SOLVED: Bricks SEO settings issues

Bricks Version: 1.4

Hi,

I found out several MAJOR SEO settings issues:

  • Title setting changes the Wordpress page title, this is terrible, it should only change the head title tag.
  • Meta description is not ouput when page/post is using a template… so in my case, except for homepage, it is never output.
  • Opengraph description is output only when there’s some content in the Wordpress editor, and excerpt is generated from content, but it doesn’t use the Bricks SEO setting which should have priority.

NOTE: No other SEO plugin activated.

2 Likes

Hi Yan,
Thank you very much for your report!

Title setting changes the Wordpress page title
The question was asked some time ago. Please see Thomas’ answer to it: SOLVED: SEO page title affects the Post Title element and the list title in the Bricks pages menu - #2 by thomas

Meta Description when using a template
At the moment, only the information from the template is used, if it contains any. In general, however, it should be the case that page-specific information overwrites the template information if both are present (or only page information) – I’ll add it to the list.

Opengraph Description
Can you explain this in a little more detail? I’m not sure I understand it correctly.

Best regards,
timmse

Hi,

1. TITLE

I really don’t agree with this title philosophy.

Wordpress page/post title is the one used in WP backend. It is also used in menus by default, Bricks builder posts lists, post title element, and so many other third party widgets, custom code, etc.

Now, when we need a SEO related page title, it is different. It is the one in the browser tab label, and the one used in search engines results. IMHO they have different purpose.

Today, if I change SEO post title in Bricks, it changes the actual WP post title, hence changing navigation menu entry labels, and a lot of other things depending on get_the_title(), etc.

I agree that in some use cases both could be unified, but most of the time, they should be different:

  • For instance, a lot of people like to add “| SITENAME” at the end of page title in search results, which would interfere with H1 page title on page.

  • I personnally like to have very explicit (manual or generated) titles in search results, but on the other side I want concise and automatic titles on frontend.

  • Impacting on menu labels is also terrible. I like that menu labels automatically use page title, but I absolutely need them to be different in page title tag for SEO purpose. Setting menu titles manually is absolute no-go for most pages, since you could rename them a lot.

  • Finally, the use of manual H1 is not acceptable, since we need automatic behaviour for dynamic post titles.

By the way, this is the description of the setting in the builder:

image

2. DESCRIPTION

Information from the template? Who adds a meta-description on a page template?
For me, a meta-description is post specific or archive term specific.
It doesn’t make sense on a template, unless it is dynamic, using post meta description, which we can’t select in dynamic data.

So today, none of my blog posts or CPTs or pages have meta-description :frowning:

3. OpenGraph

For a post with WP content (not Bricks), even with custom meta decription in post template, automatic description (excerpt) is used in Bricks OpenGraph.
(meta description actually uses the template’s one, but see 2 above)

For a post with Bricks content, like standard static page, no description at all, since it is only based on WP post content excerpt.

image

image

CONCLUSION

You should deactivate the whole SEO feature for now, it is not ready and could actually harm site rankings a lot if people are not aware of how it (doesn’t) work.

No offense :wink:

2 Likes

Offtopic: Bricks Academy (bricksbuilder.io)

Please add “Documentation” in Bricks Academy title. It’s not getting properly search indexed for right terms such as documentation.

Hi Yan,
The issue has been fixed in Bricks 1.5beta.
Please let us know if you still encounter any problems.

Best regards,
timmse

1 Like

(Barely one year after the last comment) Bricks SEO features still doesn’t work. I’m running into 1.7…

Some more information (Version, which SEO settings, …) would be very helpful, so I know what to look for :slight_smile:

I guess I’m bit stupid sometimes. I believe meta description doesn’t added coz don’t appear in google.
I’ve just remind me google cache.

Meta Title and description are actually added in head part.
Howere tagline is added, I don’t want it. How suppress it ?

Remove it from the General Settings of WordPress. What is not there can not be displayed :slight_smile:

Actually it’s a solution, not a really good one coz I need it.

Well, it’s the only one possible because there is no option to disable the tagline. But feel free to submit it as an idea on the Idea Board :slight_smile:

I asked for preventing error on comment form for ages It never appears in the list

Probably because this is already mentioned here @noctaupus

Indeed I do comment on this card coz the “idea card” I added never shown when I looking for it.