Hello, and thank you for reaching out to us about the issue you’re experiencing with the SEO titles and descriptions for new products.
It seems that the SEO description is not being applied correctly to the new products, and instead, the product description is being used as the SEO excerpt. This is causing the actual product description to be displayed instead of the SEO-optimized description.
To resolve this issue, you can ensure that the SEO description is set correctly for each new product. You can set an SEO description using the Rank Math metabox by following these steps:
- Head over to WordPress Dashboard → Products.
- Hover over the product and click Edit.
- Scroll down to the Rank Math SEO metabox and click Edit Snippet.
- Enter an SEO description in the Description field.
If you have already set the SEO description using these steps and are still facing issues, please ensure that there are no conflicts with other plugins or custom code that might be affecting the SEO descriptions for new products.
If the issue persists, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from our support team will assist you further.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and appreciate your patience as we work to resolve this issue for you.
Sources:
How to Set Product Meta Description Using Rank Math » Rank Math
The solution given by RankMath bot is indeed one way of ‘fixing’ it.
But I’m not going to manually add the description for hundreds of products.
Therefor it’s not a good solution and I’d like to speak to an actual human.
Hello,
Thank you for your query and we are so sorry about the trouble this must have caused.
Please ensure that you are using the latest version of Rank Math plugin. If not yet, please do update them. You may refer to our changelog page here: https://rankmath.com/changelog/
After that, clear your website caches and check the product meta descriptions again. If the issue persists, we might need to take a closer look at the settings. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress login in the designated Sensitive Data section.
Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.
It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/
You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):
https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/
We really look forward to helping you.
Hello,
I have updated the sensitive data as requested. Can you please check further?
Thank you.
Hi Jeremy,
I’ve updated the sensitive data with login credentials for a development environment.
Besides that, the plugin is up-to-date.
Kind regards,
Jelle
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:
A. Content from the SEO Description field
If that is missing, then:
B. WooCommerce Excerpt or Product Short Description
If that is missing, then:
C. Template From General Settings in WordPress Dashboard > Rank Math > Titles & Meta > Products
If that is missing, then:
D. Auto-generated Content from the product page.
However, if you want to force the use of the description you have set in Global product settings (Rank math > Titles & meta > Products, I have added a filter to the last line of your child theme’s functions.php file.
Please note that the description may not be visible while editing the products as it only works when your products load in a browser. Once done, clear your website’s cache and check the published product meta description via the page’s source code.
You can check the final output of the meta description here:
https://rankmath.com/tools/meta-tag-analyzer/
Hope that helps.
Hi Reinelle,
Thanks for your time!
I’ve tested this and it seems to work as you stated.
The only issue I’m facing is that whenever I do manually add content to the SEO description, it always shows the global text.
Meaning I cannot have specific products show specific descriptions.
Would that also be a possibility to have integrated? (Perhaps in the added code)
I’m quite confused why this has to be added with additional code to the child theme, as this is basic practice in, for example, the Yoast SEO plugin.
Kind regards,
Jelle
Hello,
We have updated the filter to add conditional so it won’t affect your products with a custom description.
Here’s the line modified from the previous filter:
if ( is_product() && (empty($desc)))
You can check now the products in your staging site as well.
Hope that helps.
Thank you.
Hi Reinelle,
This works like a charm, awesome!
Thanks for your time and effort into fixing this for us.
Is there anything I need to keep in mind when updating in the future?
Or will this keep working without any issues?
Kind regards,
Jelle
Hello,
You’re welcome.
Since the filter is applied to your child theme’s functions.php file, it won’t be affected when your theme updates. So, it should still be working in the future.
You may just need to keep in mind that when editing your products, the meta description may not be correct in the snippet editor.
However, when you check it in the page’s source code upon publishing/saving, the meta description is saved correctly.
Aside from those, you’re good to go with the meta tags of your products.
Looking forward to helping you.
Hi Reinelle,
Thanks! This is a solution to my problem.
Have a great day!
Kind regards,
Jelle
Hello,
We’re delighted to hear that this issue has been resolved. We appreciate your kind words and your support.
If you don’t mind me asking, could you please leave us a review (if you haven’t already) on https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seo-by-rank-math/reviews/#new-post about your overall experience with Rank Math? We appreciate your time and patience.
I’m closing this ticket now but if you ever have another question or need any help in the future, please don’t hesitate to create a new forum topic. We’ll be more than happy to assist you again.
Thank you for choosing Rank Math and have a wonderful day!
