Meta tags

This gem allows for setting and retrieving HTML meta tags for SEO and URL sharing optimization.

Installing

Add the gem to your Gemfile

gem 'meta_tags', git: "git://github.com/vala/meta_tags.git"

Run the install generator :

rails generate meta_tags:install

Usage

There are multiple ways to define meta tags for your pages.

In the following section, you'll find how to :

Display the meta tags in your pages
Define default values for the application
Manually set meta tags in your controller
Retrieve meta tags from models
Automatically retrieve meta tags from locale files
Store meta tags in the database to allow the webmasters edit them

1. Display the meta tags in your pages

Simply call the meta_tags method in your layout file :

<html>
  <head>
    <%= meta_tags %>
    ...
  </head>
  <body>
    ...
  </body>
</html>

If you need to generate Open Graph or Twitter cards meta tags, your can use the :vendors option :

<%= meta_tags vendors: [:open_graph, :twitter]

This will generate the appropriate meta tags for optimizing the sharing preview on both Facebook and Twitter platforms, and all the Open Graph compliant ones.

2. Define default values for the application

To define default values, set the config.defaults inside the generated initializer at : config/initializers/meta_tags.rb :

MetaTags.config do |config|
  config.defaults = lambda do
    { title: 'My website' }
  end
end

3. Manually set meta tags in your controller

From a controller instance, i.e. a hook or action, you can use the set_meta_tag helper, which allows you to set each meta tag, one by one.

This is the most manual way of doing it, and is often used when no SEO tools are given to the webmasters, and the more automatic solutions do not match for your use case.

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  def show
    @post = Post.find(params[:id])

    set_meta_tag(:title, @post.title)
    set_meta_tag(:description, @post.excerpt)
    set_meta_tag(:image, @post.image.url(:thumb))
  end
end

4. Retrieve meta tags from models

Meta tags can try to guess meta tags from your model, using the following helper in a controller instance :

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  def show
    @post = Post.find(params[:id])

    meta_tags_from(@post)
  end
end

This will try to build the title, description and image tags from the model.

For that to work, a certain number of methods are tried on the model. Those methods are configurable in the initializer file. Defaults are as follow :

config.title_methods = %w(title name)
config.description_methods = %w(description desc content)
config.image_methods = %w(image picture avatar)

5. Automatically retrieve meta tags from locale files

You can set the meta tags from the locales with the the structure of meta_tags.controller.<controller_name>.<action_name>.<tag_name> :

en:
  meta_tags:
    controller:
      posts:
        index:
          title: "My blog"
          description: "Fresh posts from my super blog"

6. Store meta tags in the database to allow the webmasters edit them

Meta tags comes with a simple meta tags container model built-in : MetaTags::List, which contains the following fields :

meta_title
meta_description
meta_keywords

You can make a model meta taggable by adding the acts_as_meta_taggable macro to your model :

class Post < ActiveRecord::Base
  acts_as_meta_taggable
end

You'll the be able to edit meta tagged data linked to your resource in your admin form :

<%= form_for(@post) do |form| %>
  <%= fields_for(:meta_tags_list) do |fields| %>
    <%= form.text_field :meta_title %>
    <%= form.text_area :meta_description %>
    <%= form.text_area :meta_keywords %>
  <% end %>
<% end %>

The to retrieve the meta tags in your controller, you cas use the set_meta_tags_from_list helper :

class PostsController < ApplicationController
  def show
    @post = Post.find(params[:id])

    set_meta_tags_from_list(@post.meta_tags_list)
  end
end

Managing meta tags not bound to a resource

For the pages that don't map with resource 1 to 1, index and home pages for example, you can manually generate models with an identifier.

In a seeds file :

MetaTags::List.create!(name: 'Home page', identifier: 'home')

In your admin panel, you can list all non-resource meta tags lists with the without_meta_taggable scope, to create a dedicated admin panel :

@meta_tags = MetaTags::List.without_meta_taggable

Then in your controllers, retrieve them with their identifier :

class HomeController < ApplicationController
  def index
    set_meta_tags_from_list(:home)
  end
end

meta_tags

Development

Runtime