Web

Page Properties Updates

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As part of an optimization project, page properties will be evolving over the next 1-2 AEM releases. The March 2020 AEM Release contained changes to page properties across all templates. In this article, we have included information on these fields as you will see them - when creating a page and when filling out the SEO tab of page properties. You can use the anchor links to skip directly to information on each field. 

The fields that have changed: 

  • Basic Tab - Title (Removed - functionality replaced by other fields)
  • Basic Tab - URL (New Field)
  • SEO Tab - Title Tag (New Field)
  • SEO Tab - Canonical URL (New Field)

Page Creation 

There are four fields in two tabs that you will need to fill out in order to create a new page. You will fill out the URL, Page Title, and Description in the Basic tab, then flip to the SEO tab to fill out the Title Tag. 

1. URL

The text you enter in the URL field forms the end portion of the URL (previously, the Title field formed the URL). Forming the URL is the only thing this field does.

IMPORTANT: Enter URL in URL format - all lowercase

Include dashes between words. Example: my-super-cool-page

For this URL: https://www.nature.org/en-us/what-we-do/our-insights/perspectives/aquaculture-opportunity/

You would enter aquaculture-opportunity in the URL field. 

NEVER Use capital letters in URLs 

Character Limit: 50

Tip: Remember that you don’t need to include unnecessary words, like "and", "the", "for", "in", and "to" in the URL. 

Tip: Do not use spaces, underscores, capital letters, accents, nor special characters. 50 character limit.”

2. Page Title

The page title will be used in internal search results.

Character limit: 150

Tip: stay well below the character limit.

 

3. Description 

This should be an enticing sentence or two about what readers will find on this page. It will be used on page cards and in internal search results. 

Tip: Keep the description below 160 characters. Anything longer will get cut off in most places. 

4. Title Tag

This is what is seen in the browser tab, on page cards, and Google search results. It should be a shorter version of the page title and include high value words. However, since it can be seen externally, it makes sense to make it something that can be read and understood by external audiences. 

Character Limit: 50

ERROR!

If you see the error below - don't panic! The issue is most likely with the URL field. Make sure that the URL entered in this field is in URL format with dashes between the words: 

Example: my-cool-article-name

Character Limit: 50

Tip: Remember that you don’t need to include unnecessary words, like "and", "the", "for", "in", and "to" in the URL. 

IMPORTANT: Do not use spaces, underscores, capital letters, accents, nor special characters. In the URL field. Only lower case letters, numbers, and dashes.

 

SEO Tab

Title Tag

Filled out upon page creation. See section above. 

META Description

The Meta description shows up in external search engine results below the headline and acts as a descriptor for the page.* This description is what a person will use to decide whether or not to click on the page. Make it persuasive and interesting, and keep it below 160 characters.

*Sometimes, Google will rewrite the search results blurb or grab a sentence from the page. We cannot control when this is done. 

Canonical URL

The vast majority of the time you will not need to worry about the canonical field. In fact, in a future release we’ll be hiding this field to remove confusion around it.

Here are a few examples of pages where the canonical field would be useful:

These pages were originally published on other websites and were later also published on nature.org. Previously, the only thing telling Google and readers that this article was originally published somewhere else were the words “Originally posted on”. Now, we can also use the canonical URL field to link to that original article from AEM to make it extra clear to Google that this is done for the benefit of our readers.

There are a couple of other situations we’d want to use it, but it would be mostly the Global Digital team who would implement it.

META Keyword

Leave blank. This field is no longer relevant to SEO. We will be hiding it in a future release to avoid confusion. 

META Robots

Leave blank. We will be hiding this field in a future release to avoid confusion. 

Google Site Verification Code

Leave blank. We will be hiding this field in a future release to avoid confusion.