If I put a div in the head and display:none, than use JavaScript to display it, will this work?
Edit:
I have stuff loaded in AJAX. And as my AJAX changes the
simple add and div atribute to each meta tag example
<meta id="mtlink" name="url" content="">
<meta id="mtdesc" name="description" content="" />
<meta id="mtkwrds" name="keywords" content="" />
now like normal div change for ex. n click
<a href="#" onClick="changeTags(); return false;">Change Meta Tags</a>
function change tags with jQuery
function changeTags(){
$("#mtlink").attr("content","http://albup.com");
$("#mtdesc").attr("content","music all the time");
$("#mtkwrds").attr("content","mp3, download music, ");
}
Yes, you can do that.
There are some interesting use cases: Some browsers and plugins parse meta elements and change their behavior for different values.
<meta name="SKYPE_TOOLBAR" content="SKYPE_TOOLBAR_PARSER_COMPATIBLE">
<meta name="format-detection" content="telephone=no">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="chrome=1">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
This one can be changed by JavaScript. See: A fix for iPhone viewport scale bug
Some user agents (Opera for example) use the description for bookmarks. You can add personalized content here. Example:
<!DOCTYPE html>
<title>Test</title>
<meta name="description" content="this is old">
<script type='text/javascript' src='http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.8.2.js'></script>
<button>Change description</button>
<script type='text/javascript'>
$('button').on('click', function() {
// Just replacing the value of the 'content' attribute will not work.
$('meta[name=description]').remove();
$('head').append( '<meta name="description" content="this is new">' );
});
</script>
So, it’s not just about search engines.
Yes, it is.
E.g. to set the meta-description:
document.querySelector('meta[name="description"]').setAttribute("content", _desc);
var metaTag = document.getElementsByTagName('meta');
for (var i=0; i < metaTag.length; i++) {
if (metaTag[i].getAttribute("http-equiv")=='refresh')
metaTag[i].content = '666';
if (metaTag[i].getAttribute("name")=='Keywords')
metaTag[i].content = 'js, solver';
}
It is definitely possible to use Javascript to change the meta tags of the page. Here is a Javascript only approach:
document.getElementsByTagName('meta')["keywords"].content = "My new page keywords!!";
document.getElementsByTagName('meta')["description"].content = "My new page description!!";
document.title = "My new Document Title!!";
I have verified that Google does index these client side changes for the code above.
If we don't have the meta tag at all, then we can use the following:
var _desc = 'Out description';
var meta = document.createElement('meta');
meta.setAttribute('name', 'description');
meta.setAttribute('content', _desc);
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(meta);