Check out the code generator and video
tutorial for this hack in my new article:
Custom Meta and Title Tags for Blogger
Meta descriptions for your web pages can improve the chances of your site being found and clicked on. For those of you who tried adding such descriptions or keywords to your Blogger pages, you might have noticed there's no easy way of doing that.
This article describes the workaround I found for this problem and is a follow-up to the discussions posted here:
About the solutions mentioned in the articles above:
If you add a "constant" meta tag to your Blogger template (as described in the first article), all your pages will have the same description and keywords. This defeats the purpose of this optimization effort and you'll have to go with the solution from the second link. However...
The JackBook Dot Com code seems to be a bit outdated and using it might cause one of the following problems:
404 error when trying to view any of your web pages, or...
The blog is displayed correctly, but the description and keywords are not seen by any meta analyzers.
Here are the changes you have to apply to your template in order for the descriptions to work correctly:
Open the Layout panel of your blog and go to Edit HTML.
Click the Download Full Template link and save a backup copy of your current template so you can undo the following changes in case anything goes wrong.
- Locate the following lines of code:
<head> <b:include data="blog" name="all-head-content" /> <title><data:blog.pageTitle /></title>
Add the following code immediately after the <b:include data="blog" name="all-head-content" /> line:
Replace the http://johndoe.blogspot.com/ line with the URL of your homepage.
Replace the word DESCRIPTION with a description for your homepage.
Replace the word KEYWORDS with a list of keywords separated by commas and relevant for your homepage.
Now, for each individual page from your blog you'll need to follow steps 4-7 again, but adding corresponding URL's, descriptions and keywords. For example, if your first article is about your pet, what you'll need to do next is...
Add this code again immediately after the <b:include data="blog" name="all-head-content" /> line:
Replace the http://johndoe.blogspot.com/ line with http://johndoe.blogspot.com/2008/03/my_pet this_is_an_example.html.
Replace the word DESCRIPTION with a description of my pet.
Replace the word KEYWORDS with pet,dog,dog_name.
After adding code for all of your pages, save the template and check if it's doing what it's supposed to.
Each time you write a new article, you'll have to edit your template and add code for that new page as well.
There are several other minor tips you need to be aware of in order to get best results, so please read the articles below as well:
To reach this solution, I've used tips from Blogger's Help pages in order to modify the code from JackBook Dot Com.
That's all there is to it. Please post your feedback and comments in case the code needs more tweaking.
Related articles:
59 comments:
thanks for the 404 fix! it works! thanks alot!
you're welcome. thanks for the feedback.
I've just added this to my blog; was looking for this since 2 days! thanks a lot!! but how can i do something like this for each post in blogger?? can I add meta keywords for every post?
Hey Mansi,
I've had a look at one of your blogs (http://ideasandgadgets.blogspot.com/) and the title, description and keywords seem to be the same for all your pages.
I'm not sure if you did this correctly, but to give you an ideea of what the code should look like, I've written some meta tags for your homepage and the last 3 articles. Click here to open.
If you look at this example, you'll notice the first paragraph is for your homepage, and the other three correspond to the permalinks of the last three post pages.
Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to add such tags automatically, so each time you write an article you'll have to add another one of those paragraphs manually and change it accordingly.
Another thing you might want to look at is the fact that your description is a bit too long and it might be considered as spam by Google. My advice is to keep it shorter and customised for each article. If you keep long and similar descriptions for all your pages, your site rank might decrease because of duplicate content.
Finally, a good way to choose your keywords is to use a density checker like the one below. Too many keywords can also be considered spam.
http://www.dot-seo.com/seo-tools/webmaster-tools/keyword-density-checker/
Thanks for the feedback and please let me know if these tips help.
Hi Andrei - I still don't get how you add different meta tags for each page. Could you possibly outline how you add the new tags to a new page please and where exactly you place the new text? As I understand it, every time I make a new post, I have to update my template with new description/keyword tags. Where exactly in the template do I put these tags?
At the moment, my individual posts show up in google with the same description every time, which is pointless. The individual post title shows up fine, but the snippet is just the sentence from the description meta tag.
As an example, type the following words into google: michael thomas liverpool bursting. An article from my site will be the top article, but the snippet is useless as it's not pulled from tha article itself!
Any help you could provide with these problems would be much appreciated :-)
Jaimie www.liverpool-kop.com
Hello Jaimie,
I did look at your site and you indeed have the same description for all your pages. My initial article may not be very clear, so I've written a new one to explain things in more depth. Click here to read it - I hope you'll find all you need in there.
One more thing: good luck in UEFA Champions League. I hope Liverpool wins this year in Moscow :)
Hello ,
Thanks for your wonderful help, i have been searching this option for many days, though its little time consuming to update the HTML code every time we create new post, but this really zooms the search engine.
Thanks once again.
