Community Forums › Forums › Archived Forums › General Discussion › Stop Menu Titles Being Duplicated Into Page Titles
- This topic has 11 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 9 years, 9 months ago by Summer.
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July 9, 2014 at 4:14 am #113539jonahMember
Hi all,
I would have thought this to be an integral part of the Genesis framework and therefore simple to do but I have a problem with my page titles. They seem to be copied/duplicated directly from whatever I choose to name my Main Navigation Menu items.
E.g. the ‘Contact Us’ menu title is copied as the title for that page.
I have a Resources menu and ‘Resources’ becomes the page title.
Each additional sub menu of the resources menu also duplicates its title as the page title for each sub menu.
This isn’t an issue with some pages as they are named the same but when, for example, I have a Nav menu titled of HASWA 1974 it fits well but I want the actual page title to read ‘Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 it simply reads HASWA 1974.
Hope that I am making sense here.
My two main concerns are that whatever I do must be done as a child theme to prevent any changes if/when updates in genesis/Wordpress and I don’t want to affect SEO in any way so unsure if a plugin actually removes code/prevents me from putting own title in or affects SEO in any way. Open to suggestions on this.
I am also green around the gills when it comes to CSS etc (learning slowly) but will also do it that way if I have the process down for a learner. (Step by step). I have changed some CSS style and functions php for my header and responsiveness so I know where it is.
Also, if using CSS/php to make these changes am I best doing this through the editor on my wordpress dashboard or is it best to do it through FTP or my host cPanel areas? Confusing stuff this.
FYI - I am using the up to date Genesis Executive Pro Theme (child theme) and up to date WordPress 3.9.1………….I want everything I do to be done in a child theme.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Cheers
Jonah
July 9, 2014 at 7:15 am #113549wyurmanMemberIf I'm understanding you, you can customize how a page title will display in the menu by going to the menu page. Use the dropdown arrow to open up a menu item and then use the 'Navigation Label' field to customize the name as you want it to appear in your menu.
Hope that makes sense. 🙂
will
July 9, 2014 at 7:55 am #113558jonahMemberThanks for your reply.
Not sure I fully understand what you are saying though as changing the navigation label field alters the name of the menu item and I don’t want to do that. I am happy with the menu item name.
I basically have this:-
My Top Nav Menu is this:- Home – Courses – Resources – Testimonials – Contact Us
When selecting ‘Resources’ you get a dropdown box that says ‘HASWA 1974’, which fits perfect for a dropdown box.
However, when you then select HASWA 1974 from the dropdown menu it opens a page that has HASWA 1974 plastered across the top of it. Looks ugly and I don’t want it to say HASWA 1974 I want my page title/heading to say ‘Forklift Training and the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974’
However, when I try to alter HASWA 1974 by editing the page, it also alters the Nav menu from HSAWA 1974 to ‘Forklift Training and the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974’, which is too long for a nav menu heading.
How do I prevent the HASWA 1974 even showing up in the first place?
If I can prevent this from showing up, does it affect SEO? It is after all my ‘page title’ as determined by the nav menu set up which goes a great way in aiding SEO.
If I can prevent this from showing up, should I use a plugin or change CSS/php?
Hope that makes more sense.
Cheers
Jonah
July 9, 2014 at 9:01 am #113565SummerMemberYour page title is determined by the title you give the page, not by what's in the nav menu. When you look at the list of pages from the Pages admin menu, those are the page titles, and 99% of the time, their permalinks match the titles, as well as any labels used by default in the menus.
So when you change the title of the page, it's automatically changed in the menu, so as to be consistent for your navigation.
Your best bet would be to keep the page title as the long name, and change the label of it in the menu to the short name you prefer.
When you say you don't want the page to show up, do you mean the page title, or the page in the nav menu?
WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After DarkJuly 9, 2014 at 10:35 am #113576jonahMemberThanks Summer.
Didn't think it was going to be this confusing.
This is an example of what I am asking:-
I have created a Menu titled Resources.
From that Resources Menu I have multiple sub menus that drop from it.
One is 'HASWA 1974'.
One is 'ACOP L117'.
I have more that drop down that are also abbreviated.Using the ACOP L117 sub menu as an example this is what that page looks like at the top once it is opened:-
ACOP L177
ACOP L117 – Approved Code of Practice L117 – Rider Operated Lift Trucks
The phrase 'ACOP L117' is duplicated instantly into the top left hand corner of the page and becomes the page heading. I don't want it showing there at all as the page heading.
Altering the original page that I used to create that sub menu (ACOP L117) in the first place simply alters that phrase to something else, which in turn alters the sub menu title. I don't want to alter the sub menu title of ACOP L117.
What I want to do is stop it from showing up at the top of the page all together. Perhaps hiding it or doing away with it?
