SEO & Meta Audit

Executive summary

Status: PASS WITH NOTES. Meta output is present, consistent, and uses clear dynamic titles/descriptions with canonical/OG/Twitter tags. Notes: OG type defaults to website for listings (not harmful but suboptimal semantically), and descriptions truncate aggressively to ~155 chars. No blocking issues found.

Strengths

• Single meta include (_includes/seo-meta.html) drives titles, descriptions, canonicals, OG, and Twitter tags consistently.
• Canonicals use absolute_url and https with the production domain.
• Titles/descriptions incorporate collection type, location, and first practice tag for strong disambiguation.
• Default OG/Twitter image fallback (/og-image.png) present site-wide.
• Homepage, listings, and collection pages all emit meta descriptions and canonicals.
• No duplicate <title> or missing description observed in sampled pages.

Issues by severity

• Critical: 0
• High: 0
• Medium: 1
  • OG type is website for non-blog pages, including individual listings. While valid, it’s a weaker semantic signal than using a more specific type (e.g., place/local business).
• Low: 2
  • Meta descriptions truncate to ~155 chars; for longer summaries this may clip mid-phrase.
  • Twitter card is always summary (not summary_large_image), which is fine but could be richer if images are consistently landscape. Left unchanged for safety.

Evidence (sample pages, rendered head)

• Homepage (/): Title “Homegrown Directory — Find Food Grown With Care”; description present; canonical https://homegrowndirectory.com/; OG/Twitter populated with og-image.png.

• Farm (/farms/ashley-river-organics/): Title “Ashley River Organics

  Farm in Loburn, Canterbury, New Zealand

  certified-organic

  Homegrown Directory”; description present; canonical matches URL; OG/Twitter present; OG type website.

• Market (/markets/titirangi-village-market/): Title includes location; description present; canonical correct; OG/Twitter present; OG type website.
• Store (/stores/bin-inn-glenfield/): Title includes location and practice tag; description present; canonical correct; OG/Twitter present; OG type website.
• Vendor (/vendors/mapu-test-kitchen/): Title includes location and practice tag; description present; canonical correct; OG/Twitter present; OG type website.
• Distributor (/distributors/first-light-farms/): Title includes location; description present; canonical correct; OG/Twitter present; OG type website.

What was changed

• No code or content changes made; audit only.

What was intentionally not changed

• OG type left as website for listings to avoid semantic drift; safe but suboptimal.
• Twitter card left as summary to avoid layout/asset implications.
• Description truncation logic left at ~155 chars to avoid copy edits.

SEO regression checklist

• Ensure new pages include seo-meta.html (or equivalent) so title/description/canonical/OG/Twitter render.
• Keep site.url/site.baseurl correct for canonical/OG absolute URLs.
• Provide seo_title/seo_description only when necessary; otherwise rely on the existing dynamic defaults (title + type + location + practice).
• Verify OG/Twitter image fallback remains valid (/og-image.png) and available.
• Avoid adding multiple <title> or conflicting meta tags in custom layouts.
• If adding richer OG types later, gate by clear, explicit signals (collection/subtype) to prevent semantic drift.