Working at Home on the Internet

Optimal Title: A WordPress Plugin Review

 

I have been looking for a way to show the Title of the Post in the Heading (the one that shows when you hover over a link and shows in the “Favorites”). This should be advantageous for SEO in the background and frankly be more user friendly for the reader when scanning Post Titles to read.

I almost found one in a Plug-in called Optimal Title by Elastic Dog.

The Plug-in works in older WordPress versions, up to but NOT including WP 2.1. I installed it on two different Blogs that have very different Templates. but both are running WP 2.1.

One, in which the plug-in is installed in the “header”,  seemed to work if it was installed without other plugins being activated. The problem I continually ran into was that when I tried to activate it I got the error

Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/workingathomeinternet/public_html/WP/wp-content/plugins/optimal-title.php:84) in /home/workingathomeinternet/public_html/WP/wp-includes/pluggable-functions.php on line 270

The second Blog (this one) the code was installed in the Index, Page and Single post php’s. I got the same error. On both I tried activating various plugins that I already had running, and it worked with most of them.

If I tried to run it with the “What Would Seth Godin Do” plugin running, I kept erroring out. I would get the correct Title Sequence in the Favorites Head and the Hover View, however, I would get the Error showing Above the Head of the Main Title Head of the Blog.

The only thing that seems to semi-work is the following code that I inserted into the php.

<title><?php if ( function_exists(’optimal_title’) ) { optimal_title(’|'); bloginfo(’name’); } else { bloginfo(’name’); wp_title(’|'); } ?><?php if ( is_home() ) { ?> | <?php bloginfo(’description’); } ?></title>

I had to De-Activate the Plug-in but the code alone Mostly works. The way the code is written it looks for the “optimal_title” script and when it is not found (else), it will show your Blog Title|Post Title instead of the other way around as intended. And if the landing page is “Home” then it shows the Blog Title|Description.

So, without the Plug-in activated, the code will provide the same (basic) result. Not as neat, but very functional for SEO and Reader Usability. I would really like to see this Plug-in work the way it was intended to when it was first written.

Aaron Schaefer Great Plug-in, but Please Update it so it works with the Newer Versions of WordPress.

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March 7th, 2007 at 06:09am | Posted by Joe | Plug-ins, Reviews, WordPress | 8 reader remarks | Print This Post