Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. On-Page Optimization
    4. Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Does using Yoast variables for meta content overwrite any pages that already have custom meta content?

    On-Page Optimization
    3
    7
    1305
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • rootandbranch
      rootandbranch last edited by

      The question is about the Yoast plugin for WP sites. Let's say I have a site with 200 pages and custom meta descriptions / title tags already in place for the top 30 pages. If I use the Yoast variable tool to complete meta content for the remaining pages (and make my Moz issue tracker look happier), will that only affect the pages without custom meta descriptions or will it overwrite even the pages with the custom meta content that I want?

      In this situation, I do want to keep the meta content that is already in place on select pages.

      Thanks!

      Zack

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • rootandbranch
        rootandbranch last edited by

        Amazing. Thanks so much, Nigel. Very helpful!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Nigel_Carr
          Nigel_Carr @rootandbranch last edited by

          Hi Zack

          With Yoast and Woo the shortcodes are difficult to find as they are specific to Woo. The product description one I used for my client was:

          Shop %%title%% %%page%% %%sep%% part of the %%currentyear%% %%ct_product_cat%% collection, with free delivery on all items at Sitename!

          This would give for example:

          Shop 'Yello Widget', part of the '2018' 'widget category' collection with free delivery on all items at 'sitename'

          Then title:

          %%title%% %%page%% %%sep%% %%ct_product_cat%% Sitename

          For the non Ecomm pages I would actually write them myself as there would only be a few but if I was pushed:

          %%page%% %%sep%% Sitename

          The problem here is that it might be too short.

          I hope that helps

          Regards Nigel

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • rootandbranch
            rootandbranch @TucsonAZWebDesign last edited by

            Thank you Sean. This didn't exactly answer my question (Nigel did below!), but this is still great information and useful context.

            Much appreciated.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • rootandbranch
              rootandbranch @Nigel_Carr last edited by

              This is great. Thank you Nigel. This answers my question perfectly. The client I'm thinking of also has a Woo store and has a very similar situation.

              Bonus question  Do you have a favorite variable you use for meta descriptions for ECommerce pages and non EComm pages?

              Nigel_Carr 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Nigel_Carr
                Nigel_Carr last edited by

                Hi Zack

                If you add default variables for post Meta title and description this will effectively add Meta for all those posts and pages where you didn't. If you added any custom Meta then that will stay the same.

                I had a client who had 467 products in his Woo store without Meta descriptions - a little magic and boom! they all had one. Those that were custom written stayed the same.

                Simple process with a simple yes/no answer!

                I hope that helps!

                Regards Nigel.

                rootandbranch 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • TucsonAZWebDesign
                  TucsonAZWebDesign last edited by

                  I had to make several hundred pages for a video tube at one point. And what I did to expedite the process is use the clone post/page plugin. Then I created a clone with 3 things.

                  The first thing was the templating for the meta description and title for each video**(naturally I did that with Yoast)**. The second thing I did was create a short code with php to place the page title in several areas using simply [template]. Then for the final automation aspect, I appeased the alt tag necessity with a js script to dynamically add alt tags with the page title on all images.

                  I don't know what the outcome of the said feature your describing is, however the way you would accomplish your desired end result is by adding a bunch of generic meta title/descriptions with the bulk editor feature of yoast. Naturally skup over the 30 pages, you'll simply need to make a template one time then copy it to clipboard and paste paste paste like a madman! Wont even 5 minutes with 200 pages.

                  rootandbranch 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Got a burning SEO question?

                  Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                  Start my free trial


                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • Maely

                    How to generate an automatic title and meta description for lots of pages

                    Hi, I'm working on a big website that will have new pages every month. I would like to find a plug-in or something free to generate automatic title and meta description for futur new pages. Thanks you for your help!

                    On-Page Optimization | | Maely
                    0
                  • REIT

                    How do you add meta data to dynamic pages?

                    We have 1000's of dynamic pages on the website and would like to know how to add meta data to these dynamically generated pages. Thanks!

                    On-Page Optimization | | REIT
                    0
                  • Adclick

                    My Meta Description changes when i use different keyword in google search.

                    Hello everyone, I have a question for the community. I have a website with several articles and news that i manage. I set specific meta descriptions for every page but when i search in google it gives me back different meta descriptions depending on the keyword that i use to search. What i notice is that google looks in my page for the most relevant part of the text that combines with my keyword and gives me back that result. I thought that this only happen when i have an empty meta description. Anyone felt the same ? Best Ricardo www.meuportalfinanceiro.pt

                    On-Page Optimization | | Adclick
                    0
                  • JohnHuynh

                    The page is missing meta language information.

