[4.0] Remove Meta Keywords (part 1)

[brianteeman]

Meta Keywords as a meta tag has pretty much been irrelevant for 10 years (see https://yoast.com/meta-keywords/ for example)

This PR does the following

1. Removes Site Meta Keywords from global config
2. Removes Menu item Meta Keywords
3. Removes per language Meta Keywords
4. Renames the item field Meta Keywords to Keywords

• We use this as a field with mod_related_items and com_banners

Part 2 of removing meta keywords will

1. Move the Keyword field to a more appropriate place
2. Check that all the keyword fields are used with mod_related_items and com_banners

Testing

Check that Meta Keyword field is removed from global config and menu items
Check that renamed Keyword field does not produce a meta key in the frontend

[HLeithner]

Why do you think we should remove it? Who says it's irrelevant in all cases? Is this true for all search engines or only for google?

Our own search engine (smart search) uses the metakey for the ranking...

[brianteeman]

@HLeithner

Why do you think we should remove it? Who says it's irrelevant in all cases? Is this true for all search engines or only for google?

https://yoast.com/meta-keywords/ neither yahoo, google or bing use it

Our own search engine (smart search) uses the metakey for the ranking...

As stated in the PR

Renames the item field Meta Keywords to Keywords

[brianteeman]

@HLeithner This was also part of the specification for the GSOC 19 SEO project https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MaOtEpp0Ma-e_d7xuXVAnGXP72ec9Ar1XrKtPQvnw4I/edit?usp=sharing

[HLeithner]

Adding the rest would be much nicer then removing something thats maybe not used ;-) but ok if george or the other maintainers are happy with it i'm too.

[brianteeman]

Adding the rest would be much nicer

I am working on some of those too

[simbus82]

Yoast is the worst source for "SEO best practice". Rubbish for wordpress newbies.

https://yandex.com/support/webmaster/controlling-robot/html.html
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/yandex-seo-guide/252885/

Meta Tag Keywords are important for SEO in Russia.

It is not a problem to use some plugin or some custom fields to obtain this for russian websites.
And I am the first to tell my clients not to waste time filling in that data. But only to Italian, English, French, etc. customers ... Not to Russian customers!
But Joomla needs a SEO team leader who should have a little more experience in international projects. By the way ... is there a SEO team leader in the organization?

[alikon]

But Joomla needs a SEO team leader who should have a little more experience in international projects.

@simbus82 i understand this like a candidature to do this work,
and imho we really need people that want to do work .....

so please submit a PR or a RFC ....whatever

p.s.
italians do it better

[brianteeman]

The reason for posting the toast link was to save time posting one link and not three. I am just submitting a pr to match the reques I have no clue on SEO.

[wilsonge]

I've edited the yoast url into the PR description so anyone coming to this PR sees it first :)

[wilsonge]

@simbus82 you don't need meta keywords for yandex if you're using json ld which we will be once I finish up #25117 (yandex has been supporting that program since 2011)

[wilsonge]

We're going to need to document a b/c break to banners if/when we go with this. It seems to filter by the documents keywords. So things like the menu and global config metadata as fallbacks will be relevant there. https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/blob/staging/modules/mod_banners/helper.php#L35

In the mean time I'm going to try and ping some people in the Russian community to gain some extra clarification over Yandex

[brianteeman]

Re Yandex it does use keywords if this is up to date https://yandex.com/support/webmaster/controlling-robot/html.html

[atpatil11]

Getting the following error while applying patch.

The file marked for modification does not exist: components/com_search/View/Search/HtmlView.php

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[Quiviro]

I have tested this item 🔴 unsuccessfully on a6409db

Same error message than alpatil11.
Meta Keywords field still in global config and menu item

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[b2z]

Correct me if I am wrong. Updating from J3 to J4 will affect only this - it won't produce a meta key in the frontend?

A little poll by me in Russian Telegram chat about keywords states that keywords are 99.9% useless for Yandex.

[wilsonge]

Correct

[brianteeman]

So do I spend my time updating this pr to resolve the conflicts or not?

[b2z]

Here is one experience with keywords and Yandex. Quoted and translated from Russian:

For a long time I was convinced that keyword is a rudiment, about a year ago I read an article about an experiment where a person added phrases to keywords that were not on the page, and after that he received visibility through them after the time. Believe it or not - this is, as usual in our topic, everyone’s business, but I personally leave it to myself.

[jwaisner]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 2e575aa

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[Quy]

I have tested this item ✅ successfully on 2e575aa

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[Quy]

RTC

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[brianteeman]

yay!!!!

[richard67]

@brianteeman Today at 12 UTC:

Content language isn't created with the language installation.

[richard67]

New issue or PR?

[richard67]

Will work on it.

[richard67]

Is SQL problem ... will fix it, be patient for new PR.

[richard67]

@brianteeman Shall the column keywords be removed from database table #__languages, or shall we keep it and use empty string default value? And how about other places where kewords were removed? I.e. what is the plan?

[brianteeman]

the intention was not to remove the fields in this pr as you will see that the field is still used for mod_related and com_banners

[richard67]

@brianteeman Thanks for feedback. Yes, noticed that, too, and am in the middle of making PR for allowing empty values in db. am just writing the testing instructions.

[richard67]

@brianteeman Could you check and test or review or both PR #27854 ?