[Craig]

I’m not sure how long this has been an issue, but Google’s Webmaster Tools has been kicking up errors on my Connections pages for the past few weeks about the following errors:

Error: Missing required field “entry-title”.
Error: Missing required field “updated”.

The problem is on all of my entries, and after doing a little digging it seems the entry-title error does not appear on older versions of the templates. (cMap 3.1 does not have the error, but it still has the “updated” error.)

So version 4.0 of the cMap and Market templates may have introduced the entry-title bug, but I’m not sure if the “Updated” field has ever been working, as checking older versions all show the error still appearing.

I was able to check multiple versions by checking other Connections sites using the following tool:

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets

The error appears when checking the cmap and market templates running on this site as well, although I strangely found one site using Market 4.0 where the entry-title error did not appear, so it may be a conflict with some themes?

• This topic was modified 12 years, 1 month ago by Craig.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Craig

This is a theme SEO issue for establishing the authorship of a page using the hAtom microdata markup. The entry data for Connections is marked up in the hCard microdata format which is not what the rich snippet tool is validating.

I found the following on the on the WordPress Support Forums:

//mod content
function hatom_mod_post_content ($content) {
  if ( in_the_loop() && !is_page() ) {
    $content = '<span class="entry-content">'.$content.'</span>';
  }
  return $content;
}
add_filter( 'the_content', 'hatom_mod_post_content');

//add hatom data
function add_mod_hatom_data($content) {
    $t = get_the_modified_time('F jS, Y');
    $author = get_the_author();
    $title = get_the_title();
    if ( is_single() || is_page()) {
        $content .= '<div class="hatom-extra"><span class="entry-title">'.$title.'</span> was last modified: <span class="updated"> '.$t.'</span> by <span class="author vcard"><span class="fn">'.$author.'</span></span></div>';
    }
    return $content;
    }
add_filter('the_content', 'add_mod_hatom_data');

Dropping that in the theme’s functions.php file should fix the error messages in the web master tools.

One of the SEO enhancements on my to do list will be to filter (set) the page date created/modified of a single entry to the entries created/modified dates instead of using the page’s.

Hope that helps!

[Craig]

Worked perfectly, thanks!

I dropped the code into Code Snippets instead of functions.php, which I know you’ve recommended before and is always better than directly modifying functions.php to prevent your changes from being overwritten if you ever update your theme – but I figured I’d mention it here just in case anyone else wants to add this code as well.

[Craig]

Just ran into a problem with the code. While it does remove the errors, it now puts the words “(page) was last modified: (date) by (author)” on every single page on my site, so this code snippet isn’t going to work.

I’ll try to read up more on it to see how I can add the info without adding that statement onto every page.

Thanks again.

[Craig]

After a little bit of digging I found the fix. Just a slight modification to the code:

//mod content
function hatom_mod_post_content ($content) {
  if ( in_the_loop() && !is_page() ) {
    $content = '<span class="entry-content">'.$content.'</span>';
  }
  return $content;
}
add_filter( 'the_content', 'hatom_mod_post_content');

//add hatom data
function add_mod_hatom_data($content) {
    $t = get_the_modified_time('F jS, Y');
    $author = get_the_author();
    $title = get_the_title();
    if ( is_single() || is_page()) {
        $content .= '<div class="hatom-extra" style="display:none;visibility:hidden;"><<span class="entry-title">'.$title.'</span> was last modified: <span class="updated"> '.$t.'</span> by <span class="author vcard"><span class="fn">'.$author.'</span></span></div>';
    }
    return $content;
    }
add_filter('the_content', 'add_mod_hatom_data');

In any case, it’s obvious that this problem is not in any way related to Connections-Pro and is instead a widespread WordPress problem – so your assistance in resolving it was above and beyond anything anyone could expect of you, and just one more reason why I can’t recommend this plugin to anyone interested in purchasing it enough.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Craig

Yes, this would put text on the page, apologies for not pointing that out!

I took a quick look at your tweak, looks like you have an extra angle bracket on the hatom-extra line. This fixes it:

//mod content
function hatom_mod_post_content ($content) {
  if ( in_the_loop() && !is_page() ) {
    $content = '<span class="entry-content">'.$content.'</span>';
  }
  return $content;
}
add_filter( 'the_content', 'hatom_mod_post_content');

//add hatom data
function add_mod_hatom_data($content) {
    $t = get_the_modified_time('F jS, Y');
    $author = get_the_author();
    $title = get_the_title();
    if ( is_single() || is_page()) {
        $content .= '<div class="hatom-extra" style="display:none;visibility:hidden;"><span class="entry-title">'.$title.'</span> was last modified: <span class="updated"> '.$t.'</span> by <span class="author vcard"><span class="fn">'.$author.'</span></span></div>';
    }
    return $content;
    }
add_filter('the_content', 'add_mod_hatom_data');

I was just about to hit the submit button to post my reply…

I really do not like the entry-content span that is being applied … if your content has any block level HTML elements then HTML code is invalid. A better solution (as long as the theme is using the post_class() function like they should be) would be this:

//mod content
function hatom_mod_post_content ($content) {
  if ( in_the_loop() && !is_page() ) {
    $classes = 'entry-content';
  }
  return $classes;
}
add_filter( 'post_class', 'hatom_mod_post_content');

//add hatom data
function add_mod_hatom_data($content) {
    $t = get_the_modified_time('F jS, Y');
    $author = get_the_author();
    $title = get_the_title();
    if ( is_single() || is_page()) {
        $content .= '<div class="hatom-extra" style="display:none;visibility:hidden;"><span class="entry-title">'.$title.'</span> was last modified: <span class="updated"> '.$t.'</span> by <span class="author vcard"><span class="fn">'.$author.'</span></span></div>';
    }
    return $content;
    }
add_filter('the_content', 'add_mod_hatom_data');

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