Forum Discussion

Warren_Brill's avatar
Warren_Brill
Boss
8 years ago

Repurposing "Detailed Description" Property to Enhance SEO

There are two "description" fields in the properties sheet for a discussion type node, "Description" and "Detailed Description." The former is displayed on the node's page when built, and also appears as the meta-tag "Description." The "Detailed Description" feeds a text component called "Node Detailed Description," but does not generate a named text string.

 

From an SEO perspective, the way these two behave is backwards. The "Detailed Description" should generated a named text string, which should in turn feed the meta-tag. The "regular" description should propagate to the page as it does, but should not be used for the meta-tag, because what a search engine needs is often radically different from what our viewers need to see on the page.

 

Given that the "Detailed Description" does not propagate to a named text string, is there any way that content can be accessed by a REST call and fed into (for example) the page header via the wrapper?

 

 

4 Replies

Sort By
  • VikasB's avatar
    VikasB
    Boss
    8 years ago

    Hi Warren_Brill No Way to get it using APIs as no such node exists in API results.  But you can use "Node Detailed Description" OOB component as a work around.

  • Warren_Brill's avatar
    Warren_Brill
    Boss
    8 years ago

    Unfortunately, using the OOB "Node Detailed Description" isn't an option, because

    1) There is no place to put the component on the page quilts

    2) The content in the Description (on the page, under the node title) is intended (and written) for users. This content also propagates to the "Description" meta-tag, which is not logical, since readers and search engines have different content needs. Therefore, if we did use the OOB component, we have two descriptions on the page, with conflicting content.

  • VikasB's avatar
    VikasB
    Boss
    8 years ago

    Hi Warren_Brill 
    1. You can place anywhere on the page i.e. header sidebar etc.
    It seems this OOB component does not work in wrapper section but you can keep it anywhere on the page.  Alternatively, you can include the below component in common page header.

    <component id="common.widget.node-description"/>

    But it would be displayed on specific pages i.e. Blog, Forum, TKB, Idea Exchange, Group etc as all these ask users about the detailed description at creation time. 

     

    2. There are two different component as below so make sure you did not add both.

    <component id="common.widget.node-information"/>     // Node Description
<component id="common.widget.node-description"/>   // Node detailed description

    It would display single description if you add only one component. 


     

  • Warren_Brill's avatar
    Warren_Brill
    Boss
    8 years ago

    I'm trying to put the "Detailed Description" into the source code but not display it anywhere on the page. I wasn't clear - I want to expose the contents of the Detailed Description only to search engines. The contents of the normal "Description" - which is already displayed, essentially in the "sub-heading" position - by virtue of the fact that it is for readers' consumption, often cannot be optimized for SEO.


    I still find it very counter-intuitive that the "Detailed Description" does not generate a named text string.