Smart Tags – Need Explanation on how some work

  • Resolved lospeso

    (@lospeso)


    2 years, 10 months ago

    Smart tags are a nice idea, and some of these tags, (i.e. Post Date, Post Author) are simple enough to understand by just the tag name, but a few are not easy to use because there is no explanation on how they work, which is needed, especially for WordPress newbies and novices.

    The smart tags that need more explanation are:

    • Custom Field
    • Post Content
    • Post Excerpt
    • Post Excerpt Only
    • Post Title (Original Title)
    • Separator

    Any short sentence that shows with the smart tag still does not explain it. To show you what I mean, here are the same smart tags I question:

    Custom Field [custom field from the current post]: – does these refer to the WordPress Custom Field module below the main content, showing a custom syntax like this: “eg_custom_meta_216”?

    If so, does this mean this smart tag pulls in content or information the custom field generates?

    Post Content [the content of your post]– does this draw in all the post content, even if it is a long page? (I can’t see the value of this in a Meta Description that is set at 60 characters). Please explain its use.

    Post Excerpt [Excerpt defined in the post] – how does this work? Does this mean it takes the content before the <!--more--> comment tag?

    If so, is there another way to “define an excerpt” for this smart-tag to use?
    I ask because the use of an excerpt is great, but the use of the “more” tag is not in some pages and posts.

    Post Excerpt Only [as defined in the post, won’t fall back to post content] –
    I am not sure how to understand falling back to post content works with this. Either the excerpt is define or not, if not, nothing is used with this smart tag. This also seems to infer for the “Post Excerpt” smart tag that it falls back to post content if the excerpt is not found? Please explain all this.

    Post Title (Original Title) [Original title of the current post] – what original title? If I initially named the post “ABC works”, then changed it to “ABCD works”, and saved the change, does this mean the initial title of the post was the first title that was created? Please explain this.

    Separator [separator defined in search appearance settings] – I believe this refers to the settings in the AIOSEO plugin, found here: Admin Menu > All In one SEO > Search Appearance > Title Separator – Separator Character?
    If so, then the short sentence explaining it needs show the following, “separator defined in AIOSEO search appearance settings“. Reason is there are other plugins that use the same wording “search appearance settings”. This change avoids creating confusion to the user.

    Looking forward to your answers.
    Thanks 🙂

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
  • Plugin Author arnaudbroes

    (@arnaudbroes)

    2 years, 10 months ago

    Hey @lospeso,

    I’m more than happy to explain these smart tags in more detail:

    • Custom Field – When you’re adding a custom field smart tag, you’ll see that there is an input field where you have to enter the name of the custom field you want to use the value of. It only pulls from the field you specify; not from all fields.
    • Post Content – It pulls in the post content and truncates it at a specific length (don’t know this by heart, but it’s a few hundred characters). Search engines will then trim it down even further to the length they require for their snippets.
    • Post Excerpt – This takes the content from the Post Except field, which is a field that is supported by post types. For instance, Posts have a Post Excerpt field by default. Pages do not have an excerpt. And for custom post types you can control this. If there is no Post Excerpt, the plugin will fall back to the post content.
    • Post Excerpt Only – Same as the above, except that there is no fallback.
    • Post Title – The name/title/h1 of the post like you enter it in the editor. We say “original” as opposed to the final SEO title.
    • Separator – That’s correct.

    Let me know if you need any more details.

    Thread Starter lospeso

    (@lospeso)

    2 years, 10 months ago

    Thanks for the reply, it is helpful, but a couple still need clarification.

    Custom Field – what is a custom field? – is this the same as the WordPress Custom Fields, or is it referring to something else?

    Post Excerpt – So this is working the same as the standard post excerpt WordPress uses, as described in their page: https://wordpress.org/support/article/excerpt/ ?

    Thanks 🙂

    Plugin Author arnaudbroes

    (@arnaudbroes)

    2 years, 10 months ago

    Yes to both questions. 🙂

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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