As developers living in a Western Country, a lot of us are used to build websites for left-to-right languages only and, depending on your clients and their markets, chances are high you might never have to worry about any other directional concept – until you suddenly do.Meta tags are often underrated. Sure, they are not visible on your page up front but they are those hidden ninjas that can elevate your SEO game. These modest snippets of text that describe your page can turn out to be invaluable. Information in the meta tags can appear in the search engine results, browser tab, and social media posts. The Drupal 9 Metatag module helps site builders dynamically create and manage these metadata (or meta) tags for each of their web pages through an interactive admin interface (and no code!).
With the Drupal Metatag module, you can provide structured metadata and even customize meta tag elements. Meta elements are tags used in HTML or XHTML documents to provide structured metadata about a web page. They are part of a web page's head section. Multiple meta elements with different attributes can be used on the same page. Let's dive in and learn how to improve your website’s SEO ranking by setting up the Metatag module the right way.
Meta tags can specify a web page's title, description, keywords, and any other metadata not provided through the other head elements and attributes. You need to add meta tags in the head section of your Drupal 9 pages for the title, description, keywords, Twitter card, and Facebook open-graph - to make your website SEO friendly. Download and install the module here.
With the Drupal Metatag module, we can configure:
Let’s discuss more on configuring the Metatag module for each one of them.
After installing the module, you can edit global configurations at /admin/config/search/metatags. Set the global configuration for the front page. Click on Edit to get into the details.
Drupal 9 Metatag - Configuration for Frontpage
Enter the Page Title, Description, Abstract, and Keywords.
Drupal 9 Metatag - Configuration for Frontpage
This snippet is useful not only to search engines but also to your users. It appears in the title bar of your web page and should not exceed 55 characters. It also acts as a title for when your web page is bookmarked.
Enter a brief description of your website. Make sure that the description does not exceed 150 characters because search engines won't display more than that on a results page. If you don't have either field filled out, Google will decide what to display without any input from you. It can be very helpful to write up a snappy description for your content here.
Enter a brief Abstract (Optional). Again, keep it to fewer than 150 characters but instead of something snappy, try to be as plainly descriptive as possible.
Enter a comma-separated list of keywords relevant to your website.
There are some important elements here that were previously handled by code.
Drupal 9 Metatag - Advanced Settings
Normally, if you want to block or allow search engines from indexing a page or disallow search engines to display cached copies or descriptions of your page, you would edit the site-wide Robots.txt file. Here, you can control all of it and more with the Robots meta tag by checking/unchecking the various indexing options it provides.
This Meta tag is exclusively used by Google News, which uses comma-separated keywords as inputs.
Any details about copyright or trademarks that you might have, should go here.
This one is also relatively new and can be handy for telling social networks which image they should use with a post.
Canonical URLs are very useful for dealing with duplicate content issues. This is something that is often a problem on e-commerce sites where product listings are duplicated on multiple pages. The Metatag module does a good job of handling this by default.
This element acts as an alternative to link shorteners. In Drupal they usually come out looking something like this:
This tag is also something that Google came up with, this time to help identify the original source of content. This one may be particularly useful for news sites, but can be safely ignored by most.
Once you have updated all the fields, save your settings.
To configure meta tags for a content type, you will need to edit global configurations at /admin/config/search/metatags and set the global configuration for Content. Click on Edit to get into the details. If you want to add different metatags for different content types, click on the “Add default Meta tags” link on the top left corner of the page. Select the content type you wish to add metatag to and click on Save and configure.
Drupal 9 Metatag - Configuration for Content types
Drupal 9 Metatag - Configuration for Content type: Article
The content type will be listed in the Meta tags screen. The above screenshot shows the content type ‘Article’. Click on Edit to add metatags.
Enter Page Title, Description, Abstract, and other necessary settings. Follow the same procedure as mentioned above in configuring metatags for the front page.
Enable “Metatag: Views” module which is a sub-module of the metatag module.
Drupal 9 Metatag - Configuration for Views
Edit global configurations at /admin/config/search/metatags. Click on override to get into the details.
To add the meta tags in view go to the views edit screen and click on the meta tags link.
The above setting is the default setting for the view page.
The Drupal 9 Metatag module is a powerful amalgamation of various individual modules that aims at lowering manual coding to configure meta tags. Modules like the Page Title, Open graph Meta tags, Easy Meta, Refresh, and more are now merged into the Metatag module. It also provides multilingual support, can override meta tags based on entity objects, supports editorial workflows, and much more. As a leading Drupal development company, we implement best practices both in strategy and coding that can help you achieve project success. Starting a new Drupal project? Talk to our Drupal experts today to find out how we can help.
