Show Thread Enhancements - Facebook / Open Graph (og:description) / (og:title) tag fixes for VB 4.1.10+ by BOP5

Brought to you by BirdOPrey5 / Qapla.com.

For some reason vBulletin 4.x does not use the thread's meta description when populating the open graph "description" tag that is read by Facebook and other social networking sites. Instead by default vBulletin uses your site default meta description that is set in Admin CP -> Settings -> Options -> Site Name / URL / Contact Details.

This default description is usually very generic whereas the thread description is the first few sentences of the thread and therefore usually far more useful to describe the page actually being shared than your generic site description.

Also even with the Facebook Platform enabled vBulletin doesn't provide an open graph title tag at all- while in practice this isn't a big deal as Facebook will default to the page title, as a matter of good practice it should be explicitly provided.

This mod fixes both issues. It will override the generic description with the thread's meta description which is based on the text of the first post. It also adds an explicit og:title tag.

New In Version 1.2.0 - The mod now also greatly improves the open graph tag description tag for blog entries. By default the description tag is the blog title followed by the username of the blog poster. With this mod the description becomes up to a 300 character preview of the actual blog entry instead. And the open graph title tag provided takes the form of blog title Posted By username.

Blog Demo: http://www.totallycommercials.com/en...ckbuster-Video
Thread Demo: http://www.totallycommercials.com/sh...how-Commercial
(View page source or better yet, share on Facebook to see the differences. )

This mod is only for people with VB 4.1.10 or higher and only if you have the Facebook Platform enabled in your settings. It will do nothing if both of those do not apply to you.

There are no settings- just install the product and the mod is active.

To see the difference use the Facebook Debugger to look at the content scraped off a thread page before and after instillation-
Facebook Debugger is here: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug

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Please "Mark as Installed" if you use this.
Donations always appreciated. :up:
Nominate MOTM if you LOVE it!

[RamdonGhai]

How can we get this to work with CMS articles. Why would someone overlook something like this?

[RamdonGhai]

edit* I tried to do it came to a fail, and then saw your post on why it's harder to get the article title value in the head.

Has anyone written a script that gets the value of thread title for the requested cms article and inserts that into the og array?

I'm sure it's a dirty solution, but I have no idea why vbulletin thought this wouldn't be a useful patch.

[BirdOPrey5]

The og title tag isn't that important, if not present the page title is used instead- I only threw it in since it was only 1 line of code for the blogs/threads... It isn't worth the effort to add it for CMS articles in my opinion.

[ckgb]

Any plans on extending this very useful modification to Social Groups?

Thank you

[Gripi]

Hello..

I saw this two is blank when i open a thread and view source:

<meta property="og:description" content="" />

<meta property="og:title" content="" />

Is it normal? i'm using 4.2.1

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by ckgb

Any plans on extending this very useful modification to Social Groups?

Thank you

Not really because usually social groups aren't publicly accessible in my experience so never really thought much about Facebook sharing. I suppose I can look into it for those who have guest visible socialgroups.

Originally Posted by Gripi

Hello..

I saw this two is blank when i open a thread and view source:

<meta property="og:description" content="" />

<meta property="og:title" content="" />

Is it normal? i'm using 4.2.1

No it's not normal- it may be the result of another modification. Do you by chance have installed VSa - Forums Online CountUp installed?- I found out recently that mod causes such problems with the Facebook Open Graph array.

[Gripi]

Hello..

No.. i didnt install the VSa - Forums Online CountUp mods, i'm using this mods:

GlowHost - Spam-O-Matic
Spam Hammer 1-Series
[OzzModz] First Post On All Pages Per Thread/Forum
SevenSkins Image Resizer
Rotating Banner System
Separate Sticky and Normal Threads

[sv1cec]

Have you switched on the Facebook options, in the Options/Facebook Admin page?

[BirdOPrey5]

Originally Posted by Gripi

Hello..

No.. i didnt install the VSa - Forums Online CountUp mods, i'm using this mods:

GlowHost - Spam-O-Matic
Spam Hammer 1-Series
[OzzModz] First Post On All Pages Per Thread/Forum
SevenSkins Image Resizer
Rotating Banner System
Separate Sticky and Normal Threads

Please post or PM a link to a thread on your site.

[ozzy47]

Originally Posted by Gripi

Hello..

No.. i didnt install the VSa - Forums Online CountUp mods, i'm using this mods:

GlowHost - Spam-O-Matic
Spam Hammer 1-Series
[OzzModz] First Post On All Pages Per Thread/Forum
SevenSkins Image Resizer
Rotating Banner System
Separate Sticky and Normal Threads

Joe if it is [OzzModz] First Post On All Pages Per Thread/Forum let me know.

Gripi, are you using the Atakan one, or mine? Separate Sticky and Normal Threads