Issue with Single Product Meta Description after Migrating from Yoast to Rank Ma

Hello,

Thank you for your patience.

This is the order we follow to generate meta descriptions for WooCommerce products or product categories for that matter:

1. SEO description (Rank Math meta box while editing)
2. Product Short description
3. Single product description (Titles & Meta settings)
4. Product description (long description)

Here’s a link for more information:
https://rankmath.com/kb/how-to-set-product-meta-description/

If you want to use the long description, then you may need to use this filter on your site:

add_action( 'rank_math/vars/register_extra_replacements', function() {
	rank_math_register_var_replacement(
		'woo_full_desc',
		[
			'name'        => esc_html__( 'Woo Full Desc.', 'rank-math' ),
			'description' => esc_html__( 'Woo Full Description...', 'rank-math' ),
			'variable'    => 'woo_full_desc',
			'example'     => woo_full_desc_callback(),
		],
		'woo_full_desc_callback'
	);
} );
function woo_full_desc_callback() {
	global $post;
	if ( empty( $post ) ) {
		return 'Product Description';
	}

	return wp_strip_all_tags( $post->post_content );
}

Once done, you can use the %woo_full_desc% variable in Titles & Meta > Product > SEO description field instead of %excerpt%.

Here’s how you can add filter/hook to your WordPress site:
https://rankmath.com/kb/wordpress-hooks-actions-filters/

Looking forward to helping you.

Hello,

Apologies for the confusion.

If you want to force the usage of the meta description you have added in Rank Math > Titles & Meta > Products > Single Product Description, then you may need to add this filter instead:

/**
 * Use the Description from Global Setting, if the description is missing in the Post metabox
 */
add_action( 'rank_math/frontend/description', function( $description ) {
 global $post;
 $desc = RankMath\Post::get_meta( 'description', $post->ID );

 if ( is_product() && (empty($desc))){
 $desc = RankMath\Helper::get_settings( "titles.pt_{$post->post_type}_description" );
 if ( $desc ) {
 return RankMath\Helper::replace_vars( $desc, $post );
 }
 }

 return $description;
});

Hope that helps.

Hello,

We understand your concern, and we appreciate your feedback. Rank Math follows a structured hierarchy for meta descriptions, prioritizing the meta box description first. The Titles & Meta > Single Product Description setting serves as a fallback when no other descriptions are set at the product level.

However, we acknowledge that in your case, you expect the predefined Single Product Description to take priority without additional code. While the provided filter is a valid solution, we will forward your feedback to our development team for review to see if this behavior can be improved in a future update.

In the meantime, please let us know if you need assistance implementing the filter or if there are any other concerns.

Hello,

Sorry, but we don’t have immediate plans to change the order of how we construct the product meta description in our plugin as doing so will affect thousands of users who already using this standard order.

At the moment, the effective way of forcing the use of the settings you added in the Titles & Meta is by using the provided filter code.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any other questions.