Author: Shefali Shetty
Meet Shefali Shetty, Director of Marketing at Specbee. An enthusiast for Drupal, she enjoys exploring and writing about the powerhouse. While not working or actively contributing back to the Drupal project, you can find her watching YouTube videos trying to learn to play the Ukulele :)
Drupal 9 Drupal 9 Module Drupal Development Drupal Drupal Planet SEOLeave us a Comment
Upgrading and consolidating multiple web properties to offer a coherent digital experience for Physicians Insurance
Upgrading the web presence of IEEE Information Theory Society, the most trusted voice for advanced technology
Great Southern Homes, one of the fastest growing home builders in the United States, sees greater results with Drupal 9
View all Case StudiesToday we are talking about Not Gaming the Credit System with Tim Lehnen.
For show notes and more information visit: www.talkingDrupal.com/367
TopicsNic Laflin - www.nLighteneddevelopment.com @nicxvan John Picozzi - www.epam.com @johnpicozzi Tim Lehnen - @hestenet
MOTWFacets The Facet module allows site builders to easily create and manage faceted search interfaces. In addition to the UI components that come out of the box, themers and module developers can build their own widgets that can optionally be contributed back to Drupal.org. Facets work with Drupal Core Search and Search API, meaning that code and configuration can be reused as-is with the most popular search solutions available to Drupal.
Building websites for universities and colleges comes with a unique set of challenges. Unlike most organizations, higher education institutions are not singular entities but constellations composed of faculties, institutes, departments, administrative units, and ad hoc entities and initiatives. Many of these distinct components have their own set of audiences and functional requirements as well as a shared need for brand uniformity.
Furthermore, a post-secondary institution’s web presence is as important as its campus grounds in terms of how the world perceives it, and its websites need to be up-to-date and modern-looking to compete effectively in the global marketplace.
Higher education websites also pose unique challenges from a content management standpoint. University and college websites typically have significant legacy content that needs to be carried over from previous sites. They also may have dozens or even hundreds of people, from instructors to support staff, who need to create and post content every semester – people who may have had minimal CMS training.
Add in budgetary constraints and timelines dictated by the rhythms of the academic year, and you have a recipe for a challenging environment in which to run digital projects.
In our work with universities and colleges across North America, Evolving Web has focused on two content management systems: Drupal and WordPress. As the CMS of choice for 71% of the world’s top 100 universities, Drupal is best suited to the complexities that often exist in the post-secondary context. We address how well Drupal is suited to higher education websites in this blog post.
Institutional websites like those used in higher education typically need robust and customizable search interfaces that can integrate third-party systems such as those used for course catalogues. They also often require a multi-site architecture and integration with third-party marketing and identity management tools. For such sites, Drupal is the clear choice for a CMS. Among its advantages are:
However, for simpler sites with less robust current and future requirements, WordPress’ simplicity and ease of use are advantageous.
WordPress has block editing tools that enable users to easily create interesting content layouts. The CMS is intuitive for site authors and editors, and widely used, therefore requiring only minor training.
Both platforms are open source, meaning that best practices tend to be shared amongst higher education institutions, which provides a huge advantage over proprietary options.
Institutions change. They expand, become more complex and outgrow their original digital homes. So what might have started as a simple site befitting WordPress might come to benefit from Drupal’s features.
These are some signs that the CMS you are using might no longer be fit for the job you’re asking of it:
Higher education institutions ask a lot from their content management systems. Your typical university or college website is an amalgam of new and archival content aimed at a wide range of audiences – current and prospective students, faculty and staff, administrators, alumni, donors and others – and often maintained by a large team of content creators.
Higher education CMSs are liable to get messy quickly unless the right structures are established at the start.
At Evolving Web, we build websites with the expectation that they will continue to be relevant for years after they launch. The philosophy is that the client team will have the ability and tools to update the content and structure as needed throughout the website’s lifecycle. However, most websites don’t last that long, with research showing that the average site lasts around two years and seven months according to Orbit Media. Whether or not your site outlives this average depends on the robustness of the original design and whether it’s set up in a sustainable way.
Here are six strategies that higher education institutions can use to get the most out of their CMS and ensure the longest possible lifespan for their investment:
//--> + more awesome articles by Evolving Web
This blog has been re-posted and edited with permission from Dries Buytaert's blog.
Last week, over 1,200 Drupalists gathered in Prague for DrupalCon Europe. It was great to see everyone together in person.
In good tradition, I delivered my State of Drupal keynote. You can watch the video of my keynote or download my slides (380 MB).
