How do I configure Confluence search results so not garbage Descriptions in Confluence and Google?
Asked by Julie Bateman:

When a user in our Confluence wiki conducts a search, the results show garbage descriptions cobbled together from bits of the content.

Ideally I would like to programmatically inject the first sentence of (paragraph style) content for both internal searches AND Google/Bing etc searches **Description tag** meta. Ideally also not have the date of the content either as some of our content is uptodate but old.

We are moving to Confuence Serve 6.15. Will that help?

Ideally:

CONFLUENCE SEARCH RESULTS

**\[ICON\] This is the title of the first search result page**

This description is the first line (paragraph style) of the associated content and it is ok if it goes to ellipses after a certain number of characters...

**\[ICON\] This is the title of the second search result page**

This description is the first line (paragraph style) of the associated content and it is ok if it goes to ellipses after a certain number of characters...

**\[ICON\] This is the title of the third search result page**

This description is the first line (paragraph style) of the associated content and it is ok if it goes to ellipses after a certain number of characters...

GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS

\[Title Tag\]

\[Description meta - first sentence of content paragraph style\]

Thanks in advance.


Answers:
author: Julie Bateman
body: As advised the SEO Manager add-on has failed testing - it could not edit meta description or title tags.

However searching K15T's help centre I found the following (I hope) solution using the native Page Properties macro.

<https://help.k15t.com/scroll-viewport/latest/using-page-properties-in-templates-for-seo-130123098.html>

comments: author: Julie Bateman
body: we're upgrading to 6.15 and we'll give it a go after that's done.


author: David _K15t_
body: Hi,

I just wanted to mention, that we at K15t are going to release a macro-based way of assigning those tags in Viewport as opposed to the current page properties implementation.

Cheers,

David


author: Julie Bateman
body: Hi David

Oh wow! When? We have Viewport and are upgrading to 6.15 imminently.

Wonder how many times someone has called u a ninja. :)


author: Angela L_
body: [@David _K15t_](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/1212853) Did K15t release that "macro-based way of assigning those tags in Viewport", and if so, what's this feature called?


author: Prithvi Tharun
body: [@Julie Bateman](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3234692) I just tried SEO Manager. But I don't find an option to add SEO Title. I could only add the Meta description.   

Even the meta description isn't reflected on Google search. It's been more than 48 hours since I updated the meta description.   

I'm using "SEO Metadata" macro.   

Is there anything I'm missing?  

TIA

comments: author: Julie Bateman
body: HI Prithvi

I haven't installed as yet as we're upgrading soon.

Troubling your Description tag is not updating in Google.

Can you submit your site to Google for crawling? Might speed things up.

<https://www.searchenginejournal.com/submit-websites-webpages-search-engines/296253/#close>


author: Prithvi Tharun
body: Thanks a lot, [@Julie Bateman](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3234692) I'll give this a try!


author: Julie Bateman
body: It's not creating a Description tag. It doesn't work. The only comments on the seo manager reviews were about the xml sitemap generation which apparently works.

the metadata aspect is a dud.

So there's no way to edit Meta Description in Confluence.

The only thing we can try is to get our developers to programmatically create Meta Description from the first paragraph text.


author: Julie Bateman
body: Hey there

Thanks so much. Will check these links out. We're using Confluence more like a CMS with 3K articles published so SEO is important to us.

Cheers

Julie

comments: author: Julie Bateman
body: Update: I looked at our suggestions but there wasn't anything specific to our needs, that is to create meaningful content Description metadata to prevent garbage descriptions internally and the search engines.

However it looks like the SEO Manager add-on might do the job.

[https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211708/seo-manager-open-source?hosting=server\&tab=overview](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211708/seo-manager-open-source?hosting=server&tab=overview)

SEO MACRO

To display a nice excerpt in search engines, the SEO macro on each page helps you define a custom title,**page description**, image, etc.


author: Diego
body: Hey Julie, thanks for sharing this with our Community. Let us know if the tool ends up solving the situation you are going through.

Since SEO manager is a free tool, trying it out should be fast enough!


author: Julie Bateman
body: Sadly it doesn't edit metatags just creates some crappy ones in the middle of text but hidden. Does not create Description which is critical.

Will have to ask the devs to create a script that pulls the first paragraph text from our topics and insert into metadescription tag.


author: Diego
body: Hello there!

Hey Julie, natively this is not supported. We can quite possibly achieve something similar through ++*Third-Party Applications*++ *,* such as:
> * ***[Better Search for Confluence](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1218076/better-search-for-confluence?hosting=server&tab=overview)***
> * [***Instant Search***](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/16936/instant-search?hosting=server&tab=overview)

What we ++*Can* *Do*++ with Confluence search can be checked here:

***[Configuring the Confluence Search and Index](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/configuring-the-confluence-search-and-index-313468163.html)***

Also, currently, Confluence Search has a pretty similar style to what you described. You can check it here:

***[Confluence Server - Search](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/search-139528.html)***

Let us know from you Julie!


Tags: atl-adm

confluence-server