                    Hi, I saw my website have a problem about meta language, I do some search and found that I need to add  on the , with 'll' is language code and 'cc' is country code. But I am confused what should I do, because my website is world wide, not launch at specific any language and country. Please give me an advice in this case. Thanks,

                    On-Page Optimization | | JohnHuynh
                    0
                  • inlinear

                    Duplicate Content when Using "visibility classes" in responsive design layouts? - a SEO-Problem?

                    I have text in the right column of my responsive layout which will show up below the the principal content on small devices. To do this I use visibility classes for DIVs. So I have a DIV with with a unique style text that is visible only on large screen sizes. I copied the same text into another div which shows only up only on small devices while the other div will be hidden in this moment. Technically I have the same text twice on my page. So this might be duplicate content detected as SPAM? I'm concerned because hidden text on page via expand-collapsable textblocks will be read by bots and in my case they will detect it twice?Does anybody have experiences on this issue?bestHolger

                    On-Page Optimization | | inlinear
                    0
                  • daveupton

                    Is there a SEO penalty for multi links on same page going to same destination page?

                    Hi, Just a quick note. I hope you are able to assist. To cut a long story short, on the page below http://www.bookbluemountains.com.au/ -> Features Specials & Packages (middle column) we have 3 links per special going to the same page.
                    1. Header is linked
                    2. Click on image link - currently with a no follow
                    3. 'More info' under the description paragraph is linked too - currently with a no follow Two arguments are as follows:
                    1. The reason we do not follow all 3 links is to reduce too many links which may appear spammy to Google. 2. Counter argument:
                    The point above has some validity, However, using no follow is basically telling the search engines that the webmaster “does not trust or doesn’t take responsibility” for what is behind the link, something you don’t want to do within your own website.   There is no penalty as such for having too many links, the search engines will generally not worry after a certain number.. nothing that would concern this business though.  I would suggest changing the no follow links a.s.a.p. Could you please advise thoughts. Many thanks Dave Upton [long signature removed by staff]

                    On-Page Optimization | | daveupton
                    0
                  • smaavie

                    Avoiding "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" - Best Practices?

                    We have a website with a searchable database of recipes. You can search the database using an online form with dropdown options for: Course (starter, main, salad, etc)
                    Cooking Method (fry, bake, boil, steam, etc)
                    Preparation Time (Under 30 min, 30min to 1 hour, Over 1 hour) Here are some examples of how URLs may look when searching for a recipe: find-a-recipe.php?course=starter
                    find-a-recipe.php?course=main&preperation-time=30min+to+1+hour
                    find-a-recipe.php?cooking-method=fry&preperation-time=over+1+hour There is also pagination of search results, so the URL could also have the variable "start", e.g. find-a-recipe.php?course=salad&start=30 There can be any combination of these variables, meaning there are hundreds of possible search results URL variations. This all works well on the site, however it gives multiple "Duplicate Page Title" and "Duplicate Page Content" errors when crawled by SEOmoz. I've seached online and found several possible solutions for this, such as: Setting canonical tag Adding these URL variables to Google Webmasters to tell Google to ignore them Change the Title tag in the head dynamically based on what URL variables are present However I am not sure which of these would be best. As far as I can tell the canonical tag should be used when you have the same page available at two seperate URLs, but this isn't the case here as the search results are always different. Adding these URL variables to Google webmasters won't fix the problem in other search engines, and will presumably continue to get these errors in our SEOmoz crawl reports. Changing the title tag each time can lead to very long title tags, and it doesn't address the problem of duplicate page content. I had hoped there would be a standard solution for problems like this, as I imagine others will have come across this before, but I cannot find the ideal solution. Any help would be much appreciated. Kind Regards

                    On-Page Optimization | | smaavie
                    5
                  • CraigAddyman

                    Meta descriptions

                    Whats the deal with the date at the start of the meta descriptions? I have not really looked into this but I'm guessing its a blog thing? Take this search http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=6packproject#hl=en&xhr=t&q=interview+with+paul+knight&cp=26&pf=p&sclient=psy&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=interview+with+paul+knight&pbx=1&fp=835cd241c8d51fff The beautifully crafted meta description is now being cut short even though its within the character limit and is now only showing 36 characters! Is there a way to remove this? Thanks in advance

                    On-Page Optimization | | CraigAddyman
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.