Dynamic meta titles for pages with URL parameters? - php

Question

I've got a page called /team-page/?id=x that's built in WordPress
The URL parameter of "id" determines the content that will dynamically show on that page. However, my meta title for that page is statically set. Is there a way I can dynamically set the meta title based on the page content? Each variation of /team-page will have a unique H1 - ideally, I'd love to just grab this H1 and set it as the meta title.

Answer 1

You can achieve it with document_title_parts filter. It takes $titles as parameter, which consist of two parts - title and site (except for front page - instead of site it's tagline)
So try this
add_filter( 'document_title_parts', 'custom_title' );
function custom_title( $title ) {
// Just to see what is $title
// echo '<pre>';
// print_r( $title );
// echo '</pre>';
// die();
$uri = parse_url( $_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'], PHP_URL_PATH ); // get current uri without query params
// Change meta only on team-page.
if ( '/team-page/' === $uri ) {
// you can do here anything you want
$title['title'] = get_the_title() . ' and whatever string you want ' . $_GET['id'];
}
return $title;
}
Also don't forget to check and sanitize your $_GET['id'] if needed.

Answer 2

You're looking for get_query_var()
Retrieves the value of a query variable in the WP_Query class.
Source # https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/get_query_var/
One small thing to understand is that get_query_var() only retrieves public query variables that are recognized by WP_Query.
So we need to register our variable first. This is considered best practice. Simply using $_GET['id'] is considered to be unsafe within the Wordpress ecosystem.
add_filter( 'query_vars', 'wpso66660959_query_vars' );
function wpso66660959_query_vars( $qvars ) {
$qvars[] = 'ref';
return $qvars;
};
Also you should use something other than id as it is already used by Wordpress to handle the WP_Query. I've used ref (reference) but you can choose whatever as long as it doesn't impact Wordpress core.
then we can simply built our custom title.
<?= '<title>' . get_the_title() . ' | Order N° ' . get_query_var( 'ref', 'undifined' ) . '</title>'; ?>
Note that, if your theme is using Wordpress to set your pages title, you might need to set some sort of conditional statement around add_theme_support( 'title-tag' );, in your function.php.
Something like...
//...
if ( ! is_page( 'team-page' ) )
add_theme_support( 'title-tag' );
The title-tag is usually included in your theme options.