Update On Custom Metatags

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

Any ETA on this...just wondering....now if I try to share a video from my site on Facebook...its shows a gloves advertisement image everytime...really frustrating not being able to share to facebook fan page.
So I know this is being addressed just wondering on a timeline on when we will be able to add our own OG Tags
Thank you
updated by @derrickhand300: 07/17/15 01:31:30PM

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

Sure wish we could get something done on this so I could start driving traffic to my site
Anyone interested in building a custom module to do this?
Pls name your price because it REALLY needs to be fixed

@douglas
10 years ago
2,804 posts

This is most likely something that Brian will have to look into if its to be done to the existing module? However... He is out of town right now so you'll have to give him some time to get back and get caught up with everything.

--

Douglas Hackney
Jamroom Team - Designer/Developer/Support
FAQ-Docs-Help Videos

@michael
10 years ago
7,793 posts

You can add your own og: tags right now, just over-ride the file your interested in.

If its your module, then add:
/modules/( YOUR MODULE )jrShareThis_facebook_open_graph.tpl

If you want to over-ride, say the jrAudio module's version of that then in the skin
/skins/( YOUR SKIN )jrAudio_jrShareThis_facebook_open_graph.tpl

and alter away.

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

Each video will have a different video thumbnail- each image will have a different image thumbnail to share on Facebook
The only way I can think of to do this is to make a different metadata template for each page- (hundreds of templates)- then create the entire page using the templates ( no use for site builder...)

To share properly the meta tag needs to be OG IMAGE:url OG TITLE:Title Name OG DESCRIPTION:Description

If we could do this then ShareThis could parse the correct info ( I think ) Seems like a total waste of time and effort to have to create special templates for EVERY page just so the content can be shared on social platforms

I just wanted to check in and see if this is being addressed or if its been given up on
updated by @derrickhand300: 05/26/15 08:26:12AM

@brian
10 years ago
10,149 posts

derrickhand300:
I just wanted to check in and see if this is being addressed or if its been given up on

I've not given up on anything

My availability has been really limited over the last few weeks - I've been traveling A LOT and we're in the process of getting our house ready for a possible sale this summer, so I've just been super busy with "offline" stuff.

Part of this issue is that "ShareThis" is designed to share an entire PAGE, but a page on Jamroom may be built from many different parts and components, which means ShareThis will try and figure out what image is best to use for the Share. Just an FYI on what you see that.

What I will do is get the Meta Tag manager module updated to support the pages created by Site Builder - that way you can add meta tags to pages created in site builder. It's trickier than it may seem (since both operate on view listeners), but it should be doable, so I will try to bump that up and get it done.

--
Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

Thanks but even sharing without "sharethis" does not work ie sharing the page url directly to facebook
On the few times it does work it never parses a description though
The tags we need (I think) are OG Image OG Title and OG Description
If these tags are present Facebook will automatically use them if it finds them "ANYWHERE" on the page- at least this has always been my past experience of creating them for a few years

The issue I see/feel is that it cannot be done in the smarty template code and needs to be done in the html that Facebook open graph can actually see

I will keep an eye out for updates in the forum- thanks for answering and glad to know its still in the works
updated by @derrickhand300: 05/26/15 11:07:13AM

gary.moncrieff
@garymoncrieff
10 years ago
865 posts

If any has ever used WordPress by Yoast, ( https://wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-seo/) It provides a great model in my view on how to tackle this. But then again meta keywords and description are becoming less important with every update to googles search algorithims. Good unique content will get you ranked much higher thses days.

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

Thanks gary
These are actually concerning the Facebook Open Graph Meta Tags...when you share something to facebook-these tags tell facebook what video/image thumbnail to display- what title to use and what description to use etc...attached is a screenshot from my competitors site who enjoys a great deal of traffic because it works on their platform and drives huge amounts of traffic to their sites

updated by @derrickhand300: 05/26/15 06:41:09PM

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

When I try to share an image from my JR site- it selects the wrong image and wont allow me to edit the title/description
Here is a screenshot example-not much chance of anyone wanting to click on that

updated by @derrickhand300: 05/26/15 06:51:50PM

@michael
10 years ago
7,793 posts

Is that not the image set in the meta tags for 'og:image'?