Today the web is ingrained in every aspect of our daily lives. We use it for work, to socialize, to pay our bills, get healthcare, and gain access to information.
As more transactions, collaborations and interactions are taking place online, there is now a greater responsibility to ensure that the web is inclusive of every person, and accounts for everyone's safety.
When people are excluded from being able to access online experiences, they are also excluded from rewarding careers, independent lifestyles, and the social interactions and friendships that bring people together.
For those reasons, we need to do everything we can to protect and grow the Open Web.
In my keynote, I made the point that Drupal is an important player in the preservation and growth of the Open Web.
I kicked off my keynote talking about some of my personal reasons for using Drupal, most of which have to do with the future of the Open Web.
After all these years, I continue to upload my photos to my website, despite there being plenty of simpler alternatives (e.g. Facebook or Instagram). I do this for a number of reasons.
First, my photos are precious to me, and I don't want them to get lost. I look at news stories about MySpace and Facebook losing users' content. I like that I'm in control of my own data, including my backups.
Second, I don't like how proprietary platforms limit my creative freedom. Pages and templates within a closed platform tend to look the same. It's hard to stand out, or even just express yourself the way you want to. With Drupal, I'm unrestricted in how I share my photos.
Third, I don't like how these platforms treat my friends and family. Many of them use invasive tracking. For that reason, I don't use trackers or ads on my website. My site aspires to the privacy of a printed book.
All of these are reasons why I want both Drupal and the Open Web to win. We don't want to live in a world where proprietary platforms reign supreme. We need more "Good Software". Software that is open, flexible, secure, accessible, and pro-privacy.
Making security, privacy, accessibility, multilingual capabilities, usability, and ease of maintenance top priorities is hard work work, but it's worth it. Caring about Drupal is the same as caring about the Open Web.
The good news is that Drupal has grown into a powerful platform for ambitious site builders. Drupal empowers millions of ambitious site builders to create Open Web experiences.
However, we have to get better at promoting what we're good at to ensure more people understand how powerful and influential Drupal is. That influence becomes really clear when you look at Drupal's end users.
Because of Drupal's impact on the digital landscape, we keep a high bar with regards to stability, reliability, accessibility, security, backwards compatibility, and more. With great impact comes great responsibility.
This high bar can make contribution difficult and slow, and is sometimes what keeps people from contributing back more to Drupal.
Unfortunately, we can't lower the bar. However, we can make it easier to achieve our high bar. That's why we are moving from Drupal's homegrown collaboration tools to GitLab.
GitLab streamlines and automates various steps of the contribution process. Check out the Drupal.org GitLab video from the Drupal Association for an update.
Another way to accelerate innovation is to grow our capacity and attract more people to Drupal.
The best way to attract new people to our community is by making easy-to-use software that solves real world problems.
Since my previous DrupalCon keynote, I'm happy to report that we've made a lot of progress on our key initiatives. A few key highlights:
Each of these initiatives is significant because they make Drupal and the Open Web more approachable.
In addition, the Project Browser initiative and Automatic Updates initiative saw tremendous progress. Videos below.
To learn more about Drupal's strategic initiatives, you can watch the Drupal Core Initiative Leads keynote. Highly recommended for those that want to contribute.
Drupal 10 is scheduled to be released in mid-December. And after the Drupal 10 release, users will have 11 months to upgrade from Drupal 9 to Drupal 10. Drupal 10 will require PHP 8.1, something to plan for as well.
Luckily, the upgrade path has never been easier. In the video below, we compare the upgrade path from Drupal 8 to Drupal 9 to the upgrade from Drupal 9 to Drupal 10. As you can see, the Drupal 9 to 10 upgrade is much more automated. It will be the easiest yet!
The update to Drupal 10 is required because some of Drupal 9's third-party dependencies will reach end-of-life. If you don't upgrade within 11 months, you will be running a site with unmaintained third-party dependencies.
I hope we can all find ways to care about building the web we want to see for the future. Making Drupal better means making the Open Web better.
I'd like to thank everyone that was involved in making DrupalCon Prague, Drupal 10, and the key initiatives described above a resounding success.
Last but not least, I'd like to encourage even more people to get involved. It might not always be easy, but it's well worth it.
We’re so excited to share about a program that we're working on inside of the Lullabot team – Healthy Minds @Work. This is a science-based app and program shown to help strengthen your well-being skills. The Healthy Minds program was built by neuroscientists and is designed to teach and measure skills associated with emotional well-being using meditation and other contemplative practices.
A group of 'Bots get together to discuss the program and the 30-Day Challenge that's been going on inside Lullabot.