Calling URLs with title tags.

[seymourjames +]

Does anybody know or have a solution so that URLs can be 'preprocessed' to assign a title tag at the time and un the place from which they are called. I am thinking here about the showlistings.tpl and breadcrumbs.tpl files especially. These files call URLs without title tags. I would like to assign title tags particularly to the pagination URLs and the breadcrumbs. I can do it for the actual listings themselves and the categories already but it is clumsy. There must be a more generic way that all URLs have a unique title tag the moment they are created which can be tested for in advance.

Including title tags into the headers of all URLs is relatively easy but that is not the same question - hope that is clear.

[Lhotch +]

Originally Posted by seymourjames

Does anybody know or have a solution so that URLs can be 'preprocessed' to assign a title tag at the time and un the place from which they are called. I am thinking here about the showlistings.tpl and breadcrumbs.tpl files especially. These files call URLs without title tags. I would like to assign title tags particularly to the pagination URLs and the breadcrumbs. I can do it for the actual listings themselves and the categories already but it is clumsy. There must be a more generic way that all URLs have a unique title tag the moment they are created which can be tested for in advance.

Including title tags into the headers of all URLs is relatively easy but that is not the same question - hope that is clear.

Im not sure I am following you. If I select a category, then select a peice of the breadcrumb, my page has a title that matches the category I am in. If I view a category the title is the category.

[seymourjames +]

One part of the SEO puzzle but an important part. Perhaps I am not explaining well.

I do not see how one can can call the URL of a breadcrumb with a title tag by modifying breadcrumbs.tpl for example


<p class="breadcrumb">
<a href="category.php" title="French Properties For Sale" class="breadcrumb">{$smarty.const.LANG_BROWSE_CATE GORIES}</a>
{foreach from=$breadcrumb item="entry"}
{$smarty.const.LANG_CAT_SEPERATOR} {$entry}
{/foreach}
</p>

The {$entry} gives the link <a href = "URL">category name<a>. It does not generate or I cannot see how to modify it efficiently to the form <a href = "URL" title = "category title text">category name<a>.

The more difficult problem afterwards is that in showlistings.tpl, pagination is not using title tags either when calling URLs. In this case, it would be effective to know at the point of calling a URL whether it is a case of New, Featured, Category or More seller ads. It then becomes potentially possible to assign a correct title tag when the URL is being called.

e.g <td class="paginationNum"><a href="{$file}?{$first}">{$smarty.const.LANG_FIRST} </a></td>


Testing whether one is about to show a New, Featured, ... URL is what I am trying to achieve. I can then do something like

<td class="paginationNum"><a href="{$file}?{$first}" title ="New French Properties - page 1">{$smarty.const.LANG_FIRST}</a></td> or

<td class="paginationNum"><a href="{$file}?{$first}" title ="Featured French Properties - page 1">{$smarty.const.LANG_FIRST}</a></td>

etc

Basically, I have defined a large metatags file which gets included in the layout.tpl file so that every page created has unique title, description and keywords. With the SEO module this all comes together very nicely. All works brilliantly. However, I wish to call all URLs with a title tag. I have solved that problem for all possible URLs except those described above in showlistings.tpl file (pagination part) and effectively the breadcrumbs.tpl file.

Hope that makes more sense.

[Lhotch +]

Im still not following what it is you are looking to do.

Are you referring to the link itself (ie the actual breadcrumb) and not the page it brings you to? When you click on a breadcrumb or a pagination number the destination page does have a title.

Instead of telling me what you see, maybe you can explaine what it is you want to accomplish.

[Maffo +]

I use this on all sites I build and indeed is a very good practice.

You must be careful not to spam these link titles. Having French Properties within 20,30,40 links within one page might be deemed as spam.

showlistings.tpl

PHP Code:

{foreach from=$pageNumber item="entry"}
                {if $entry.number==$pageNum}
                <td class="paginationNum"><strong>{$entry.number}</strong></td>
                {else}
                <td class="paginationNum"><a href="{$file}?{$entry.link}" title="Your Title - Page {$entry.number}" class="paginationNum">{$entry.number}</a></td>
                {/if}
            {/foreach} 


classes/kernel/categories.php

PHP Code:

function breadcrumb($node,$lev) 
    {
        global $db;
        $sSQL="SELECT id,name,slug,parent_id,cLink FROM ".PREFIX."categories WHERE id='".$node."'";
        $result=$db->query($sSQL);
        $row=$result->fetch();
        $path = array();
        $link="";
        if($row['cLink']<>"")
        {
            $link=$row['cLink'];    
        }
        if($link=="")
        {
            $slug = ( empty($row['slug']) ) ? $row['id']: $row['slug'];
            $link="category.php?cat=".$slug;
        }
        $path[] = "<a title='".$row['name']."' href='".$link.'" class='breadcrumb'>".safeStripSlashes(htmlspecialchars($row['name']))."</a>";
        if ($row['parent_id']!=0) 
        {
            $path = array_merge($this->breadcrumb($row['parent_id],$lev+1), $path);
        }
        return $path;
    } 


[seymourjames +]

Thanks Maffo. You understand what I am banging on about and the risks. Basically, good SEO practice (on page) is to call URLS with a title tag and not just the URL in its naked form. I will take a close look at your code. It may well be just the ticket.

The overall solution for 68C is perhaps a difficult one but a future version may wish to adopt the same type of approach as some of the better content management systems like Expression Engine. URLs are not alone. They are like a pair. An address and a title tag. Used wisely (not like spam) it shows google that your site is compliant in terms of its internal linking structure.

[seymourjames +]

Maffo you really hit the nail on the head as I looked at your reply for the 3rd time. Is it better to not have title tags where the number of pages in showlistings could grow to hundreds of pages or is it better to be compliant and use title tags every time. Can't think of a better word to use than "compliant".

I have made all pages that I wish google to index be html pages and used unique title tags and descriptions for every page (even if the variation is just a number). I have set my robots file to exclude all php pages (generated by search) and pages behind the login (no follow and robots exclusion). The exception being search based on user listings where I made it list html pages with unique bla bla.

I am just struggling with my designer version to resolve the showlisitings pagination and the breadcrumb. All the rest is tight. Perhaps it may be best to leave the pagination be (do not want to be seen as spamming). However I would like to implement the breadcrumb title tags - is this possible with the designer version?

You know Maffo - why don't you lead a big SEO thread on the forum? You told me that you did this job before (providing Eric is o.k with it). For many it is the difference between success with 68C and failure.

[CHRD]

There's nothing wrong with pages made by php search results, as long you can give the bot new content, php search result pages pay my £800pm mortgage

[seymourjames +]

And that is a good point - sufficiently new content. If there is a lot of turnover and variety - yes o.k. but if many pages come out almost the same and things are in easily identifiable blocks and just moved about on a page, I think problems will arise. It is like what Maffo was saying - title tags on pagination is a good idea but be careful. A few pages yes but 30 or 40 links on a page with almost identical title tags looks like spamming - asking for trouble. I think one possibility is to make sure only the search results pages you want to get indexed get indexed. Manually do it so to speak so you can check them out and allow them in your robots.txt. Some people I know tried on fairly large databases to automate searches to produce thousands of pages. Tens of thousands. They soon got put in their place by G. Rehash of the same content.

[anna245 +]

Maffo-

Where in classes/kernel/categories.php would you put that code?