Meta Description for ALL my Posts is Being Overwritten!
-
Every single one of my posts meta descriptions are being overritten with the same meta description!
I use Yoast and have proper meta descriptions in my posts, but something seems to be overriding them.
Any idea what could be causing this?
Thank you!!!
- Mike
-
Hey Mike. Not to fret, this is actually a common silly mistake in theme development. The meta description shouldn't be set in WordPress theme because that is handled in the wp_head function. This function is where Yoast, and other plugins, hook into to deliver all the SEO optimized meta and header tags.
-
This is wrong, but right. This is a theme problem. The blog description is a description for the blog website as a whole, and not a description for the page. In Wordpress, you should not set a meta description explicitly in the theme file. That's the job of the wp_head, especially if you are using an SEO plugin to manage your descriptions. It's a common mistake that is easily remedied as evidenced by his reply.
-
The string 'get_bloginfo('description')' spawns the blog description stored in wordpress under settings. But that shoud'nt cause issues with different setup descriptions per page while using a SEO plugin on wordpress. It's more of a theme issue i think because normally that shoud'nt happen.
I woud'nt worry alot about it either; google tends to ignore the description sometimes too and focusses on the actual content on page.
-
Thanks for all the responses!
I did remove the code and it seems to have solved the problem. Now I just don't know if any other different issues could have popped up from removing that code. So the problem seems to be fixed - I'm just sitting a bit in the unknown in terms of if the change had any other unwanted repurcussions.
- Mike
-
Yes and by removing that shortcode you completely remove the description from the blog. But a description is'nt something google takes into account alot now these days. It can actively read the content on your website or page, and align that within search. I mean i have sites that are completely ignored due to the description tag.
It's like meta name keywords all over again.
@Naturalsociety, if you switch the theme to something temporarily, does it appear back again? If so; you have a theme issue.
-
Sounds like a WordPress issue. I suspect there is a meta description defined in your theme file. Check that isn't the case.
It will look like this or very similar:
get_bloginfo('description')
Get rid of the whole meta tag that contains this php code.
If you are unsure how to find this, it will most likely be in your theme's header file. You can find this by going to the theme's folder and look for header.php.
You can also do this through the WordPress Dashboard > Appearance > Theme Editor. On the right hand side select the "Theme Header".
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Traffic drops when showing post dates?
Hello. My blog is 9 years old and i just got serious with regards to earnings. I have observed that whenever i showed published date traffic drops immediately. For years i stopped showing dates. But now, i feel dates are an important factor in Rich snippets because most of competitors who are shown in rich snippets are also showing dates. So i started showing "UPDATED ON" in the Genesis theme framework. Traffic drop is the same as before. Why is traffic dropping whenever i show dates? Even when i show updated dates, wherein all articles show dates of just 1-2 years and none of them are showing how old the site is. And yes, quality is high, content is high. URL is www.marketing91.com
Technical SEO | | marketing910 -
Meta Description
Working with a business that is having some real issues. They had some client information that was showing up in the meta description. Personal phone numbers for example. Our developers removed all the information from the pages in question two days ago, but we are still seeing the info in the meta description. Any idea how long this will take to be recrawled and fixed? Anything I can do to get recrawled sooner? Also, this is only happening in Bing/Yahoo and not in Google. Thanks for any help you can provide!
Technical SEO | | PGD20110 -
Pageing page and seo meta tag questions
Hi if i am using paging in my website there is lots of product in my website now in paging total paging is 1000 pages now what title tag i need to add for every paging page or is there any good way we can tell search engine all page or same ?
Technical SEO | | constructionhelpline0 -
Is the " meta content tag" important?
I am currently trying to optimize my companies website and I noticed that meta content is exactly the same for all of the pages on our website. Isn't this problematic? The actual content on the webpage is not the same and a lot of the pages don't have these keywords in the content.
Technical SEO | | AubbiefromAubenRealty0 -
Issue Missing Meta Description Tag
Hello Friends, Today I found missing meta description tag when Seomoz update my website crawl diagnostics. I recovered other type missing meta description tag but I don't understand how can I recover this type page. Here is the examples. http://www.example.com/blog/page/2/ http://www.example.com/blog/page/3/ http://www.example.com/blog/page/4/ Links continue...... Thanks KLLC
Technical SEO | | KLLC0 -
Should I use these Meta Tags or Remove it?
Hi, I have a lot of older pages that I am cleaning up older pages, and I see that I have <title>Actual Title</title> (I understand the importance of this tag.) (I have some text in this meta tag on a lot of pages, sometimes matching my title tag exactly but in some cases I treated it like a mini description. Should I remove the on my pages, or keep it and make sure it is the exact as the main Title Tag. -------- Question about meta tag #2. I have heard rumors that the keywords tag should be removed. example: Thanks in advance! Force7
Technical SEO | | Force70 -
Having both <title>and <meta name="title"...> on a web page?</title>
Hi All, Client of mine using reversed Meta Tags format in their website and Honestly i never saw such Meta Tags formats. In my opinion having 2 Title tags and wrong reversed description tag is not correct and the needs to be removed, and other tags need to be changed,too But they said that it probably doesn't make a difference because weird thing is Search Engines are apparently able to index them ,So they don't think it affects search engine results and won't remove it just based on opinion. So should i persist in correcting them or just hope for the best and ignore it?!?!?! Thanks!
Technical SEO | | DigitalJungle0 -
Which one is best? Parameters or Meta
I have issue regarding duplicate pages on website as follow. http://www.vistastores.com/review.html?pr_page_id=90344 http://www.vistastores.com/review.html?pr_page_id=90345 I checked my Google webmaster tools and found that Google have already set Parameter with pr_page_id. So, what is this? Will Google index all that pages? Can I use following Meta tag to block indexing? Which one is best?
Technical SEO | | CommercePundit0