Published: December 17, 2013
It's no secret that social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn are playing a bigger role in shopping and our every day lives. Luckily, these social networks have seemed to agree on one thing: the Open Graph protocol. The open graph protocol allows meta data to be set on a webpage, making the page become a rich object allowed to be set within a social graph. In other words, when someone likes or shares a page on your website, the open graph data is collected by social networks to automatically determine an accurate post title, image, and description. SEO-Cart supports the Open Graph protocol for product object types. Here is an example of what this open graph product meta data looks like:
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Your Site Name">
<meta property="og:type" content="product.item">
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.yoursite.com/category/product.html">
<meta property="og:title" content="Pre Owned Men's Rolex DateJust Thunderbird Watch 116261">
<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.yoursite.com/images/product-image.jpg">
<meta property="og:description" content="Item Number: 104168 Manufacturer: Rolex Model">
<meta property="product:price:amount" content="10700">
<meta property="product:price:currency" content="USD">
<meta property="product:shipping_weight:value" content="1">
<meta property="product:shipping_weight:units" content="lb">
<meta property="product:sale_price:amount" content="6995">
<meta property="product:sale_price:currency" content="USD">
<meta property="product:brand" content="Rolex">
<meta property="product:mfr_part_no" content="116261">
<meta property="product:target_gender" content="male">
<meta property="product:age_group" content="adult">
<meta property="product:condition" content="new">
<meta property="product:availability" content="in stock">
<meta property="og:updated_time" content="2013-12-16T14:18:00-05:00">
Now when we "like" a category or product page with this Open Graph data set, the social network will scrape the page and auto-determine the correct image, title, and description if we choose to share our post:
