Search engine optimization (SEO) focuses on improving the
visibility of a page or website in search engine results. A basic
technique of SEO is adding HTML title and meta tags to your page source.
These meta tags are used to define description information and other
metadata that search web engines and crawlers can use when they create
search indexes and collections. When you include content in a page
with a web content viewer, you can improve the search engine optimization
of the page by adding title and meta tags with values derived from
the web content itself.
About this task
Note: This support is available with Combined Cumulative
Fix 12 for IBM® Web Content
Manager Version 7.
By
default, the HTML title for a page is defined by the page title in
the portal. However, when you add a web content viewer to a page to
render web content, you can override the value that is used for the
HTML title. For metadata tags to be included as portlet preferences,
you must set a custom HTML title so that only one portlet can contribute
the metadata to the head section. If this default
behavior does not suit your requirements, you can override it as described
in step 2.d of
the following procedure.
With
the Page Display Title field in the portlet
settings for the viewer, you can define an HTML title that better
reflects the content on the page. You can even have the viewer pull
the title directly from the rendered content.
Note: Although multiple
web content viewers on the same page can set meta tag values, this
practice does not necessarily result in improved SEO. This issue can
be further complicated when multiple viewers set different values
for the same meta tag name. When you have multiple viewers on the
same page, select the viewer whose content best represents what the
page is about. You can then use that viewer to define a new HTML title
and any meta tags.
Procedure
To override the HTML title for a page and set meta tags,
complete the following steps.
- Select one web content viewer to be the primary viewer
on the page. Click Edit Shared Settings, and
select a value for the Page Display Title field
in the portlet settings for the viewer.
To override
the HTML title, you must select a value other than Use
default title. If you want the title value to come directly
from the web content that is rendered by the viewer, select Select
from content. This setting uses the value of the Display
title field for the content item in Web Content Manager.
After you save the changes, the page header is updated
with the new title value. For example:
<head>
<title>Display title of the rendered web content</title>
</head>
- Create portlet preferences for each meta tag that you want
to add to the page header. Each meta tag is defined by
a pair of portlet preferences:
- meta.tag.name.suffix identifies
the name of the meta tag (for example, keywords).
- meta.tag.content.suffix identifies
the value of the meta tag.
You can also define a specific attribute for the meta tag with
the following portal preference: meta.tag.attribute.suffix.The suffix portion
of each preference is used to associate a name preference with its
related value preference. The suffix can be any value while it is
unique across the preferences.
There are two ways you can add
portlet preferences:
- The Manage Portlets portlet of the administration
interface. Locate the instance of the web content viewer you want
to modify, and select the Configure portlet icon.
- The XML configuration interface. Export the page that contains
the instance of the web content viewer you want to modify. Edit the
exported XML file with the meta tags you want to add, and update the
page by using the XML file along with the xmlaccess command.
If you do not set a portlet preference for the attribute name,
the attribute name "name" is used by default.
- Specify the portal preference for the name of the meta
tag. The meta tag name takes the following format:
meta.tag.name.suffix=name
If
you want to specify an attribute other than the name attribute, you
can define the attribute name with the following format:
meta.tag.attribute.suffix=attribute_name
For example, to add the following meta tag with the name keywords:<meta name=”keywords” content=””/>
Specify
the following preference:meta.tag.name.1=keywords
To
add the following meta tag with the
http-equiv attribute:
<meta http-equiv=”content-language” content=”en-US”/>
Specify
the following preference:
meta.tag.attribute.1=http-equiv
- Specify the portal preference for the value of the meta
tag. The value of the meta tag can be specified in three
ways:
- You can explicitly enter text for the meta tag value.
- The meta tag value can be derived from the value of a text element
in the rendered web content.
- The meta tag value can be derived from properties that contain
information about the rendered web content.
Depending on how you want to specify the meta tag value, different
portlet preferences are required. Only one value can be specified
per suffix.
- Use preset text
- The meta tag value takes the following format:
meta.tag.content.text.suffix=text
The suffix portion
must match the suffix value of the associated meta.tag.name.suffix preference.
The text portion indicates the text to use for
the meta tag value.
- Use the value of an element
- The meta tag value takes the following format:
meta.tag.content.element.suffix=name_of_element
The suffix portion
must match the suffix value of the associated meta.tag.name.suffix preference.
The name_of_element portion indicates the name
of the element from the web content that is rendered.Table 1. Elements
for populating meta tag valuesElement |
Meta tag value |
Text component |
Text of the element |
Date component |
Date of the element |
Image component |
URL of the image |
File component |
URL of the file |
- Use a property
- The meta tag value takes the following format:
meta.tag.content.property.suffix=property
The suffix portion
must match the suffix value of the associated meta.tag.name.suffix preference.
The property portion indicates the property that
contains information about the web content that is rendered. The properties
are associated with fields on the rendered content.Table 2. Properties
for populating meta tag valuesProperty |
Meta tag value |
AdditionalViewers |
Name of additional viewers |
Authors |
Display names of the authors of the rendered
content |
authtemplatename |
Name of the authoring template of the rendered
content |
authtemplatetitle |
Display title of the authoring template of the
rendered content |
Categories |
Titles of any categories associated with the
rendered content |
CreationDate |
Creation date of the rendered content |
Creator |
Display name of the user who created the rendered
content |
CurrentStage |
Name of the current workflow stage of the rendered
content |
Description |
Localized description of the rendered content |
ExpiryDate |
Expiration date of the rendered content |
ID |
ID of the rendered content |
GeneralDateOne |
Date from the general date one field |
GeneralDateTwo |
Date from the general date two field |
Keywords |
Keywords associated with the rendered content |
LastModifiedDate |
Date that the rendered content was last modified |
LastModifier |
Display name of the user who made the last change
to the rendered content |
Name |
Name of the rendered content |
Owners |
Display names of the owners of the rendered
content |
PublishDate |
Date the rendered content was published |
SitePath |
Site path of the rendered content |
Status |
Workflow status of the rendered content |
Title |
Localized title of the rendered content |
Workflow |
Name of the workflow of the rendered content |
For several of the most common meta tags, default
values are predefined. For these meta tags, you can create the portlet
preference for only the meta tag name. The meta tag value is provided
automatically, without the need for a corresponding name preference.
The following meta tags have default values:
- Author
- The default value is a list of the authors of the rendered content.
- Keywords
- The default value is list of any keywords that are associated
with the rendered content.
- Description
- The default value is the localized description of the rendered
content.
If you do not want to use the default value,
you can set the value by using one of the methods previously described.
- Optional: If the value of the meta tag requires
a scheme attribute, specify the scheme attribute with the meta.tag.scheme.suffix preference. The meta tag scheme attribute takes the following format:
meta.tag.scheme.suffix=attribute_value
For example, to add the following scheme attribute with the
value W3CDTF:<meta name="DC.date" content="2000-01-01T12:00+00:00" scheme="W3CDTF"/>
Specify
the following preference:meta.tag.scheme.1=W3CDTF
The
format and scheme that are used to write date elements and content
properties that are related to date and time information, such as
the LastModifiedDate property, depends on the meta
tag attribute name. By default, all date and time information is formatted
according to the date format defined by the HTTP specification. The
format that is used to write date and time information in other meta
tags is the data and time format that is recommended by the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) under the scheme named W3CDTF.
- Optional: If you
want a specific metadata item to be written even if the portlet is
not the primary portlet of the page and therefore does not set the
page title, then add a preference with the following format:
meta.tag.primary.portlet.only.suffix = false
Example:meta.tag.primary.portlet.only.1 = false
Examples
The following examples demonstrate
the different ways of specifying portlet preferences and the resulting
meta tags in the output.
- Setting the meta tag value with the user who created the rendered
content:
meta.tag.name.1=DC.creator
meta.tag.content.property.1=Creator
Result:<meta name=”DC.creator” content=”content admin”/>
- Setting the meta tag value with preset text:
meta.tag.name.1=DC.publisher
meta.tag.content.text.1=IBM
Result:<meta name=”DC.publisher” content=”IBM”/>
- Setting multiple meta tag values with the default value for the
author and the value of the text element descelement in
the rendered content:
meta.tag.name.1=author
meta.tag.name.2=description
meta.tag.content.element.2=descelement
Result:<meta name=”author” content=”content author”/>
<meta name=”description” content=”Information about IBM”/>
- Setting the meta tag with an http-equiv attribute
and a value of the date that the rendered content was last modified.
meta.tag.name.1=last-modified
meta.tag.attribute.1=http-equiv
meta.tag.content.property.1=LastModifiedDate
Result:<meta http-equiv=”last-modified” content=”Mon, 01 Aug 2011 13:45:57 GMT”/>
- Setting the meta tag and with a scheme attribute and a value of
the date that the rendered content was published.
meta.tag.name.1=DC.date
meta.tag.scheme.1=W3CDTF
meta.tag.content.property.1=PublishDate
Result:<meta name=”DC.date” content=”2011-08-01T08:15:30+02:00” scheme="W3CDTF"/>