Category's meta description showing up on product pages

[mikel]

My Levels Ready theme shows the category meta description on the product pages.

http://www.pfyc.com/C75002.html

Weird. Maybe something got tweaked during a mmui > cssui conversion or framework integration? Or more likely I did something along the line to bomb it?

I can only trace it back to the

<mvt:item name="prodctgy_meta" param="combined" />

in the head tag section and guessing for some reason that's not working right. It appears the param="combined" isn't playing nice for some reason. We typically have the product meta description pull from the first 160 or so characters of the product description field.

Is there an easy fix or am I wrong thinking that this was built in to the Levels Ready Theme and I need to configure it myself?

[Matt Zimmermann]

My guess is you have a meta description set for the category but not for that particular product. When it comes to products, if a category has meta information, it will cascade down to the products unless the product has meta information. In that case, the product meta takes precedence.

[mikel]

Your guess is correct. Didn't know they'd cascade down. I'll reconfigure the PROD page. Thanks for the help, Matt.

[mikel]

Is the meta description cascading the only thing <mvt:item name="prodctgy_meta" param="combined" /> controls? I want to eliminate the cascading feature and have the meta description simply show up if the field is populated and not if it isn't. Same with sub cats, etc. In a test on our dev site, I removed that line from the head tag and deactivated the item from the PROD page and it got rid of the feature but I want to make sure there isn't something else its doing that I'm missing.

[mikel]

Hi Matt;

Back on this subject. Two questions...

1. Is the <mvt:item name="prodctgy_meta" param="combined" /> limiting characters in the meta description fields in admin? It seems to cut if off at 315 characters. I understand the limitations of Google's character count but we have other reasons to be a little more flexible in that field.

2. How do we kill off the cascading feature and simply go with the traditional conditional like this?

<mvt:if expr="l.settings:category:metafield:title">
<title>&mvt:category:metafield:title;</title>
<mvt:else>
<title>&mvte:category:name; | PFYC</title>
</mvt:if>

<mvt:if expr="l.settings:category:metafield:description">
<meta name="description" content="&mvt:category:metafield:description;">
</mvt:if>

We've removed the <mvt:item name="prodctgy_meta" param="combined" /> item from the Head Tag Content section yet it still wants to pull from a parent cat (or cascade down as you put it) if a sub-cat has empty meta fields.

Thanks.

[Matt Zimmermann]

You might be better off creating a custom category field and replacing the <mvt:item name="prodctgy_meta" param="combined" /> token with an IF statement checking for the custom field.

[mikel]

Hi Matt;

Can you please pass along any documentation or information Miva has regarding the features, control and functions of the <mvt:item name="prodctgy_meta" param="combined" /> including any character limitations in meta fields, cascading features and dates these were implemented as well as dates they may have been updated?

I've PMed you my email address.

Thank you.

[kayakbabe]

Matt, please post this info about the prodctgy_meta" param="combined" publicly. I need to know and I am sure others do too!

[Matt Zimmermann]

This one must have slipped through the cracks, I'll have to see if I have any information on this. Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, you might check this post: https://www.miva.com/forums/forum/ge...a-descriptions