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

No-if you look at the source code for the page you see I have no meta tag for OG image on the page ANYWHERE-no meta for OG Title or description( whats there is being done using the smarty code in the facebook set up which is generically pulling the member name/site name and using that on every post.

Here is an example of someones site where its set up perfectly ( I dont know what platform its built on)

Try sharing this link to your FB page to test
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_kids/2015/05/teething_symptoms_in_babies_are_not_as_bad_as_parents_think.html

Its formatted PERFECTLY! Here is the meta info they use to make it PERFECT

Here is their source code

<!-- Facebook OG -->
    <meta id="ogtitle" property="og:title" content="Parents Love to Blame Teething for All Their Babies&rsquo; Miseries. They&rsquo;re Missing the Real Cause." /> 
    <meta property="article:publisher" content="http://www.facebook.com/Slate" />
    <meta property="og:type" content="article" />
    <meta id="ogurl" property="og:url" content="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_kids/2015/05/teething_symptoms_in_babies_are_not_as_bad_as_parents_think.html" />
    <meta id="ogimage" property="og:image" content="http://www.slate.com/content/dam/slate/articles/life/family/2015/05/150501_KIDS_Teething.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.web.1280.1280.jpeg" />
    <meta property="og:site_name" content="Slate Magazine" />
    <meta id="ogdescription" property="og:description" content="When my daughter was 7 months old, she abruptly stopped sleeping through the night. She was up every couple of hours, crying and demanding comfort. Teething, I thought. It was 

around the right time for her first teeth to emerge. But weeks went by, and I saw no teeth, and..." />
    <meta property="fb:app_id" content="142011022527753"/>

I will attach a screenshot of a forum I have that has a place where I can add code to the head section of a page

So If I had a place like this to add code to the head section of any page- I could use the above Facebook code as my pattern/replacing the information in the code with the specifics of my site....then each time I share something it would parse the correct image/title/description ( yes i would need to fill in the title/description and even if I had 100 images on the page if I right clicked on the image on the page that i wanted to show as the OG image-I would copy the image url and paste it in as the OG Image meta data.that way the correct image would show up no matter how many were on a page ( if a video is shared then a line of code would need to be added for OG video) I believe if the page has the OG tags- then Sharethis would also work correctly on any page- ....

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

Here is the screenshot mentioned above...

updated by @derrickhand300: 05/27/15 03:32:30AM

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

As a side note on this its actually surprising how many social network creators do not understand the power of Facebook and how it can help them
I remember in the Ning forum years ago people remarking " I dont want to share crap on Facebook- I dont want people going to my Facebook page-I want them going to my Ning page" and I realized then how many people just dont get it

YOUR content is not shared on Facebook- sure if I have an interesting pic or video i could just upload it directly to Facebook and everyone could see all there is to see right there on Facebook BUT if you use the Open Graph (OG) meta tags correctly you drive people FROM Facebook to YOUR website to view the content-which CAN result in HUGE amounts of traffic.

Lets say you add something cool-unique and interesting...it gets SHARED on Facebook-each share means your content/link is being shared on someones facebook page...get 500 'shares' then you have 500 links to your website content...which translates into visitors- which you monetize in which ever method you select-( through cost per click ads or selling products etc)

Regular content posted to a sites Facebook Fan Page can result in huge amounts of free traffic ...

