I've just released the third leg of a series of SEO optimization plugins for Habari - MetaTitle.
The title of your page as shown in the html title tag is one of the more important factors that search engines look at when ranking pages related to a search phrase. Most themes, though, put the same title on every page - the name of the blog, plus maybe it's tagline. This is appropriate for your home page, but not individual entries or archive pages. MetaTitle deals with this problem by catching the text of the page that the reader requested, replacing the html title tag content with content appropriate to the specific page being requested, then sending the page on to the reader's browser.
The MetaTitle plugin generates a new title for your home page, individual posts, static pages, archives, and 404 page that is optimized for SEO purposes while still being relevant and meaningful to your readers. You can see the plugin in action here at Sag Rising. Go to different pages and see how the title changes. The following format is used
- Home page and pages not covered by the following cases: Your blog title followed by your tagline.
- Individual posts and static pages: The post or page title followed by your blog title.
- Tag category pages: The name of the tag followed by your blog title.
- Search pages: What you searched for followed by your blog title.
- Date Archives: The time period covered by the archive followed by your blog title.
- 404 page: Page Not Found followed by your blog title.
Installation is simple. Just download the MetaTitle archive from Sag Rising's plugins page, install it in your /user/plugins directory, and activate it from the plugins page of your blog's admin panel. If you decide you don't like it, just deactivate it and delete it. No cleanup is required. The only real requirement is that your theme has $theme->header() in it.
Enjoy!
Another very useful plugin Rick.
One of the irritations I found when developing a Habari theme was to ensure the title tag was correctly formed.
I always felt this task would be better done once, properly by a plugin which could then be used by different themes.
Andy
Thank you, Andy.
Setting the title properly is a problem with most themes. It can be done, but it's a pain so most people don't. Obviously I agree with you it's better done once in a plugin. :)
Let me know if you have any issues with MetaTitle. Eventually I plan on creating something similar to WP's All in One SEO Pack. The individual releases let me refine the code and satisfy those who don't want everything involved in a combination plugin.