Incorrect meta Descriotions

The Free version of WPSSO should have advised you if the Yoast SEO facebook / open graph or twitter card features are enabled, and asked you to turn those off (to avoid conflicts). Provided they are turned off, Yoast SEO should not show you an input field for a facebook / open graph description.

The Free version of WPSSO does not include an integration module for Yoast SEO, so does not read custom Yoast SEO meta. If you enter an excerpt, WPSSO will use the excerpt instead of the content text.

Let me know if you have any questions. ??

js.

Hello JS,

Yes it did.

To confirm I am not using the FB,Twitter OR OG from yoast. Its all turned off.

Seems like your plugin is counter intuitive to what I was expecting OR how it should work ideally.

SO, if for arguments sake I disable WPSSO and only use yoast with FB,Twitter & OG turned ON all the metas outputted are consistent. They are not with WPSSO.

With yoast turned on & FB, Twitter OG turned OFF and the activating WPSSO this is what the output is for meta and OG tags:

Title Tags: title is specified in yoast meta box. The output provided by yoast for the <title> tag is as expected, pulling from yoast meat box.

The yoast meta title also gets used by WPSSO for:

1. og:title
2. twitter:title

which is the expected result.

HOWEVER for the JSON name attribute it pulls in the post title specified on the page and not the one supplied by yoast meta box title so its not consistent. The post/page title is generally used for identifying the page in admin section.

So its inconsistent.

Description Tags: This is specified in yoast meta box. Again the outputted code is that which is specified in yoast meta box for the <meta name=”description” tag.

The outputted code provided by WPSSO doesn’t use the yoast meta box entry for:

1. og:description
2. twitter:description
3. JSON description

Again its inconsistent.

On the plugin page it does state that its compatible with yoast seo. However it doesn’t appear to be so.

WPSSO is pulling in the title tag (apart from JSON) but not the descriptions at all.

Yes, according to your answer it can be fixed IF you use the excerpts addition but that’s not standard on pages i.e not an option on WordPress pages unless you add support for it via your functions.php file of your theme.

Not ideal to be using the excerpts.

Depending on how your theme is configured OR used you may be using excerpts in the front end of the site to show snippets on say blog home page or other pages. This is not always (in my case never) the same as what description (or title) you want to be used for the search engines.

Came across this (what I will call) issue when I was doing and technical audit.

The way its setup will send mixed signals to Google and search engines in general. The titles appear to be fine apart from JSON name which will send a mixed signal as search console seems to prefer the json for the title.

The descriptions are totally confusing. They will definitely send mixed signals to search engines (especially Google). The og:description tag (twitter and json too) relies on the page/post content. Not good for specifying descriptions for search engines (especially Google). You would want them to be unique and have certain elements for CTR. Currently you may as well turn that off as its the same as Google search engine choosing what to show in search results based on page/post content which wont always be good for CTR etc.

Just to clarify and reconfirm:

1. I don’t want to specify custom titles/descriptions for og/twitter/json just want it to use what’s being specified in yoast meta box
2. Yes, I could potentially use the excerpts to remedy this but that then effects the front end and the way some themes are used.
3. WPSSO seems to pull in the title (apart from json) but not so for descriptions. Counter intuitive.

I would just like the plugin to be consistent and/or use the specified title and description that’s supplied in the yoast meta box. It does it for the title to some extent as I stated above. If this isn’t possible then WPSSO is clearly NOT compatible with yoast seo.

I love the WPSSO plugin but in its current format and the way its working its sending mixed signals to the search engines: is the title this OR that?? is the description this OR that?

Failing a fix OR correction I would have to reluctantly go back to yoast ??

Lastly to reconfirm yet again. I know I can specify custom titles and descriptions using the PRO version. So I could specify different titles for og/twitter etc. and also different descriptions for og/twitter/json etc. BUT that’s not what I am looking to do.

Consistency is what I am looking for. I would like WPSSO to use the specified title from yoast meta box (which as stated it does but not all as stated above) and descriptions to be used that are specified in yoast meta to be used for og/twitter/json.

I hope all the above makes sense. I have repeated things a few times just to clarify in case anything is misunderstood.

Looking forward to a reply and hopefully a fix..

The Free version of WPSSO is compatible with Yoast SEO – there are no conflicts – you can use both.

As explained earlier and in the plugin description, the Free version of WPSSO does not “pull” anything from Yoast SEO.

Yoast SEO creates values for it’s title and description.

The Free version of WPSSO create values for it’s title and description.

Preferably the default values would be the same (they should), but obviously the Free version of WPSSO would not read any custom values from the Yoast SEO metabox (as the Pro version would).

js.

Hello JS,

I have to disagree her. Clearly there are inconsistencies.

Having 2/3 different description meta tags (standard meta/og/twitter) would confuse search engines as to which is the correct tag to use for descriptions…

As explained earlier and in the plugin description, the Free version of WPSSO does not “pull” anything from Yoast SEO.

well its pulling in the title tag specified in the yoast meta box… and not he one specified in the page/post title. So that answer is clearly incorrect..

FYI – What you may find counter intuitive is that Yoast SEO is providing the title values TO WordPress, and WPSSO gets the title value from WordPress. Obviously Yoast SEO cannot do this with the description as WordPress does not have a “description” field – only content and excerpt.

The Yoast SEO “the_title” filter – which it uses to provide a title to WordPress – is somewhat limited – it uses the current query, and not the $post object, so for singular pages, cannot provide a title value for other posts. It’s a frustrating limitation, but this is how Yoast SEO have decided to do it. :-/

js.

Thank you for your clarification.

Hmm… regrettably going to have turn off WPSSO until i can get a consistent meta output.

As this is currently confusing the search engines with the current meta output and its resulting in lost/low search visibility and abysmal CTR rates ??

BTW, in the Pro version you can turn on/off filtering of the title, content, and excerpt with an option in the SSO > Advanced settings page — in the Free version you can still turn off title modifications (to use the original WP value) by returning false for the ‘wpsso_filter_title’ filter.

js.

Thank you again JS.

Yup looking into the PRO options. Confused as you have so many different plugins and its not all that clear to me which one(s) i would need to purchase (if i choose too) to fix my issue!

in the Free version you can still turn off title modifications (to use the original WP value) by returning false for the ‘wpsso_filter_title’ filter.

How do I apply that filter?

It all depends on what you need – most people just get the WPSSO Core Pro plugin, which comes with a bunch of integration modules, including one for Yoast SEO. The WPSSO JSON Pro add-on is probably the most popular add-on – it depends if your theme includes Schema markup or not, or if you already use a Schema markup plugin, so it depends. ??

Hooking filters is a pretty common thing – it’s one of the reasons WP is the most popular platform. ?? Lots of info on Google – for example:

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+return+false+for+a+wordpress+filter

js.

@jsmorriss It is a weird boat to be in three months later after watching yoast crash and burn tonight, but I will say this YOU CALLED IT =>

What you may find counter intuitive is that Yoast SEO is providing the title values TO WordPress, and WPSSO gets the title value from WordPress. Obviously Yoast SEO cannot do this with the description as WordPress does not have a “description” field – only content and excerpt.