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Head Meta Data

By Jeff Starr

Description

Head Meta Data (HMD) improves the definition and semantic quality of your web pages by adding a custom set of <meta> tags to the <head> section of your web pages.

Basic Example

Display any set of custom meta tags for your site:

<head>

    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <meta name="abstract" content="Obsessive Web Development">
    <meta name="author" content="Perishable">
    <meta name="classification" content="Website Design">
    <meta name="copyright" content="Copyright Perishable Press - All rights Reserved.">
    <meta name="designer" content="Monzilla Media">
    <meta name="language" content="EN-US">
    <meta name="publisher" content="Perishable Press">
    <meta name="rating" content="General">
    <meta name="resource-type" content="Document">
    <meta name="revisit-after" content="3">
    <meta name="subject" content="WordPress, Web Design, Code & Tutorials">
    <meta name="template" content="Awesome Theme">
    <meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

    <!-- plus you can add your own custom tags! -->

</head>

SEO Example

Use shortcodes to dynamically output SEO meta tags:

<title>[hmd_post_title] | Your Awesome Website</title>
<meta name="description" content="[hmd_post_excerpt]">

This outputs dynamic titles and descriptions, useful for SEO. You also can add custom meta tags and markup on specific posts and pages. Check out Installation for more infos.

Features

  • Simple and easy to use
  • Clean, standards-based code
  • Customize all <meta> tags
  • Add your own custom <meta> tags
  • NEW: Add custom tags on any post or page
  • Use shortcodes to include dynamic information
  • Includes meta tags on all of your site’s web pages
  • Check out a Live Preview of your meta tags & custom content
  • Automatically adds tags to the <head> section of all pages
  • Auto-populates tags using your site’s information
  • Choose HTML or XHTML format for meta tags
  • Supports Twitter Cards and Facebook Open Graph tags
  • Easily disable any unwanted tags
  • Option to reset default settings
  • Works with or without Gutenberg Block Editor
  • Regularly updated and “future proof”
  • Lightweight, fast, and secure

Shortcodes

Shortcodes enable you to include dynamic bits of information in your meta tags. Head Meta Data currently provides the following shortcodes:

  • [hmd_post_excerpt] — post excerpt
  • [hmd_post_date] — post date
  • [hmd_post_author] — post author name
  • [hmd_post_title] — post title
  • [hmd_post_cats] — post categories
  • [hmd_post_tags] — post tags
  • [hmd_year] — current year
  • [hmd_tab] — adds tab space to markup

So you can display your own set of customized meta tags exactly as desired. See the Installation section for more information about the HMD shortcodes!

More Info

Head Meta Data is designed to complete a site’s head construct by including some of the more obscure meta tags, such as “author”, “copyright”, “designer”, and so forth. As a matter of practicality, the more widely used tags such as “description” and “keywords” have been omitted, as they are already included via wide variety of plugins (such as “All in One SEO”) in a more dynamic way. Even so, adding “description”, “keyword”, or any other tags is easy from the plugin’s settings page.

Privacy

This plugin does not collect or store any user data. It does not set any cookies, and it does not connect to any third-party locations. Thus, this plugin does not affect user privacy in any way.

Head Meta Data is developed and maintained by Jeff Starr, 15-year WordPress developer and book author.

Support development

I develop and maintain this free plugin with love for the WordPress community. To show support, you can make a donation or purchase one of my books:

And/or purchase one of my premium WordPress plugins:

Links, tweets and likes also appreciated. Thanks! 🙂

Screenshots

  • Head Meta Data: Plugin Settings (panels toggle open/closed)

Installation

Installation

  1. Upload the plugin to your blog and activate
  2. Visit the settings to configure your options

More info on installing WP plugins

Shortcodes

Shortcodes enable you to include dynamic bits of information in your meta tags. Head Meta Data currently provides the following shortcodes:

  • [hmd_post_excerpt] — post excerpt
  • [hmd_post_date] — post date
  • [hmd_post_author] — post author name
  • [hmd_post_title] — post title
  • [hmd_post_cats] — post categories
  • [hmd_post_tags] — post tags
  • [hmd_year] — current year
  • [hmd_tab] — adds tab space to markup

So you can include any of these shortcodes in the “Custom Content” setting, and the displayed information will reflect the current post being viewed. On non-post views, like the homepage, archives, and search results, the shortcodes display general information about the site:

  • [hmd_post_excerpt] — site description
  • [hmd_post_date] — date of latest post
  • [hmd_post_author] — site name
  • [hmd_post_title] — site description
  • [hmd_post_cats] — all view categories
  • [hmd_post_tags] — all view tags

For example, we could add this meta tag via the “Custom Content” setting:

<meta name="date" content="[hmd_post_date]">
<meta name="abstract" content="[hmd_post_title]">
<meta name="author" content="[hmd_post_author]">
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright [hmd_year] Awesome Website">

Another example: use shortcodes to dynamically output SEO meta tags:

<title>[hmd_post_title] | Your Awesome Website</title>
<meta name="description" content="[hmd_post_excerpt]">

This outputs dynamic titles and descriptions, useful for SEO.

