Simple PHP script for updating meta description tags

[Critic]

This morning I was looking at my webguide PHPLD database. I noticed that none of the categories had meta description tags. This is not good, because directory pages do not have muscle actual content on the pages it's important to have something that the search engines can use in the SERPs. And I don't know about you, but when I'm searching what is written below the URL plays a key role in helping me choose whether to click or not.

So, I wrote a little script that you can upload to your server, change a few things and give all your categories meta tags.

PHP Code:


// Enter your database settings here
define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
define('DB_NAME', 'YOUR-DB-NAME');
define('DB_USER', 'YOUR-DB-USER');
define('DB_PASSWORD', 'YOUR-DB-PASS');

// enter your meta desc string here
$meta_description = 'The top 10 websites for %CATNAME%. %CATNAME% resources and links page.';

$db = mysql_connect(DB_HOST,DB_USER,DB_PASSWORD);
mysql_select_db(DB_NAME);

$res = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM PLD_CATEGORY");

while($row = mysql_fetch_array($res)) {
    
    // create new meta description tag
    $new_meta_desc = str_replace('%CATNAME%', $row['TITLE'], $meta_description);
    
    // update the row
    mysql_query("UPDATE PLD_CATEGORY SET META_DESCRIPTION = '$new_meta_desc' WHERE ID = '$row[ID]'");
    
} 

echo 'done!'; 


All you have to do is enter your DB information (user/pass etc) and write your desired meta description tag. You don't want all your meta descriptions to be the same so you can add %CATNAME% in your meta description which will be replaced with the actual category name. You can see I used:

The top 10 websites for %CATNAME%. %CATNAME% resources and links page.

So this would be:

The top 10 websites for Cars and Automotive. Cars and Automotive resources and links page.

Simple, but effective. Enjoy!

[Meti]

Damien,

I was just taking a look at e-Sweden, powered by phpLD (v3) and I noticed there's a option to rebuild the meta tags for categories, though I doubt the free version (v2) supports this feature, so my question would be, which version did you try that with?

Regards,
Meti