SEO questions

[Inna-Mykytiuk]

For SEO I use @payloadcms/plugin-seo.

But the documentation is so crude that it doesn't even show how to get metadata on a page using the basic settings. So I have a few questions that the documentation doesn't answer:

• if I use the basic settings in payload.config, does this mean that the pages will display default information instead of dynamic information?
• when using the default settings in payload.config, do I need to add SEO to each schema?
• does anyone have an example of getting SEO on the page itself?
• how is metadata generated?

If I use metadata in each schema, I get it, according to the example in the template, but everything is written very unclearly, this is not in the documentation, it is not clear at all why configure and add a plugin to payload.config if it doesn't work at all, but works only in the case of adding metadata through page and post schemas.

[r1tsuu]

You should be able to look at the website template, specifically how it handles the metadata in next.js pages.

https://github.com/payloadcms/payload/blob/main/templates/website/src/app/(frontend)/%5Bslug%5D/page.tsx#L90 - uses generateMeta for Next.js' generateMetadata https://nextjs.org/docs/app/api-reference/functions/generate-metadata
https://github.com/payloadcms/payload/blob/main/templates/website/src/utilities/generateMeta.ts

if I use the basic settings in payload.config, does this mean that the pages will display default information instead of dynamic information?

The SEO plugin doesn't affect your frontend pages, only the data in your database / payload config.

[Inna-Mykytiuk]

So the question is how do I get this data from the database?

When using this method,
https://github.com/payloadcms/payload/blob/main/templates/website/src/utilities/generateMeta.ts
you will have to specify the settings for the SEO in each scheme because everything will need to be typed, and my question was whether it is possible to get by with just the basic settings, and if not, then what is the point of them at all?

And if so, why is there no normal example in the documentation, and nowhere in the components is it shown how to get metadata. It's good that we can use the settings that Next offers us, but then what's the point of the settings that the payload offers??

[SalahAdDin]

I agree the documentation needs to be improved.

[timdavid010]

For SEO I use @payloadcms/plugin-seo.

But the documentation is so crude that it doesn't even show how to get metadata on a page using the basic settings. So I have a few questions that the documentation doesn't answer:

• if I use the basic settings in payload.config, does this mean that the pages will display default information instead of dynamic information?
• when using the default settings in payload.config, do I need to add SEO to each schema?
• does anyone have an example of getting SEO on the page itself?
• how is metadata generated?

If I use metadata in each schema, I get it, according to the example in the template, but everything is written very unclearly, this is not in the documentation, it is not clear at all why configure and add a plugin to payload.config if it doesn't work at all, but works only in the case of adding metadata through page and post schemas.

It seems you're frustrated with the lack of clarity in the documentation for the @payloadcms/plugin-seo. Here's a quick rundown of your questions:

Default Information vs. Dynamic: If you only use basic settings in payload.config, pages will likely display default metadata unless overridden by schema-specific settings.
Adding SEO to Each Schema: Yes, you need to include SEO fields in each schema if you want dynamic metadata for those pages.
Getting SEO on the Page: Typically, you retrieve the metadata by querying the page’s SEO fields through the API or directly in your React components.
Metadata Generation: Metadata is generated based on the configuration in the schema and any defaults you define in payload.config.