Plugin Directory - change plugin page titles

[joostdevalk]

any chance of us changing the titles on plugin pages to something slightly less stupid?

WordPress › %%pluginname%% « WordPress Plugins

feels rather redundant. I propose we just do this:

%%pluginname%% — WordPress Plugins

[kidsguide]

This is a good idea. The title is junky and redundant.

[ramiy]

+1

[ramiy]

#1264 was marked as a duplicate.

[johnbillion]

As per #1264, they need localising too.

[ramiy]

I have a patch, but it's for theme pages.

[ramiy]

change theme page title

[SergeyBiryukov]

Switching › to » doesn't make much sense to me :) I think the point was to get rid of the first part altogether.

Let's also add a translator comment while we're there, see meta-1105.2.patch​.

[ramiy]

@SergeyBiryukov, I have access only to the theme repo files. Do you have access to the plugin repo? can you make the same change in plugin pages?

[SergeyBiryukov]

Nope, I don't have access to plugin directory either. (Would love to contribute to dotorg though.)

[coffee2code]

The solution, while not difficult, is not as clearcut as it may appear.

The issue is that WordPress.org has a global filter on page titles which prepends WordPress › to basically every page title everywhere. The Theme Directory is actually currently exempt from this because it already explicitly adds that in. But if it is removed or changed (as proposed in the two initial patches), the global filter will prepend it to whatever is defined.

Ideally we should come up with a page title format for all of dotorg and see about adjusting the titles and the global title filter accordingly.

The global filter exists to ensure that all titles identify as "WordPress". It could be changed to append something like — WordPress, which would suggest a page title format of:

%%plugin_name%% — %%section%% — WordPress

where %%section%% is "Plugins" (and elsewhere "Themes", "News", "Support", etc). If that syntax sucks, then it could be made to only append if the last segment of the title doesn't already have "WordPress" in it, which could get us what @joostdevalk proposed. I'm not sure if his proposal is the ideal page title format for modern times, or something he settled on relative to what is currently output.

[joostdevalk]

Couple of remarks:

• I think we should identify as sections, so "WordPress Plugins", otherwise the .org rankings for those terms would tumble
• Why —? Google cuts off by length, so I prefer separators that are nice and short, like •

So I'd go for:

%%plugin_name%% • WordPress %%section%%

This same template would work for Themes, News etc. Added benefit is having only one separator, which increases readability in search results pages, which in turn increases click through :)

[coffee2code]

Replying to joostdevalk:

• Why —? Google cuts off by length, so I prefer separators that are nice and short, like •

I'm not particular about choice of separator. Why not | and save even more characters?

[joostdevalk]

Because | has readability implications.

[samuelsidler]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, but I much prefer » (») to •, even if it's slightly larger.

Either way, comment 11 seems like a good way to go. We should standardize this globally though, after the plugin directory title is fixed. (The theme directory is currently "WordPress > %%theme_name%% « Free WordPress Themes" ...)

[ramiy]

Related: #1280 - <title> tags on translate.wordpress.org

[ramiy]

The main advantage in —(—) and • (•) over » (»), « («), › (›), ‹ (‹) is that dashes and bullets are direction-free, they are suitable for LRT and RTL languages.

[samuelsidler]

Going with —.

[coffee2code]

Fixed in [dotorg-11539] and [dotorg-11540].

Any existing less-than-desirable document titles should be opened as new tickets.

[coffee2code]

meta-1105.3.patch​ was also applied in [2459].

[obenland]

In 5203:

Plugin Directory: Use a SEO-optimized site name for titles.

See #1105.
Fixes #2387.