Placeholder not inserting meta tags correctly

**robobugs** · 29 July 2009, 07:54 AM

I have a problem with the Placeholder feature relating to inserting additional meta tags.

I did everything correctly (I think) to insert some aditional meta tags into my page. In particular, a meta tag in the <head> section to verify my ownership of my site in Google's Webmaster Tools. I created a plain white rectangle, named it "<head>" and then used Web Properties to set a placeholder with the special google meta tag. Google looks for this in the page to verify I actually own it.

It did not work. I then looked at the code in wordpad, and noticed the meta tag was missing the ">" character at the end of the string entered in the placeholder box. I added it manually and then Google was able to verify my site (the code was correct).

I also noticed the "author" and "copyright" placeholders I added were entered something like 6 times each in the code and none of them appeared exactly as I entered them in the Placeholder dialog box.

Is there any way to make sure the information entered in the Placeholder box is entered EXACTLY as typed into the final exported code of the site?

I really don't want to edit the code manually every time I upload to make sure Google knows I own it.

**steve.ledger** · 29 July 2009, 09:44 AM

Please post your .web file - I've never had this problem using a <head> named placeholder.

**slavelle** · 29 July 2009, 02:48 PM

Hey Robobug...I think you only have to put that code there one time for the webmaster tools. Once Google has done the verificatoin, they know you are legit. You can do the same thing by uploading an html file with a certain name to the site as your verification - then you don't have to worry about the code at all.

Just FYI. The placeholder stuff has always worked for me so far for everything else I've tried. I wonder if you are "escaping" a character or something.

**robobugs** · 29 July 2009, 10:13 PM

Sledger,

Hmmm... Upon trying to duplicate the error in a simple example file, it works ok. The original .xar file is 885kb and contains multiple pages of my site. I would be happy to send it for private review through email, but I don't know how to send it to you.

Slavelle,

I initially tried to use the html file, but since I have a custom 404 page, Google needs the meta tag method. I will check to see if I need to keep the meta tag in future uploads next time by removing it and testing Webmaster Tools again.

**covoxer** · 04 August 2009, 07:56 AM

If you have <head> placeholders on multiple pages, make sure they are positioned on the pasteboard (to the left or to the right of the actual page rectangle in WD/Xtreme).

**robobugs** · 09 August 2009, 08:43 AM

The placeholder boxes are outside of the page area (on the pasteboard).

My file is a .xar file and is 885kb in size. I would be happy to privately send you a copy for review. It seems to be a problem in this file which simpler test files cannot duplicate.

I have messed with the placeholder code with no improvement. I replaced the / with code, tried all placeholders with / at the end before the >, and removed all /'s from the end of placeholders before >. Same problem every time. I suspect my use of layers or copy/paste patterns may have led to the problem, but I really don't know.

Thanks for your help!

**covoxer** · 09 August 2009, 09:09 AM

Also make sure that you don't have more than one <head> placeholder per page. You can put all your code into a single placeholder if you do.

**privatepratz** · 09 August 2009, 11:36 AM

I have just gone through this same thing. There is an issue with placeholders. From my last post, it seems its a bug. If you get it to work please let me know. I have given up on it.
Mike

**jimhanus** · 11 August 2009, 10:17 AM

I use a placeholder names <head> for my favicon, so I tried adding some meta code to that one to see what happens and it worked fine. I added:

<META NAME="expires" CONTENT="never">
<META NAME="language" CONTENT="english">
<META NAME="distribution" CONTENT="Global">
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="email" CONTENT="jim@michiganimaging.com">
<META NAME="publisher" CONTENT="Michigan Imaging Supply LLC">
<META NAME="copyright" CONTENT="Copyright 2009 - Michigan Imaging Supply LLC">

This all showed up under all the Xara info in the <head> section when I viewed the source as shown here:

<head>
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=7"/>
<meta name="XAR jpegs" content="103"/>
<meta name="XAR pngs" content="163"/>
<meta name="XAR Pages" content="10"/>
<meta name="XAR Page 1" content="index.htm"/>
<title>Michigan Imaging Supply</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=Windows-1252"/>
<meta name="Generator" content="Xara HTML filter v.2.2.0.673"/>
<script type="text/javascript" src="index_htm_files/roe.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="index_htm_files/default.css" />
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="/favicon.ico"/>
<META NAME="expires" CONTENT="never">
<META NAME="language" CONTENT="english">
<META NAME="distribution" CONTENT="Global">
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW">
<META NAME="email" CONTENT="jim@michiganimaging.com">
<META NAME="publisher" CONTENT="Michigan Imaging Supply LLC">
<META NAME="copyright" CONTENT="Copyright 2009 - Michigan Imaging Supply LLC">
</head>

This web file is 22MB in size. I copied the placeholder to a second page and the meta data showed up fine there also. Hope this helps in some way.

**robobugs** · 18 August 2009, 09:05 AM

Thanks Covoxer!

I combined all of my additional code destined for the <head> section into a single placeholder named <head> and all works perfectly now.

My problem was that I had a placeholder named <head> for each individual line I wanted to add. Once I made a single placeholder named <head> and inserted all lines of code in it, it exported fine. I did, of course, remove all the other placeholders with the code in them so only a single element named <head> existed on the page/pasteboard.

Now I will go through and repeat the process in all of my pages, hopefully with equally excellent results!

I hope this helps everyone else!

Thanks Again!
Mike