Magento 1.8 – Dynamic Change Meta Description

magento-1.8meta-tags

Is there a way to set dynamic meta-descriptions by changing the Magento code.
For instance:

"Buy PRODUCT_NAME online and save PERCENTANGE% today. Free shipping
and secure payments"

In the above case PRODUCT_NAME would be the actual prodcut name. But PERCENTAGE would require some coding as its changed over time. (In my case it would be something like 1-(price/suggested_price). As you understand the percentage would not be the same for all products so it needs to be updated dynamically and this is just for the products.

Best Answer

I see 3 ways to tackle this.
Option 1.
Have a cron that runs every night that builds this meta description for each product. This way you don't interfere with the Magento flow for frontend.

The code can look something like this (untested)

$storeViews = Mage::getModel('core/store')->getCollection();
foreach ($storeViews as $store) {
    if ($store->getId() == 0) {
        continue; //skip admin store
    }
    $collection = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->setStoreId($store->getId())->getCollection()->addAttributeToSelect('*');
    foreach ($collection as $product) {
        $metaDescription = 'Buy '.$product->getName().' online and save '.CUSTOM LOGIC HERE FOR THE PERCENTAGE.'% today. Free shipping and secure payments';
        Mage::getSingleton('catalog/product_action')->updateAttributes(
             array($product->getId()),
             array('meta_description' => $metaDescription),
             $store->getId()
        )
    }
}

This makes sense if your meta descriptions are going to change a lot and if you don't have a lot of products.

Option 2.
Rewrite the product model Mage_Catalog_Model_Product and add a method called getMetaDescription() like this:

public function getMetaDescription() {
    $name = $this->getName();
    $percentage = ...custom logic for percentage
    return Mage::helper('catalog')->__('Buy %s online and save %s % today. Free shipping and secure payments', $name, $percentage);
}

This will generate the meta description on the fly. It makes sense if you don't have a very complicated discount formula. I would choose this one. I wrote it as the second one (in the middle) to see if you are paying attention. :)

Option 3.
Is very similar to the one above, but involves modifying the block that adds the meta description. You should use this in case you don't want to touch the product model.
You have to rewrite the Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View and in the method _prepareLayout replace $description = $product->getMetaDescription(); with

$name = $product->getName();
$percentage = ...custom logic for percentage
$description = Mage::helper('catalog')->__('Buy %s online and save %s % today. Free shipping and secure payments', $name, $percentage);

Related Solutions

Open Graph Protocol – How to Dynamically Generate Meta Tags

You need to can add this to one of your layout files:

<catalog_product_view>
    <reference name="head">
        <block type="core/template" name="open-graph" as="open-graph" template="opengraph/product.phtml" />
    </reference>
</catalog_product_view>

Now you need to create the file opengraph/product.phtml inside you theme (app/design/frontend/{package}/{theme}/template/) with the following content:

<?php $_product = Mage::registry('current_product'); ?>
<?php if ($_product) : ?>
    <meta property="og:url" content="<?php echo "http://". $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] . $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'];?>"/>
    <meta property="og:description" content="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_product->getDescription())?>"/> 
    <meta property="og:title" content="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($_product->getName())?>"/>
    <meta property="og:image" content="<?php echo $this->helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'image')?>"/>
<?php endif;?>

If you need to include the sku or color in there you can get them like this:

$sku = $_product->getSku();
$color = $_product->getAttributeText('color');

Clear the cache when you are done.

Magento – Product description is used as meta description

The Meta Description for each page is loaded in the file

[your magento install dir]/app/design/frontend/YOURPACKAGE/YOURTHEME/template/page/html/head.phtml

If your theme does not have its own head.phtml file then look in the /default/default/ and /base/default/ directories

By default the code which renders the Meta Description looks like this

<meta name="description" content="<?php echo htmlspecialchars($this->getDescription()) ?>" />

So first check for possible changes in this code.

Now for product pages the getDescription() function call gets its data from

[your magento install dir]/app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/View.php

By default the _prepareLayout() function in this file should contain the following code for retreiving the Meta Description

        $description = $product->getMetaDescription();
        if ($description) {
            $headBlock->setDescription( ($description) );
        } else {
            $headBlock->setDescription(Mage::helper('core/string')->substr($product->getDescription(), 0, 255));
        }

So also check this code for any changes. This code could also be overwritten in

[your magento install dir]/app/code/local/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/View.php

If you do not find any changes then this may be caused by some extenion. A good way to trouble shoot is to disable all extensions (one by one) and/or change to the base/default theme to see what happens.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Open Graph Protocol – How to Dynamically Generate Meta Tags

Magento – Product description is used as meta description

Related Topic