Limit page title to 60-70 chars for SEO

[nickdenardis]

Reason for change

When page titles are longer, the addition of the site name, sur-title name, and then "Wayne State University" pushes the title tag into the triple digits for length.

SEO recommends 60-character limit for page titles.

Proposed solution

Because the page title can be changed up to the line before the view is called, the logic needs to exist in the template itself. Dropping right into raw PHP in Blade.

Moved the logic to a helper function which is called within the merge() function before the view.

Tests have also been added.

• The page title from the CMS is not modified and is prioritized
• The sur-title site name has been dropped, it isn't needed in this context since it is already visible on the page
• The site title is optional based on space. From all the recommendations we have seen, this is less important than the university name
• University name is included only if there is enough room and doesn't push it over an extended 70-char limit

Examples

https://engineering.wayne.edu/mechanical/academics/bs
Current: <title>Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering - Mechanical Engineering - Wayne State University</title>
Ideal: <title>Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering - Wayne State University</title>

https://engineering.wayne.edu/electrical-computer/academics/master-electrical-engineering
Current: <title>Master of science in electrical engineering - Electrical and Computer Engineering - Wayne State University</title>
Ideal: <title>Master of science in electrical engineering - Wayne State University</title>

TODO

• Logic in place
• Tests in place

[chrispelzer]

If you didn't want to do it in the template, you could also move it to the merge() function which should be part of each of the Controller on it's way to the view.
https://github.com/waynestate/base-site/blob/master/app/Support/helpers.php#L8-L39

Also can be tested with where the merge tests happen, though not 100% sure.

Long-term solution, we move the 2 helper functions to part of a helper repository for each of them as a class rather than a functions.

[nickdenardis]

If you didn't want to do it in the template, you could also move it to the merge() function which should be part of each of the Controller on it's way to the view. https://github.com/waynestate/base-site/blob/master/app/Support/helpers.php#L8-L39

Also can be tested with where the merge tests happen, though not 100% sure.

Long-term solution, we move the 2 helper functions to part of a helper repository for each of them as a class rather than a functions.

That is not a bad idea! All of $request->data looks like it is there and it would be easier to test.

[coveralls]

coverage: 99.906% (+0.002%) from 99.904%
when pulling 8293c10 on feature/page-title-seo
into 6ad35d7 on develop.

[breakdancingcat]

👍🏻 Thank you!

[chrispelzer]

Works for me, lot cleaner