New idea about SEO

[marvays]

Hi.
I have an idea how to improve VM for SEO.
There are recommendations for meta description length, meta title. In VM there is a position for SEO for each product and category. Consider adding a character counter under the Meta Description and Custom Page Title fields. In administration, I can set a value (as recommended by google) for example, that the title must be 55 characters. For example, when the field is filled with 80-100% of this value, it turns green. When it is 100% + 5 characters, it will be yellow and 100% + 6 characters and more will be red. Similarly, the description.

A preview can then be created below this entry, which will be automatically updated according to the words entered, similar to: https://blog.spotibo.com/meta-description-length/

It all raises the level and prestige VM. Users who do not know SEO will be positively influenced.

What do you think?

[jjk]

I suppose a character count for the meta tags could be added to VM with only a few lines of code by the developers, because VM already uses a jquery form validation, which counts characters, for example in the 'Ask a question about this product' form.  For this you can already set minimum and maximum numbers.

I still add the description meta tag manually to all products in my shop.  Usually I type them in a Notepad window to see the number of characters typed and then copy and paste them into the VM form.

However, I think the importance of meta tags for SEO has very much decreased in recent years. The Google video in which Matt Cuts addresses meta tags is already 18 years old. Nowadays my impression is that Google often displays snippets primarily depending on the search words the user has typed into his browser's search field. If the search keywords are part of the page title or meta description, they usually display what the webmaster has entered into those. But if the user searched for words which are only in the product description text, Google rather generates a snippet from the description text, ignoring what the webmaster wanted.

Also, while the Google heading of the snippet is still limited to approximately 60 characters (depending on the character width), they apparently crawl much more in cases where 60 characters are exceeded.

[pinochico]

Ahoj Martine,

I think you are completely wrong. The recommendation from Google is the only recommendation from one search company (what about yahoo, bing, ...?) For this you can use rich snippets, I think.

[jjk]

I wouldn't say marveys is completely wrong. Since Google has at least 90 percent of the search engine market in most western countries, the vast majority of webmasters tries to please Google. A character count would make it a little bit more comfortable to create snippet headings that fit well into Google's display of snippet headings.

[marvays]

Or it can be an interesting business idea for developers to create a paid plugin that might be a little more sophisticated

[jjk]

There is one plugin which provides some extra assistance. Should work for VM, too. (I didn't try it)
https://extensions.joomla.org/extension/easy-frontend-seo/

[PRO]

I would spend my time on real content.


I automate my meta desc with PHP to include
How many for free shipping, manufacturer name, custom field options, category name.

I thought bing and yahoo use google now?
I do know for their advertising they do.

[Studio 42]

marvays the most important thing is not the metas, you have many other things. Template structure, content, internal/external links ....

[pinochico]

PRO:

I thought bing and yahoo use google now?

No, Yahoo stopped their solutions and use from BING - different from Google.