html - How to add meta tag's values for seo using PHP?
I am using one header file for every page which will show the HTML head(which includes meta tags and other CSS links)
Here I have used everything as dynamic as if I like in the case of canonical tags I have used $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'].$_SERVER['REQUEST_HOST'] and all other links to CSS are also accessible even if it can be any file from any directory.
Now I want to create a one-time title meta tag & description tags like this will be my main file looks like
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<title><?php echo $page_title; ?></title>
<meta name="description" content="<?php echo $page_content; ?>" />
//Other meta tags & linking to css & js files
</head>
<body>
// Content ........
</body>
</html>
Now here is the twist is that many people will say that just use
$page_title = "Here is the title of the specific page";
$page_content = "Here goes the long-form description describing the page of specific page";
Yes, this would have worked out if the pages were different and had the same place to put that all before including the header file.
But my index page looks like this let me explain it too. (Using Bulma as a framework)
<?php
require 'include/db_connect.php';
require 'include/header.php';
?>
<form name="submitform" method="POST">
<div class="columns is-multiline" id="wrapper">
<div class="column is-6-desktop is-12-tablet" id="main_content">
<div class="box">
<?php
if($country)
{
?>
<?php require 'inc/country.php'; ?>
<?php
}
else if($country && $state)
{
?>
<?php require 'inc/country_state.php' ?>
<?php
}
else if($country && $state && $district)
{
?>
<?php require 'inc/country_state_district.php'; ?>
<?php
}
else
{
?>
<?php require 'inc/other_than.php'; ?>
<?php
}
?>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</form>
<?php require 'footer.php'; ?>
</body>
</html>
The main point here is that I am using the dropdown button which gets auto-submitted using js that's not relevant here but from the top, I have just explained what is the structure of my code.
Now as you can see the if-else structure which includes other files that create dynamic pages but their code starts only from the body and not from the head directly so I am not able to add those title tags and descriptions.
Now how to add title & description tags uniquely to each of these pages.
Any solutions, please... Thanks in Advance
Answer
Solution:
Like already written in the comments. You should define the vars ahead of require 'include/header.php'; or use an MVC structure.
If you still want to stay with the existing code ob_get_contents() might help you.
Use ob_start(); at the beginning to tell PHP to not print any output and instead write the output to a buffer.
You can then at a later point use ob_get_contents(); to fetch the output buffer and print it.
You have to search in the output buffer for an identifier like %page_title% then and replace it with the actual value before sending the output.
This may look like following:
echo str_replace(%page_title%, $page_title, ob_get_contents());
Still I'd rather suggest restructuring your code, as the solution with output buffer is slower, uses more memory and is poor to debug.
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