Description filter does not apply

Hi Thomas,

It looks like that filter never should’ve worked correctly in the first place. I could list all issues, but here’s an amended copy that should always work: https://gist.github.com/sybrew/1e61b12893c0089353c53f3bcc126a6b.

It is untested, though. Still, enjoy ??

Please be aware that this snippet is not fully compliant with Google’s guidelines. However, my statement here ignores the fact that Google removed their recommendation against boilerplates: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/appearance/snippet#programmatically-generate-descriptions. I’m not sure you can (or must, or should) work around that, though.

Hi Sybre,

thank you for sharing the code with me.

I just tried your code out. The return statement prints the excerpt to the screen but not to the meta description though. Do you have an idea on how I can get the generated string in the meta description? And I am still confused why the code does not work anymore ?? I mean, pretty much nothing changed in the last weeks.

What I am curious to know as well: Why are the description hooks named differently compared to the title hooks? Some act pretty similar, but one is called “the_seo_framework_title_from_generation” while the description equivalent is called “the_seo_framework_generated_description”.

Hi Thomas!

Have you cleared all the site caches after installing the filter?

Please allow me to explain my previous comment “It looks like that filter never should’ve worked correctly in the first place.”

The old code probably churned out a non-representative cached response sporadically, which you might’ve caught during your tests. Much for the same reason that my snippet seems to fail now: you’re getting an outdated cached response not reflecting the prescribed output.

With TSF, I connected the front- to the back end. And to make TSF’s code work in tandem, I added the complexity of lines 9 through 27 in the GitHub gist. It is why $args can be null or have any of the pta/taxonomy/id sub-values, none of which the old snippet considered. Those sub-values are required to display the description on the back-end edit screens, which is why you can see the suggested description correctly on the back-end screen now.

The old snippet always returned null on the back end. On the front end, it would return null for any request that wasn’t for the product_reviews post type. This null response would clear any generated descriptions. The new snippet doesn’t do that, so you can indeed see TSF’s generated descriptions again.

The old snippet also didn’t go through TSF’s description “getter” phase 2~9: https://tsf.fyi/kb/a/65#sequences-getter, which might result in a shorter description than what you had before.

My point is this: Clear the cache ?? If that doesn’t resolve the issue, please let me know, and I’ll see if I can replicate your use case.

As for your other question: The filters between the title and description have a different makeup of names because I implemented them at various stages of plugin development. At some point, I opted for one naming scheme over the other. I planned to phase out one over the other, but I don’t think it’s important enough to bother hundreds of developers with a deprecation notice.

I hope this helps! Cheers ??

Hi Sybre,

thank you for your extensive response!

As we have a pretty big and complex system, we completely clear our cache almost daily (sometimes even several times).

Unfortunately the refreshed code does not transport the generated description to the meta-description neither, which kinda confuses me, because the “old” meta-title code snippets still work. Its just about the meta-description codes which do not work.

I am looking forward to your reply!

Regards
Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Sorry for my belated reply.

Please share a few URLs of the pages affected with my proposed snippet active. You may do so confidentially at https://tsf.fyi/contact.

Hi Sybre,

sorry, I totally missed to reply to you as well. ??

Just filled out the form!

Looking forward to your reply!

Regards
Thomas

Hi Thomas,

I’m sorry to have kept you waiting. I received your email well.

The script I provided works as intended on my site. Note that the script assumes you have Advanced Custom Fields enabled. But even if that plugin is disabled, it should return a generated description from the content, which it currently doesn’t.

So, I believe you have accidentally accumulated multiple filters in your codebase that overwrite how TSF should behave. You should not have both your and my filters active simultaneously — I recommend only using the one I provided.

If you are sure you only implemented one filter, please scan for the_seo_framework_ in your custom code active on your website and see if there are overrides; specifically, the_seo_framework_generated_description might be listed twice, while only the one I provided should be active.

Hi Sybre,

thank you for your reply!

ACF is enabled on our website.

Yeah, I did exactly that. I took the code we had before and completely replaced it with the code you provided me.

The old codebase is still active for other custom post types though, but with an if statement in front (just like in my very first thread) which asks regarding the post type. This code does not apply to anything regarding our cpt product_reviews (example from the very first post) anymore though.

Hi Sybre,

do you have an update for me?

Regards
Thomas

Hi Thomas,

Sorry for leaving you waiting for so long.

Unfortunately, I cannot tell what’s wrong. If you installed my code as-is directly in functions.php or a plugin unconditionally, it should work. But perhaps you have a plugin or theme conflict, or perhaps there’s a caching issue, or maybe a mix of both.

Please get in touch with a developer who has unrestricted access to your site to find out the cause.

Hi Sybre,

I solved the issue with a custom javascript.

Regards
Thomas