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="The intent of this website and database is to organize the various Christman immigrants who came to America prior to 1776 and assist the descendants in discovering their ancestors.">
<META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"><link href="genstyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<link href="mytngstyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="tngrss.php">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.christmanfamily.net/christmancoa.ico" type="image/x-icon"> </HEAD>

<BODY>


</BODY>
</HTML>

When posting suggestions please remember, I'm pushing 60 and have a limited (very limited) knowledge base of php.

Thanks,

Dave

[Capnkeith]

This thread hasn't been used 8-9 months is amending the meta.php as suggested still relevant to TNG7.0.3? I have looked into it and noticed line number references are different and probably the code as well.

Should I also put out a Newbie Alert!!