Why Isn't My Home Page Title Displaying Properly?

resolved (11 posts) (4 voices)

needforname
Member

For some reason my home page title (what's appearing in the very top of the browser) is displaying as "Many reasons to hire us for your property maintenance needs | mysitename", yet I have something totally different set for my home page title in the the wordpress general settings, and also in the "All In One" seo plugin settings.

All of my other pages are displaying their titles properly, just not the home page. Any ideas? One other user asked a similar question. He wanted to change his home site title but the responder advised against changing it for SEO purposes? What's wrong with changing the home title?

Posted 2 years ago #
Elliott
Support
Hello needforname,

I have not used the all in one seo plugin before but from what I understand it is supposed to allow you to change the title on a page by page basis correct? Do you have any caching plugins installed? Try refreshing them to see if this was the case.

We can also try manually setting the title for the homepage by using conditional statements. Open up /wp-content/themes/infocus/header.php and on line 6 you should see this,

<title><?php wp_title('«', true, 'right'); ?> <?php bloginfo('name'); ?></title>

You can try changing it like this,

<title><?php is_home() ? bloginfo('description'); bloginfo('name'); : wp_title('«', true, 'right'); bloginfo('name'); ?></title>

Or like this,
```
<title>
<?php if (is_home()) { ?> Here is the homepage title  <?php  } else { wp_title('&laquo;', true, 'right'); ?> <?php bloginfo('name'); } ?>
</title>
```
Depending on how you want to do it.

Let us know if this works for you needforname.
Posted 2 years ago #
needforname
Member

Thanks a bunch for the reply Elliott. I tried your method and it doesn't work. I replaced the code with that which you provided and entered in the new title. A day later and the home page title is still appearing incorrectly.

Is the InFocus theme not compatible with "All in One" SEO plugin? I would assume it is since I'm sure many of the theme users are also using the plugin for seo purposes. Again, all of my pages are showing the correct titles, except my home page? Having a title that isn't using good keywords is killing my SEO surely. Any other ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Oh, to answer your questions: no I have no captcha plugins and yes the "All In One SEO" plugin does have a title entry, it's just not applying what I have there? So I'm assuming there is a conflict between the plugin and the theme. Which is why I figured someone else would have had a similar problem prior to me, considering I'm not the only one using this popular plugin.

Posted 2 years ago #
Ruderic
Support
Hi,

Have you configured a page as your Home page, inside the "Settings->Reading" section of your Wordpress admin panel?

If so, could you please replace the code that Elliot provided with this one:
```
<title>
<?php if (is_front_page()) { ?> Here is the homepage title  <?php  } else { wp_title('&laquo;', true, 'right'); ?> <?php bloginfo('name'); } ?>
</title>
```
Posted 2 years ago #
needforname
Member

Hey Ruderic, no I left the "settings>reading" page display settings default (latest posts). How can I be the only one with this problem? Very strange.

Above I had mentioned that I was using the "All in One SEO" plugin, because that is what I typically use, however I am actually using "Platinum SEO" plugin if that makes any difference.

Posted 2 years ago #
WilliamWilsonPhotography
Member

I had this problem with All in One SEO it over rides the page title, if you check the Home Title: in the All in One SEO control page.

Posted 2 years ago #
Ruderic
Support

Hi needforname,

Could you please try the plugin "Yoast SEO"?

That's the plugin that I always recommend to the users, and should work OK.

Posted 2 years ago #
needforname
Member

Thanks Ruderic but Yoast SEO seems to have problems left and right so I would rather not even attempt to use it. Here is just one example of one user's many problems with the plugin: http://perishablepress.com/wpseo-vs-aioseo/

If anyone knows how I can get my home page title to appear correctly that would be great. This is very important and would like to get this figured out if possible.

Posted 2 years ago #
Elliott
Support

Hello needforname,

I just got to testing out the all in one seo plugin and the title was changed on the first try.

Navigate to Dashboard -> Settings -> All in One SEO and make sure that the "Plugin Status" option is set to enabled. Right beneath that you can find the homepage title field where you can set your title. Make sure to click on the "Update Options" button at the bottom and then check your page source to see if the title was changed.

If your still having problems then try disabling your other plugins to see if they are causing conflicts. If that does not work then PM us a Wordpress login so we can take a look at your settings.

Posted 2 years ago #
needforname
Member

Elliot, I actually just switched plugins from the one I was using "Platinum SEO" to "All in One SEO". Everything is working now. Thanks for all of your help. In case anyone else runs into this problem, here is what is going on supposedly (according to plugin creator):

"Many magazine themes use multiple loops (wordpress loop) on their home page. If your Home page uses a custom query or multiple loops, make sure you use WP_Query for those calls. If your code uses query_posts then wordpress gets confused and thinks it is on the Category page for the last post it selected instead of on the home page. As a result Platinum SEO includes a category title instead of the home page title. Hence for your home page template use WP_Query so that Platinum SEO outputs the correct Title on the home page."

Posted 2 years ago #
Elliott
Support

I've never used the Platinum SEO plugin before but that does not seem to be an issue with the All in One SEO plugin.

Glad it is working good for you now needforname. Let us know if you need anything else.

Posted 2 years ago #