If you have ideas for other shortcodes, let me know!

Custom meta tags

Using this method, you can add custom meta tags to the <head> section of any post or page. Follow these steps:

  1. Visit the “Edit Post” or “Edit Page” screen
  2. Open the “Custom Fields” meta box
  3. Add a new custom field
  4. For the custom field Name, enter head-meta-data
  5. For the custom field Value, enter any tag/markup
  6. Save changes and done.

For example, for the custom field value, we could enter the following markup:

<link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/android.png" sizes="192x192">

After saving changes that exact code will be included in the post’s <head> section.

Tip: You can include tab spaces in the custom field value, for example:

        <link rel="icon" type="image/png" href="/android.png" sizes="192x192">

Useful for indenting code to align with other meta tags 😉

Tip: By default, any custom tags are displayed after the default meta tags. To disable the default meta tags on any post, add a new custom field with the name hmd_disable_default. Give it a value of 1. Save changes and done.

Upgrades

To upgrade Head Meta Data, remove the old version and replace with the new version. Or just click “Update” from the Plugins screen and let WordPress do it for you automatically.

Note: uninstalling the plugin from the WP Plugins screen results in the removal of all settings from the WP database.

Restore Default Options

To restore default plugin options, either uninstall/reinstall the plugin, or visit the plugin settings > Restore Default Options.

Like the plugin?

If you like Head Meta Data, please take a moment to give a 5-star rating. It helps to keep development and support going strong. Thank you!

Uninstalling

Head Meta Data cleans up after itself. All plugin settings will be removed from your database when the plugin is uninstalled via the Plugins screen.

FAQ

To ask a question, suggest a feature, or provide feedback, contact me directly.

Reviews

Great

May 11, 2022
This plugin is simple yet powerfull. All you need.

works fine

May 2, 2020
Works good, no issues. Easy setup, very useful and helpful functions. you can add any custom code into the head of each web page. Thanks

Waste of time

July 23, 2019
I wanted to replace old plugin Add Meta Tags that has been abandoned 5 years ago, so I decided to try Head Meta Data. This plugin is a joke, it just adds few meta tags across the entire site, doesn't include title or description tags, doesn't generate metadata for Facebook or Twitter, and, most importantly, doesn't allow specifying metadata per post/page. Don't waste your time on this one.
Read all 14 reviews

Contributors & Developers

“Head Meta Data” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Translate “Head Meta Data” into your language.

Interested in development?

Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.

Changelog

If you like Head Meta Data, please take a moment to give a 5-star rating. It helps to keep development and support going strong. Thank you!

20220925

  • Adds custom footer text to plugin settings
  • Improves logic of settings validation
  • Improves plugin documentation
  • Updates translation template
  • Updates “Show Support” panel
  • Tests on WordPress 6.1

20220515

  • Tests on WordPress 6.0

20220113

  • Updates support panel
  • Improves loading of translations
  • Updates some links to external resources
  • Changes minimum required WP version to 4.6
  • Tests on WordPress 5.9

20210713

  • Tests on WordPress 5.8

20210209

  • Tests on PHP 7.4 and 8.0
  • Tests on WordPress 5.7

20201110

  • Adds custom meta per post/page (more info in docs)
  • Resolves some PHP notices for PHP version 7.4
  • Updates default translation template
  • Tests on PHP 7.4 and 8.0
  • Tests on WordPress 5.6

20200805

  • Adds shortcode [hmd_post_excerpt] to display post excerpts
  • Adds shortcode [hmd_post_tags] to display tags
  • Adds option for <meta charset="utf-8">
  • Refines plugin setting page styles
  • Refines readme/documentation
  • Tests on WordPress 5.5

20200313

  • Tests on WordPress 5.4

20191027

  • Updates styles for plugin settings page
  • Generates new default translation template
  • Tests on WordPress 5.3

20190902

  • Updates some links to https
  • Tests on WordPress 5.3 (alpha)

20190428

  • Bumps minimum PHP version to 5.6.20
  • Tweaks plugin settings screen content
  • Updates default translation template
  • Tests on WordPress 5.2

20190306

  • Adds check for admin user for settings shortcut link
  • Tests on WordPress 5.1 and 5.2 (alpha)

