Want to use "description" text in the "short description" area, but keep SEO

I figured out that a function would need to replace the ‘woocommerce_template_single_excerpt’ content with the main description, but I only see ‘woocommerce_output_product_data_tabs’ in the commented area of the next section of the content-single.php file. That would be the whole container with the description section and not just the description section by itself.

Could use a little advice what I’m trying to do here. I need to nail down which items to use and how to put them in a function. What is the hook for the description area that fall under the tabs?

So it sorta would be this…

function replace_short_description( $content ) {
}
add_filter('woocommerce_template_single_excerpt', 'NAME OF CALLUP FOR DESCRIPTION GOES HERE');

Would this be what I need to use?

Try this snippet in functions.php for your child theme:

<?php
  add_filter ('woocommerce_short_description', 'show_content' );
  function show_content() {
    return the_content();
  }

Lorro, nice to see you again.

Of course. “the_content()” is the content from the main text editor. Can’t believe I overlooked that.

I put your code in my functions.php file and nothing changed. The short description area is still blank.

Your code makes perfect sense. So I get it. It says “instead of ‘woocommerce_short_description’, use ‘show_content’. The function ‘show_content’ means use ‘the_content()’ instead.” Correct?

Yes. Worked on my dev site. Not working for you? Does your theme show the short description normally? I understand not all themes show it. What theme are your using?

Hmm… well, I’m using a child theme based on Twenty Twelve.

We tried two products where we did enter text into the short description and the text showed up there. So the short description area does work.

Here’s one of those pages, and here’s the other.

Here’s a link to one we didn’t add text to, and I double checked your code. I’ll paste the code here directly from my functions.php file just to verify….

add_filter ('woocommerce_short_description', 'show_content' );
function show_content() {
return the_content();
}

Hey here’s something… We’re still running Woo 2.3.13.

We didn’t upgrade yet to 2.4.3 because we heard some others were having problems with a couple features so we held off. Could this be part of the problem?

We held off because we know some others in our circles who have had some problems with the new versions over the last few days.

Yoast SEO in this case seems to be somewhat unaware of how Google will see a WooCommerce product, or at least based on what you are saying. Changing the way things are displayed is *not* going to change how Yoast SEO reports to you, but it *might* affect your SEO ratings.

At least that is my understanding of what is going on. I will look to see how Yoast SEO is reporting stuff in a Product tab, but I think your problem might be that Yoast (as you have it configured) is not aware enough to handle WooCommerce products fully.

My understanding is that Yoast looks at input in the editor, *not* the resultant page, and if the resultant page “looks” different than what Yoast is looking at, Yoast is unable to fully understand what SEO is going to work.

It *does* seem that Yoast may well be the best SEO package, as the 1, 2 ratings when people talk about SEO, are Yoast, and All in one SEO. But *most* of the people who are promoting All in one SEO, are very closely related to the development of All in one SEO, and so far, *no* sign that anyone connected with Yoast is promoting in that way.

So we could put the content in the short description area and it would display on the pages where we want them, but is that going to hurt us in SEO? That’s the main question. Obviously search engines go through the page, and don’t visit the dashboard in WordPress.

David, I’m glad you brought this up. I too am seeking a hook/filter to have Yoast see/use the short description. On my photography sites, I have just an image in the main description and place text in the short description.

All of my main site pages are green, but my image pages are orange, none are green. The biggest hit is few words in body copy and no links. It doesn’t matter how many words/links I put in the “short” description it is not seen. That would then reflect poorly and hurt the SEO correct?

I look forward to seeing what folks come up with to include the short description text as if it were the main.

@david Borrick
If no short description has been set, then the filter won’t be called.

The GOOD NEWS… we found out why it wasn’t working. Here’s what happened…

We were going to forget it and just use a short description intro, then let the content in the content area stay. We added one short intro and then all of a sudden the long content showed up in the short description area. What the heck?

Then it dawned on me: if a content field is empty then the container doesn’t show up on certain areas. The reason the function wasn’t working is because there was no content in the short description area to begin with. It was by default “empty”. So we decided to put just the letter “a” in a short description field, and that basically “activated” the content. Then the function could take over and populate it with the content instead.

So there you have it. It DOES work, but you have to have content in the short description area in order to “replace” it.

Now, the BAD NEWS…. we won’t be able to do it because it interferes with a social media plugin we’re using. This plugin by default looks at the excerpt first, then the main content area. If we put “a” in the short content field, then the social media plug-in uses “a” for our content.

Bummer. So in our case this function won’t work.

BUT… for others, I will vouch for its effectiveness.

Oh this is funny. You responded a few sections before I posted my last response. I came to the same conclusion.

I have a similar issue. The content in the “Short description” appears at the top of the product page and on a site search results page so i want to use it but the text in this box is not seen by Yoast so i cant use its tool to optimise the content – and use its easy Red, Amber, Green signals.

I have just checked one page in Google and the content is being shown as my meta desc. This is because I do not have a meta desc so the good news is google does see teh short description – the issues is it yoast as I would like them to rate the content.

Do I need to use the above functions.php code so I can get the standard product description content to appear where the short description should be?

This type of question should really be put to the WP SEO plugin – we don’t control the content they pull from products.