Here is my blog:www.angrezy.com
and here is my link where i have succeeded in adding meta tags to individual post:
http://www.angrezy.com/2008/04/watch-or-download-money-telugu-movie.html
Regards,
Angrezy
Yep... you did it, Angrezy :) Congratulations! Ideed, it's time consuming, but it gives you more control over your content - I think that's worthwhile.
I'm soon going to post instructions for another popular hack: writing custom titles for each page. Make sure you check back soon ;)
From some days, i am curious to know how can i add different meta description tag to each of my post pages. And luckily, through your comment on google webmaster blog i come across your blog. I try this on my blog at http://coolsmsjokes.blogspot.com/ and yes, it really works man. Really helpful for me. Thanks a lot again.
Tips is great, But there is lot of writing in template. There should be an option in blogger to add Meta tag
I was under the impression this is what "Labels for this post:" was for.. What purpose does that function serve if not that? I dislike that my posts all come back with the same keywords * description as the main/home page does.
Thanks for the tip no doubt. But, I'm not interested in modifying every page even though I have few so far.
I read an article that asked the question if google was neglecting blogger. I have to agree with the posts now. I don't see no interest by google to make a profit besides ads and they certainly are slowing in the development area as well.
I dont think is possible to modify the "Head" tag on the Individual post.
could you check my site (code). I think I did everything right, but google doesn't seem to notice at all. Is there something wrong with the code?
Ps. It's in finnish language but it's still checkable right?
http://www.parhaat-matkakohteet.com/
Good Job! :)
Brilliant.you have given information very nicely. would like to praise more. but no time Mr.Andrei. Thanks
i don't know if i explained the right way before.
can i put a metatag for the general blog (after the head) and putting metatags for each post as well?
It's possible?
Hey Peculi,
It is possible to create separate meta tags for your posts and for the main or home page.
Think of this as a discussion between the server that hosts your blog and your visitor's web browser:
- "I want to view the main page of this site", says the browser.
The server decides which meta tag matches the main page and replies:
- "If you want the main page, this is the meta tag for it".
On the other hand, if the browser requests a post page, the server looks for another meta tag that matches and sends it along with its reply.
That is why we use "b:if cond" clauses to assign meta tags and the exact procedure is described in the two articles I've written on this topic.
I can understand that you're in doubt because the main page contains several posts. However, the URLs of the post pages are totally different and thus, the meta tags you assign for them cannot overwrite the one for your main page.
Good luck with this hack and I hope you manage to implement it - do get back to me if you need more help.
Cheers,
/andrei_aga
ughh.. Its been a nightmare trying to fix my 404 url not found error on gwt. I used a template from bloggertricks and have been trying to fix this for 2 weeks now. I've contacted google blogger groups and in the end said maybe it was a false positive? Whatever that means. I have 4 pics hosted on photobucket. seen here
http://gs83.photobucket.com/groups/j304/B7F2X1HS15/
my blog is
http://americanlifeinthephilippines.blogspot.com
I'm really frusterated with this and can't find a fix anywhere. Could you please,please take a look and tell me how to beat this thing? Please....
Hi Louden,
I'm not sure how this is connected to the meta tags hack - maybe you can point it out if I missed anything.
However, the problem is indeed strage. Incidentally, I've had problems with my atom.xml sitemap as well so I replaced it with "feeds/posts/default". Since you've redirected your site feed to FeedBurner, the sitemap I'm talking about should be here:
http://americanlifeinthephilippines.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?redirect=false
I really don't know if this will solve the problem, but it's the only answer I have.
Will this code work in a blogger blog based on html template ? Thanks
To keep same description as title for all pages
See here
http://urenjoy.blogspot.com/2008/12/blogger-seo-tips-change-title-style.html
Wondering if you can help. I have a goldfish blog www.GoldfishCareInformation.com and I want to have a seperate title for each blog post I've made and separate descriptions and keyword meta tags.
Right now I get some pretty good traffic from search engines but making this change can help increase my page ranking. Right now my title stays the same on all search results. I have a meta tag that I put in a long time ago now but recently bought a book on SEO in which I already now how to do it to websites I create but on blogger I'm unsure. Normally I use Microsoft Frontpage and it's easy adding in titles, description and keywords. This I need some help.
Could you take a look at my source code and tell me what I need to delete after the (head tag) and how to do what I want by adding seperate titles per blog post along with description and keywords. If you can provide me a sample code for my blog that would be great then I can go in and do it for each individual post I've made.
Hope you can help me with my goldfish blog. Hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Jamie Boyle
The Goldfish Guy
P.S Happy Holidays and Best Wishes In 2009
Hello Jamie (Goldfish Guy),
I looked at the source code of your blog and noticed you have multiple title tags and meta description or keyword tags for each page. I'm not sure how you did it, but that's no good.