20190220

  • Tests on WordPress 5.1

20181114

  • Adds option for “robots” meta tag
  • Adds homepage link to Plugins screen
  • Updates default translation template
  • Tests on WordPress 5.0

20180817

  • Adds rel="noopener noreferrer" to all blank-target links
  • Updates GDPR blurb and donate link
  • Tweaks appearance of plugin settings page
  • Fixes “non-object” bug
  • Regenerates default translation template
  • Further tests on WP versions 4.9 and 5.0 (alpha)

20180507

  • Adds new shortcodes: [hmd_post_author], [hmd_post_title], [hmd_post_cats], [hmd_year], [hmd_tab] (see plugin documentation for details)
  • Improves settings page UI
  • Updates Show Support panel
  • Generates new translation template
  • Updates plugin image files
  • Tests on WordPress 5.0

20171103

  • Removes extra manage_options check for plugin settings
  • Tests on WordPress 4.9

20171022

  • Adds extra manage_options capability check to modify settings
  • Streamlines Support panel in plugin settings
  • Tests on WordPress 4.9

20170731

  • Updates GPL license blurb
  • Adds GPL license text file
  • Tests on WordPress 4.9 (alpha)

20170324

  • Refines display of settings page
  • Refines display of settings panels
  • Updates show support panel in plugin settings
  • Changes translation domain in plugin header to head-meta-data
  • Adds [hmd_post_date] shortcode to display latest post date in custom content
  • Replaces global $wp_version with get_bloginfo('version')
  • Generates new default translation template
  • Tests on WordPress version 4.8

20161116

  • Updates plugin author URL
  • Updates Twitter URL to https
  • Changes stable tag from trunk to latest version
  • Refactors add_hmd_links() function
  • Updates URL for rate this plugin links
  • Tests on WordPress version 4.7 (beta)

20160811

  • Fixed backslash-apostrophe bug via esc_attr()
  • Streamlined and optimized plugin settings page
  • Replaced _e() with esc_html_e() or esc_attr_e()
  • Replaced __() with esc_html__() or esc_attr__()
  • Added plugin icons and larger banner image
  • Improved translation support
  • Deleted unused plugin icon
  • General fine-tuning of code
  • Tested on WordPress 4.6

20160331

  • Replaced icon with retina version
  • Added screenshot to readme/docs
  • Added retina version of banner
  • Added overflow: auto to pre tag
  • Reorganized and refreshed readme.txt
  • Tested on WordPress version 4.5 beta

20151110

  • Updated heading hierarchy in plugin settings
  • Added French translation (Thanks to Patrice Chassaing)
  • Updated translation template file
  • Updated minimum version requirement
  • Tested on WordPress 4.4 beta

20150808

  • Tested on WordPress 4.3
  • Updated minimum version requirement

20150507

  • Tested with WP 4.2 + 4.3 (alpha)
  • Changed a few “http” links to “https”

20150315

  • Tested with latest version of WP (4.1)
  • Increased minimum version to WP 3.8
  • Added $hmd_wp_vers for version check
  • Streamline/fine-tune plugin code
  • Added Text Domain and Domain Path to file header
  • Added .pot template for localization
  • Removed deprecated screen_icon()

20140923

  • Tested with latest version of WordPress (4.0)
  • Increased minimum WP version requirement to 3.7
  • Added conditional check on min-version function

20140123

  • Tested with latest WordPress (3.8)
  • Added trailing slash to load_plugin_textdomain()

20131107

  • Added uninstall.php file
  • Added “rate this plugin” links
  • Added support for i18n

20131104

  • Added line to prevent direct script access
  • Changed default value for copyright meta
  • Improved support for custom content
  • Fixed bug reported here
  • Replaced wp_kses_post with wp_kses
  • Added “href”, “property”, “title”, “rel”, “type”, “charset”, “media”, “rev” to list of allowed attributes
  • Removed closing “?>” tag in head-meta-data.php
  • Tested with latest version of WordPress (3.7)

20130705

  • General code check n clean, plus Overview and Updates admin panels now toggled open by default.

20130103

  • Added margins to submit buttons (required in WP 3.5)

20121102

  • Rebuilt plugin, changed name from “Head MetaData Plus” to “Head Meta Data”.

20060502

  • Initial release.

Meta

  • Version: 20220925
  • Last updated: 2 weeks ago
  • Active installations: 20,000+
  • WordPress Version: 4.6 or higher
  • Tested up to: 6.1
  • PHP Version: 5.6.20 or higher
  • Tags:
  • Advanced View

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Contributors

Support

Issues resolved in last two months:

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