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How to customize the metadata of your platform?
How to customize the metadata of your platform?

Discover and customise the copy used when sharing platform content

Stijn Zwarts avatar
Written by Stijn Zwarts
Updated over a week ago

In this article, we'll cover following questions:

  1. What are metadata and meta tags?

  2. What are the default metadata used on your platform?

  3. How can you customise your metadata?

1. What are metadata and meta tags?

Meta tags are tags added to the content of your platform. They're invisible on the platform itself, but the metadata within these tags are shown elsewhere when the platform content is linked to or when the content is shared on social media.

A well known example is the website metadata shown in Google search results as in the image below (CitizenLab is an online citizen participation platform for local governments ...)

Metadata put inside meta tags make sure people understand what your platform, project, idea, ... is about, and what they may expect when clicking the link.

2. What are the default metadata used on your platform?

This is an overview of all meta tags and default metadata used on your platform. So, when a link to one of these pages is made outside your platform, this is the title, description and image that are automatically shown next to that link.

Platform

  • Title: "Citizen engagement platform of Organisation Name | CitizenLab"

  • Description: "Welcome to the online citizen engagement platform of Organisation Name. Explore local projects and vote on your favourite ideas. Come participate in the discussions!"

  • Image: the header image you've selected on your platform

Projects overview page

  • Title: "Projects • Organisation Name"

  • Description: "Explore all ongoing projects of Organisation Name to understand how you can participate. Come discuss local projects that matter most to you."

  • Image: the header image you've selected for your platform

An individual project

  • Title: "Project  • Project Title"

  • Image: the header image you've selected for this project

Ideas overview page

  • Title: "All Ideas • Organisation Name"

  • Description: "Explore all ideas that have been posted on the CitizenLab platform of Organisation Name. Come leave your comments and cast your vote!"

An individual idea

  • Title: "Idea  • Idea Title"

  • Title, when sharing own idea: "Support my idea: Idea Title"

  • Image: the image added by the idea author

3. How can you customise your metadata?

You can customise the metadata for all the tags outlined above, by sending an email to support@citizenlab.co with the metadata you would like to use instead. We'll be more than happy to help you out!

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