The good news is that I can help you implement the hack described above and as for title tags, I have a couple of simple solutions which achieve just what you want. In order to solve this problem, I'd need you to send the source code of your blogger template.
Go to the Layout tag > Edit HTML section in your admin panel, enable the "Expand Widget Templates" option and then copy/paste the entire code in a .txt file. Send that to me by email, please. Alternatively, you could Download your Full Template and attach that to your email.
Looking forward to your message.
Cheers,
/andrei_aga
@Vignesh.C: no, the hack doesn't work for classic Blogger templates.
Any idea how to use your method to the blog that has more that 200 post?Any faster solution?Thanks .You have a Nice blog.
Sorry, I don't know any faster methods :(
thank you! this is very important post!
for 3 page I use this metod. But for more page its so diffcult...
I mean that goggle will doing better metod for this =)
Thanks for the post. it's really helpful to beginners like me.
i just started my blog
http://holly-bolly-bites.blogspot.com
Looks nice! Good luck to you :)
thankz for the information
but it is difficult to edit the meta tags for each post
its time to think about a alternate idea
Have you seen the automatic code generator I made? Maybe this will make it less difficult: http://www.agawebs.com/2009/02/custom-meta-and-title-tags-for-blogger.html
Try it out and thanks for the comment :)
This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks for sharing this
Hi
Thanks for you postings.
I have implemented in my site http://changeyourmove.blogspot.com/
Are you sure you did this correctly? I looked at your blog and there are only some generic meta tags on each page.
Maybe you should erase them and start over using the automatic code generator.
stumbled this page already..:D but i wonder why i'd be the first to discover this page on SU? since this is a good reading material for blogspot user!
From some days, i am curious to know how can i add different meta description tag to each of my post pages. And luckily, through your comment on google webmaster blog i come across your blog. I try this on my blog at
@radith prawira: I can't answer that question either, but thanks for rating :D
@nickler: I suppose this is the blog you wanted to mention: http://nickler-msn-nickleri.blogspot.com/. If that's so, there are two sets of "keywords" tags on your homepage. You should remove one of them and you might want to have a look at this code generator to implement the hack more easily.
Thanks for nice trick for meta tag. One things i am wishing to know from you is that for each time we have to go in edit html page that is so time consuming and quit confusing too so can we get some tips for that or any solution that we can add some key word related to my post at the time of posting new post . Thank you
Thanks for the tip...
you can automate the meta description labeling by simply using b:if b:else/ but up to a limited point where you can make use of the dynamic post title, etc. Anyway thanks for sharing awesome tips, Andrei!
The problem I'm having in trying to get post-specific descriptions using your instructions is that it works when I go to Facebook, for instance, and insert my homepage url, but doesn't work when I insert the post url. Any ideas?
Thanks so much. I searched for hours and checked at least 25 other sites. Yours is the most clear and eliminated all my errors. I really apprecatied this. Thanks again
Sorry Im lost! I understand about altering the HTML in layout for the template but how do I do individual pages?, do I go into edit posts then html and just paste the html code at the top of the post?
Thanks,Mirit
www.zit-cure.com
Yes as the Shawn Watson said I have already searched 25 other sites but ur is the clearest and easiest sites, i have done with my blog pls check it and give me ur opinion about that
http://pakiviewson.blogspot.com
Thank you - it worked spot on with an immediate improvement on my Hubspot Webgrader score on my Blogger blogs.
www.vernonchalmers.com
great blog!!!
thaks yar
you can see like this tricks in
http://www.learn-webcreation.blogspot.com
Can we implement above rules for the existing posting?? I already posted more than 250 .. What exactly I need to follow now??
this is awesome, but I am too lazy to do this to all my previous posts, can I use some type of else statement for urls that I do not specify unique meta data....ie. can I use the homepage meta data without creating an if statement for each unique url I have?
perfect! you're my hero ;) THX!
You said that we have to do those step above???
I have 400 posts, then I should put the meta tag for each post...shock...!!!
But if my blog has 1000 post then i will have to write 1000 if statements!Is not it time consuming n lenghty process.Mention any other procedure if u know?
really Good Artical easy to understand
keep it up nice work
This article help full for my
www.infosense.co.cc
dude...u made my life at ease man! all of sudden my google search result sap down like a hell. Hope this thing works...
thank you
http://www.pharmacyebooks.com
Thanks man, I really appreciate the help.
Nice share. I just implement this hack on my blog. Thanks
Yesterday I found aHack better than this. On that, it will automatically add description as it's title. Please check my site for the code.
Not just adding the meta tag in the head section would solve your problems but you will need to seperate the home page meta tag and the post page meta tag. Or else these meta tags would mess all your search engine descriptions up ...
Here is a solution i have made for all of bloggers .. till now most of you don't know this ..
http://www.vnoma.com/2009/12/add-separate-meta-tag-to.html
Try and i bet this will totally change your search engine rankings.
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