Meta Tags in Dynamic Pages

We used ProductCart and heavily customized it to meet our business needs. In our header.asp file the "metatags-includes.asp" file that dynamically generates meta-tags / keywords for each page, does not work for the custom category templates we created and instead features the store's "default" metatags. I guess this is because the custom category templates are not mentioned in the metatags-includes.asp file.

One option is to go into the "metatags-includes" file and somehow specify each category template, however I am not sure if I would know how to do this. Another option (which I can do) would be to overwrite the default metatag in each of the custom category templates, but I am not sure if this would work. By overwrite I mean, include the full code for metatags and keywords unique to each category template and place it directly above the "header.asp" file which initializes the "metatags-includes.asp" file. Essentially each of my custom category templates would have TWO series of metatags, with the first one being the one I want the spiders to use. Do you know if this option would work?

I don't want to re-hire my old developer each time I need something small done, therefore I want to try to get my hands dirty with the tech stuff so please consider me a "beginner" when you respond with instructions.

Sean@WMS wrote: Hi newyorker1212,   Essentially each of my custom category templates would have TWO series of metatags, with the first one being the one I want the spiders to use.   Is this based on sniffing for the user client to see if it's a robot?

I am not sure what you mean, can you please clarify?

I'm simply wondering if I had to series of metatags one on top of the other would the first group of metatags be the one that counts?

example:

FIRST (MANUALLY INPUTTED TO EACH CUSTOM CATEGORY TEMPLATES)

<title>Greatest Furniture in the world</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="chairs, cabinets, closets">
<meta name="description" content="Handcrafted bedrooms and living rooms furniture">
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

SECOND (GENERATED DYNAMICALLY)

<title>Shopping cart software: ProductCart by Early Impact</title>
<meta name="keywords" content="shopping cart software,sell online,asp shopping cart,ecommerce software,ecommerce solutions,asp shopping carts,shopping cart program,storefront software,productcart,early impact">
<meta name="description" content="Shopping cart software and ecommerce solutions by Early Impact: ProductCart asp shopping carts are used by thousands of e-commerce Web sites to sell products online.">
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

Hi have to echo Greg here (and am glad he beat me to the punch here -- was just trying through how to say essentially the same thing, but had a phone call).

I was wondering if you were suggesting that you wanted one set of meta tags for robots and another end-users, but I see that's not what you meant.

I would strongly advise against trying what you were thinking here as you will not only end up with two sets of meta tags (which would take some testing to see which set any given search engine robot will decide to use -- my guess would be the latter set most of the time), but the first set of your meta tags would come out in the wrong place the way you described it here.

You would be much better off customizing the way these are handled vis a vis PC's built in functionality. And I wouldn't say that's entry level scripting -- maybe not even intermediate level stuff.

Hi NewYorker1212,
    I'm guessing your example was just that and that you have changed the default metatag values that you used in your posting, but, just in case, they can be modified. See : http://wiki.earlyimpact.com/productcart/seo-meta-tags#editing_the_default_meta_tags