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jeromedb's avatar
jeromedb
Contributor
12 years ago
Solved

Can I add a last updated or modified date to a page metatag?

Hi guys,   I'm working with a sitewide enterprise internal search engine which makes extensive use of custom metadata tags, such as <meta name="product_sku" content="abc123" /> for filtering, categ...
  • PaoloT's avatar
    PaoloT
    12 years ago

    Hi Jerome,

     

    as I mentioned you should be able to determine the date of the last change for these pages via the REST API looking at the time elements included in the responses. I am not sure around the effort required in building the XML feed - maybe you could look into the Lithium Studio Endpoints to generate the required data (with the rest calls) and pack it in the response format which can then be consumed by your tool.

     

    I have a feeling that implementing the logic that adds the meta tags directly to the pages may be quicker, but it's difficult to tell without all the details.

     

    In this case - it could be best to speak with your Lithium Manager and see if it's possible to arrange a consultancy on your specific integration issue.

     

    Kind Regards,

PaoloT's avatar
PaoloT
Lithium Alumni (Retired)
12 years ago
Hi Jez,

just to be clear - what do you define as "date of last modification / update" for each element?

For a category, board, or thread I would think that could be the date of the latest post written (in which case you can get via REST - see for example http://lithosphere.lithium.com/restapi/vc/boards/id/studio/posts/recent for the latest post on the Developer forum on the Lithosphere - see post_time or last_edit_time ).

You could use similar approaches for blog articles and threads (taking the last_edit_time of the root topic) - always via REST.

You could then include this logic in your community wrapper to generate the appropriate tag.

Hope that helps.
  • jeromedb's avatar
    jeromedb
    Contributor
    12 years ago

    Hey Paolo,

     

    Really appreciate your quick reply :)

     

    In terms of last modified, I'm looking for the date that any given board or thread was last updated. From what I can see a thread is made up of multiple messages, each ith their own date - I'm only interested in the latest date that any message within a thread was updated.

     

    As an alternative, the search engine I'm working with is capable of taking an xml feed, which might contain the title, url, and the above mentioned date for all thread, board and category pages. I initially explored the sitemap.xml, however it did not include all of the items I was looking for.

     

    Might what I'm trying to do be more effciently done as an xml feed with appropriate tags, rather than me crawl the site organicalluy and picking up the date in a metatag?

     

    Cheers, Jez

    • jeromedb's avatar
      jeromedb
      Contributor
      12 years ago

      Hey Paolo,

       

      I'm thinking an xml feed is perhaps the best approach for me to capture this information - do we do this via the REST API?

       

      Cheers, Jez

       

      • PaoloT's avatar
        PaoloT
        Lithium Alumni (Retired)
        12 years ago

        Hi Jerome,

         

        as I mentioned you should be able to determine the date of the last change for these pages via the REST API looking at the time elements included in the responses. I am not sure around the effort required in building the XML feed - maybe you could look into the Lithium Studio Endpoints to generate the required data (with the rest calls) and pack it in the response format which can then be consumed by your tool.

         

        I have a feeling that implementing the logic that adds the meta tags directly to the pages may be quicker, but it's difficult to tell without all the details.

         

        In this case - it could be best to speak with your Lithium Manager and see if it's possible to arrange a consultancy on your specific integration issue.

         

        Kind Regards,