Facebook has hurt social networks like ours because EVERYONE has a niche Facebook page anymore....but using this we have a way to offset the 'hurt" by using Facebook to our advantage
updated by @derrickhand300: 05/27/15 03:49:28AM

@michael
10 years ago
7,793 posts

These are the metatags that appear in my gallery item details page:

<meta property="og:url" content="http://jr500.iixxii.cc/admin/gallery/1/dp-406s-01" />
<meta property="og:see_also" content="http://jr500.iixxii.cc/admin/gallery/1/dp-406s-01" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:title" content="admin: bark" />
<meta property="og:description" content="bark" />
<meta property="og:image" content="http://jr500.iixxii.cc/gallery/image/gallery_image/1/xxlarge/_v=1432789681" />
<meta property="og:image:width" content="800"/>
<meta property="og:image:height" content="600"/>
<meta property="og:site_name" content="jr500.iixxii.cc" />
<meta property="og:updated_time" content="1432789840" />
</head>

Make sure your up to date with your modules. Can you see any meta tags that your example has that mine hasn't got? (that would be useful in the case of an image)

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

The source code for any image in my image gallery shows the meta data is added using meta.tpl

Opening meta.tpl I have the following code which I will attach as a file because its so long- NOWHERE in my meta.tpl is there a mention of ANY OG tags

My modules are all up to date here- wonder why your code looks so perfect and mine does not exist?

edit-
my jrGallery item detail template does not contain anything that would be in the head section-there is no meta data in my jrGallery item detail tpl here

updated by @derrickhand300: 05/27/15 11:08:41PM

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

Here is an example of an image from my image gallery where you can view the metadata in the source and see how its displayed when added to facebook
http://drillingahead.com/drilling-ahead/gallery/15904/hp-rigs-stacked-midland-odessa-texas

@michael
10 years ago
7,793 posts

Could be because you've customized the item_details.tpl file for the jrGallery module.

The jrGallery module that is responsible for getting that og:stuff out there is:
/modules/jrGallery/templates/jrShareThis_facebook_open_graph.tpl

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

Hello Michael-I just checked the template file in jrGallery module- the facebook OG metadata is lited there like in your example. Still its not listed in the site metadata in the source code and I am not understanding how its getting from the jrGallery module into the head section in your example?

Only way I could think of is to copy/paste it over into my meta.tpl file- which I just tried..now "some metatag info for facebook shows up but the fields are empty-here is a copy of the new source code after adding it to the meta.tpl file
(Th pic I selected is located at this link)
http://drillingahead.com/drilling-ahead/gallery/14154/nabors-rig-417-blowout

 <meta property="og:url" content="" />
<meta property="og:see_also" content="" />
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Drilling Ahead: " />
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Drilling Ahead" />
<meta property="og:updated_time" content="1432817338" />

Notice the image url is blank-the content which I think should be for description is blank and the title of the image is the site name and not the title of the image on the page...

To my knowledge I have not altered the facebook share template-

Another strange issue related to images is this
if you go to this link you will see every image in the gallery has a title....
http://drillingahead.com/drilling-ahead/gallery/p=4

now click on ANY of these images and view the image as a single full size image and you will see the title has disappeared..

These are the titles that facebook share should be picking up but they are blank on the page and blank on the metadata...

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

note- tried to edit the above post by changing the word "pic" to "Image" then saving and I get this screenshot-man nothing seems to go my way anymore..

updated by @derrickhand300: 05/28/15 05:57:54AM

@starone
10 years ago
51 posts

I am glad someone is having the same problem that I am. I added into my header_menu_desktop.tpl a banner display that uses the admin gallery to define the images and links. The OG:image property always picks up on the banner image. There must be a way to insert overriding meta_tag info for pages. This is a serious problem since my artists are constantly sharing pages and most of the open graph info does not display properly in their Facebook posts.

@derrickhand300
10 years ago
1,353 posts

Hi Starone
Its actually been done in the new version of site builder
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/forum/my_posts/30227/problem-using-the-meta-tag-manager

I am having a small issue i think may be a bug- but it really works great for adding to individual pages IF they are made in the NEW site builder...

I am really happy with it
updated by @derrickhand300: 06/12/15 08:47:45AM