Can it be done?
Is it best to use a plugin to do that or CSS/php?
If it can be done, will it affect the SEO value as it is a title?Cheers
Jonah
July 9, 2014 at 10:43 am #113577wyurmanMemberHey Jonah,
I think maybe I understand? 🙂 Would be easier if we could do screen shots. But...by default the menu name that appears in the menu is whatever you name your post or page.But, you can change that. So you could for example name a page ACOP L117 and also have that what shows up in the dropdown menu. OR, you could name the page 'Ice Cream' but change the Navigation Field to remain ACOP L117
In your case, I think you've titled the page (or post) ACOP L117 and then have 'ACOP L117 – Approved Code of Practice L117 – Rider Operated Lift Trucks' at the top of the content of the page.
To avoid that duplication, you could simply delete the title of the post, leave it blank. And just put ACOP L117 in the navigation field on the menu page so that it shows up in your menus.
I don't know for sure if this will affect your SEO, but I assume it might. I would consider using tags as a way to increase SEO. But I am not an expert at all in SEO.
Hope that helps some...
WillJuly 9, 2014 at 11:20 am #113582SummerMember@Jonah, you are misunderstanding how page titles work, what you think is a duplication is the title you gave the page, and the default WordPress behavior to display that page title before the content of the page you created, and for that name to appear in menus. That behavior will happen whether you use Genesis or a standalone theme.
If you use the abbreviations as the page titles, that will display in both areas. If you use the full descriptions, that's what will display in both areas.
Fortunately, it can be worked around, fairly easily with Genesis 🙂
What you want to try is the plugin Genesis Title Toggle. It will let you individually display the page title on the page or not.
It will not change or remove that from the page's Title, which is what will show up in search results, so you should consider which name you want to show up in search engines.
WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After DarkJuly 9, 2014 at 11:52 am #113589jonahMemberThanks Summer.
I understood that it was the page title that I was generating and how I was generating it.
What I wanted to know was if/how to stop it from appearing where it appears and if by doing so it affected the SEO value given that it is a page title and important for SEO.
Which leads me back to my original post of either using a plugin such as genesis title toggle or to changing CSS/php.
Does using the plugin alter the SEO values?
Is it best to use css/php?If a plugin alters SEO then I could use a step by step on going the CSS/php route.
Cheers
Jonah
July 9, 2014 at 12:01 pm #113590jonahMemberThanks wyurman.
You confused me with 'changing the navigation label'. In my theme this changes both the page title AND the menu title at the same time to the same thing so confused as to your explanation.
Deleting ACOP L117 from the title bar and adding it to navigation label confused me further as by doing that simply deletes the type from the sub menu and leaves me with out a slug for SEO.
Plugin or CSS?
Thanks anyway
Jonah
July 9, 2014 at 12:46 pm #113594SummerMemberThe title toggle plugin only hides/removes the page title from the content area when viewing the page. I don't know if this affects SEO or not, I always thought that SEO relied upon the document title that showed up in the header, not in the body (meaning the title that appears in the title bar of your browser, not the page content). That's what is indexed by search engines, which is why the search results have the "Post Title -- Site Title" format that's exactly what you see in the Genesis SEO settings (or whatever SEO plugin you're using).
Changing the label in the menu should not also change the page title... When you are in the Menus admin menu, and you're editing the navigation where your page menus are, you can change the Label of the page you want to be the short name you want, while keeping the name of the page the longer one you want for SEO purposes.
For example, your page title could be "Contact Us", but your Navigation Label would be "Contact Our Sales Department"
Making that change will not change your page title.
WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After DarkJuly 9, 2014 at 4:35 pm #113646jonahMemberThanks for all your help guys, much appreciated. Due to my limited understanding to date, much of what is written may as well be in a foreign language initially but got there in the end.
As it turns out, when creating the Top Nav Menu in the first place it is far simpler to create the page and name it whatever I intend the page heading to be (i.e. Approved Code of Practice L117 - Rider Operated Lift Trucks) ...........then alter the navigation label to set the menu title as ACOP L117. I get it. I got it. I did it. Cheers.
Been watching too many long winded YouTube tutorials that do it in an arse about face way. Never seen the nav label being used like that and not sure what I was doing but it must have been wrong. All sorted now and at least I didn't wreck my website in the process this time.
Also no need for the Genesis Title Toggle plugin. I did install and use it and thought it was so simple and great but once I figured out the above it seems redundant for my purposes, which is a bonus really as I think I'm currently overloaded with too many of those shiny little plugins and at this time I still don't know how many of them actually assist me.....if at all. Another learning experience to come with those I think.
Cheers guys
Jonah
July 9, 2014 at 4:50 pm #113649SummerMemberGlad you got it sorted!
WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
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