XF 2.2 Meta 'description' missing on some pages within a thread

[Kevin]

I just noticed this on my own sites (2.1) but have found it happening here as well (XF 2.2.0 B x).... on a thread with multiple pages some of the subsequent pages don't have the meta 'description' tags. I get the same results in different browsers and is reproduceable.

For example.... https://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-are-you-listening-to.2426/

When viewing the source for page #111 here's the tags at the top....

URL: view-source:https://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-are-you-listening-to.2426/page-111



... but viewing the source for page #99 here's the tags at the top:

URL: view-source:https://xenforo.com/community/threads/what-are-you-listening-to.2426/page-99

 

[Chris D]

The meta description comes from the first post on the page. I think the unfurls below will demonstrate it:

Page 99

What are you listening to?

xenforo.com

Page 111

What are you listening to?

Goo Goo Dolls - Name

xenforo.com

There is no post content in the first post on page 99, there is just a media embed. So there's really no appropriate string to display there. We could display some other content there, maybe even the first post of the thread content (although that isn't automatically available to the template so it's not idea and it, itself may not have any content eitherl).

Worth noting in XF 1.5 we would have previously displayed [MEDIA] there and this was often not thought to be appropriate. We could display something totally generic like Thread X in forum Y | Page 99 but then that's not really any better.

On the whole there's nothing displayed because there's nothing useful to display and I think that's probably ok.

 

[Kevin]

We could display some other content there, maybe even the first post of the thread content (although that isn't automatically available to the template so it's not idea and it, itself may not have any content eitherl).

For the purpose of 'sharing' the URL using mechanisms that use the page meta tags, there should something in the description value. Yes, ideally the URL without the page parameter is what's 'shared' but in practice those other URLs will find there way.

For a certain crowd, they'll also won't be happy that the lack of a description meta tag brings down their Lighthouse ranking.

We could display something totally generic like Thread X in forum Y | Page 99 but then that's not really any better.

Something generic like that is not necessarily any better from a relevancy perspective but it'd still be better than nothing.

 

[Mouth]

Not a bug - No default meta description

There is not a default meta description being used. I see that the board option for meta description is used on forum_list and forum_new_posts, but that is it. If no meta description is set, I think it should use the default board meta description. I imagine there should also be a way to set a...

xenforo.com

 

[djbaxter]

See post #8

 

[Mouth]

See post #8

Or even better, https://xenforo.com/community/threads/no-default-meta-description.183798/post-1458738