I want to put a unique meta "description" on each page of my blog.

I have tried to install the following WP plugins
"Improved Meta Description Snippets"
"Quick META Keywords"
"Tags 2 Meta Generator"

but none of them will work for me.
So I tried this bit of custom code from:
http://darrenpangan.com/blog/dynamic...ress-blog.html

<meta name="description" content="<?php 
      if (is_single() || is_page()) {
           # Single post / page.
           # Use the 'description' custom field.
           echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'description', true);
      } elseif (is_category()) {
          # Category page.
          # Use category's description
          echo trim(strip_tags(category_description()));
      } else {
          # Default meta description
          # Blog's description
          echo bloginfo('description');
      }
?>" />

Still doesn't work.
All I am seeing in the source code is:

<meta name="description" content="" />

I am running the
"All in One SEO Pack" and
"SEO Super Comments"
plugins as well.
They seem to be working fine except for not showing "description" or "keywords" meta tags.
Version is WP 2.8.4

# has no meaning in PHP. Most likely the blog writer you refer to was using it as a placeholder, but should have been using // instead.

Originally Posted by NullPointer

# has no meaning in PHP. Most likely the blog writer you refer to was using it as a placeholder, but should have been using // instead.

Unless it has been changed in some of the newer php versions (php 5 or later), the # character can indeed be used for single line comments, just as the double slash //.

Originally Posted by lizciz

Unless it has been changed in some of the newer php versions (php 5 or later), the # character can indeed be used for single line comments, just as the double slash //.

My mistake. I'd never seen anyone use that syntax for comments before in PHP.


In that case I would make sure that the description is set, my guess is that it is just outputting the empty string because no description exists.

You'll probably need to place the string parameter into a variable, like this for example:

PHP Code:

<meta name="description" content="
<?php
$key="description";
echo get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true);  
?>
"/>

Originally Posted by jamestl2

You'll probably need to place the string parameter into a variable, like this for example:

PHP Code:

<meta name="description" content="
<?php
$key="description";
echo get_post_meta($post->ID, $key, true);  
?>
"/>

I believe "description" is a custom WordPress field generated by the "All in One SEO" plugin.

Isn't that what you named the field?

That's what the first statement of the if conditional represents, it assumes you typed some text into a custom "description" field on the edit post page.

It doesn't necessarily have to be generated by the SEO plugin, you can do it manually.

I know this is going to sound stupid. But make sure you are putting your code into one of the .php files and not a post or created page.

And on some servers using <?php the server won't know what to do with that.
Try just using <? php code ?> as your php tags.

Originally Posted by powerwebsites

I know this is going to sound stupid. But make sure you are putting your code into one of the .php files and not a post or created page.

And on some servers using <?php the server won't know what to do with that.
Try just using <? php code ?> as your php tags.

You've got that the wrong way around, using <? instead of <?php is not guaranteed to work.

Also, there is no indication that the code is not being parsed, only that the code results in no output. If it were the case that the code was not being parsed then the PHP source would appear in the HTML source.

The script must be fetching the descriptions and keywords from somewhere, like a database, a .txt file or set in a some other kind of config file. Are you sure you have set these values, or are they perhaps empty?

The only line that is really doing anything related to your unique meta description is:

echo get_post_meta($post->ID, 'description', true);

That is the magic of Wordpress Custom fields right there.

You have to create a field in the custom fields area on the page or post called "description". Then assign it the value of what you want the meta description to be. The other lines of code are simply either inputting the category description that you set when you created the category, or the overall blog description that you set in the admin Options area(i.e. just another blog)

If you are unsure how to use custom fields, see here:http://codex.wordpress.org/Custom_Fields