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Drupal Meta Tags (nodewords) Module for SEO

I setup Drupal on kristen.org a couple weeks ago. I intentionally set it up with the base installation and didn't add any 3rd party modules. The reason being that I set up this site to show how you can add in various Drupal modules and configure Drupal for SEO (search engine optimization).

Thus far, I've done very little SEO on the site besides the first 5 steps in my Basic SEO Top 10 list for a few blog posts and articles. The only extra module I did add in the is Drupal Google Analytics module for tracking purposes.

Now I need to start doing the Drupal SEO configuration. For today, I'll add in the Drupal metatags (nodewords) module so that we can work on step 9 in the Basic SEO Top 10 list and add our Drupal meta tags.

  1. Download Drupal metatags (nodewords) module
  2. Unzip nodewords tar file
  3. Ftp nodewords directory/files

    4. - I just installed and tried out fireftp
    and it works great. Put the directory in sites/all/modules.

  4. Enable nodewords module

    5. - Shown as Meta Tags

  5. Edit content and add meta text

    6. - You'll see a "Meta Tags" section when
    you edit your content now.

For example, I edited my Basic SEO Top 10 web page and added a description and some keywords in the drupal Meta Tags section. In order to see these, go to that page and do a "view source" and look for "meta". I did add some keywords in but these aren't typically very useful for the big search engines so don't spend much time on those. Do make sure not to use the same keywords too much in either the description or the keywords section or it will be considered spam.

Here's an example of the search result before I did the Drupal meta tags:

Basic SEO Top 10 Search Results Before Meta Tags

Once Google has re-indexed the page, I'll add in an image of the new search result.

Now you can easily add the Drupal meta tags (nodewords) module to your site and start adding your own drupal meta tags for the best SEO.

Here's what the metatags look like now:

Kristen Dot Org with Meta Tags

Submitted by kristen on Fri, 09/05/2008 - 18:33
Tagged in:
ALL COMMENTS ARE MODERATED AND SPAM WILL BE DELETED SO SAVE YOUR TIME AND MINE AND ONLY LEAVE A COMMENT IF YOU ARE REALLY LEAVING A COMMENT AND NOT TRYING TO LINK OFF TO ANOTHER SITE FOR SOME GOOGLE LOVE.

Comments

nodewords (Node Canonical URL)

Submitted by Bob (not verified) on Tue, 03/02/2010 - 02:46.

Kristen,

I have a questions about the Node Canonical URL. According the text under the box, it says to "Use a relative URL without the initial slash"

So if the full URL is http://bobsdailyblog.com/content/obama-hypocrite-chief, then the Relative URL would be content/obama-hypocrite-chief
Is that correct?

The reason I'm asking is all the pages listed on Woopra are just showing the relative link and I'm hoping that is not what Google is indexing.

Can you clarify the entry for this? Is this how you're using it? I really wnat to be sure before I change over 200 nodes....

Thanks,

Bob

Sounds right

Submitted by kristen on Tue, 03/02/2010 - 06:04.

I haven't used that feature in the newer version of nodewords on a live site, but your assumption seems correct. I just tried playing with it right now with the dev version of nodewords but it won't let me save the meta tags for custom pages for some reason, so I can't check it.

What I would do is:

1) add it to canonical url to meta tags for one custom page

2) save

3) go to that page

4) view source

5) search for <link rel="canonical" in header

6) make sure the link looks correct (it will prepend the base path)

If so, then you should be fine to update all the pages.

Btw, here's some general info on canonical URLs:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonica...

Good luck,
Kristen

It's Working

Submitted by Bob (not verified) on Wed, 03/03/2010 - 13:26.

Kristen,

I followed your instructions and it appears to be working correctly with no problems. The full URL is showing up in the header.

Also, I don't know if it was just a coincidence, but Google has indexed almost 30 more links since I did this and I have 5 more links with Clickthroughs.

Thanks for the help.

Bob

A very important explanation (for stupid guys)

Submitted by Ephy (not verified) on Sun, 02/21/2010 - 14:12.

Hi,
Maybe because i'm a french stupid guy, i didn't see the meta tags work on my site!
I cried, I cried and I cried and it wasn't work...
After a long week end, working on it and before i decided to jump from the "tour eiffel", i found that the meta tags on my node aren't influent on the front page because i have to write the meta tags of the front page on a special path:
/admin/content/nodewords/meta-tags/frontpage

now it works !
i hope my input may help someone...

Good distinction

Submitted by kristen on Sun, 02/21/2010 - 16:59.

You are not stupid ;) There is a distinction between adding meta tags to node pages vs. non-node pages.

With the node page, it is obvious because the node edit form has the meta tags fields on it. With non-node pages, you have to go through the meta tags interface (or for old versions use the nodewords by path module) and configure them by the path or by "front".

Thanks for taking the time to write this up because I'm sure it will help someone.

Kristen

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