MVC 3 Razor Meta Description / Keywords

Question

What is the simplest way of getting meta description / keywords onto my _Layout page? Something similar to how you get the page Title would be nice. Such as

<title>@ViewBag.Title</title>
<meta name="keywords" content='@ViewBag.Keywords'/>
<meta name="description" content='@ViewBag.Description'/>

My view would look something like:

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "Contact Me";
    ViewBag.Keywords = "My, keyword, list, etc";
}

Answer 1

Your view should not be responsible of that (do not add logic to views). Instead, it's the action method that should specify meta information.

Check my answer here: asp.net mvc - strategy for including SEO information such as meta keywords and descriptions

The answer still apply, although you should use ViewBag instead of ViewData.

Answer 2

I wrote a custom mvc3 metatag helper that would do just that. It works with resources when using multiple languages (if required):

public enum MetatagType
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Used for Title meta tag.
    /// </summary>
    Title,

    /// <summary>
    /// Used for Description and keyword meta tag.
    /// </summary>
    MetaData,

    /// <summary>
    /// Used for noindex, nofollow meta tag.
    /// </summary>
    Robots
}

public static class MetatagExtensions
    {
        #region Public Methods

        public static MvcMetaTag MetaTag(this HtmlHelper helper, MetatagType metaType)
        {
            return new MvcMetaTag(helper, metaType);
        }

        #endregion

        public sealed class MvcMetaTag
        {
            #region Constructors and Destructors

            public MvcMetaTag(HtmlHelper helper, MetatagType metaType)
            {
                this.Helper = helper;
                this.MetaType = metaType;
            }

            #endregion

            #region Properties

            /// <summary>
            /// Gets or sets Helper.
            /// </summary>
            private HtmlHelper Helper { get; set; }

            /// <summary>
            /// Gets or sets MetaType.
            /// </summary>
            private MetatagType MetaType { get; set; }

            #endregion

            #region Public Methods

            public MvcHtmlString Render()
            {
                var sb = new StringBuilder();
                if (this.Helper.ViewContext.RouteData.DataTokens.ContainsKey("area"))
                {
                    sb.Append(this.Helper.ViewContext.RequestContext.RouteData.DataTokens["area"].ToString().ToLower());
                    sb.Append('_');
                }
                sb.Append(this.Helper.ViewContext.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["controller"].ToString().ToLower());
                if (this.Helper.ViewContext.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString().ToLower() != "index")
                {
                    sb.Append('_');
                    sb.Append(this.Helper.ViewContext.RequestContext.RouteData.Values["action"].ToString().ToLower());
                }

                var resourcemng = SharedResources.ResourceManager;
                var meta = new StringBuilder();
                switch (this.MetaType)
                {
                    case MetatagType.MetaData:
                        meta.AppendLine(
                            String.Format(
                                "<meta name=\"description\" content=\"{0}\" />",
                                this.Helper.ViewData["Description"]
                                ?? resourcemng.GetString(string.Format("md_{0}", sb)) ?? string.Empty));
                        meta.AppendLine(
                            String.Format(
                                "<meta name=\"keywords\" content=\"{0}\" />",
                                this.Helper.ViewData["Keywords"]
                                ?? resourcemng.GetString(string.Format("mk_{0}", sb)) ?? string.Empty));
                        break;
                    case MetatagType.Robots:
                        meta.AppendLine(
                            String.Format(
                                "<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"{0}\" />",
                                this.Helper.ViewData["Robots"]
                                ?? resourcemng.GetString(string.Format("mr_{0}", sb)) ?? string.Empty));
                        break;
                    case MetatagType.Title:
                        meta.AppendLine(
                            (string)(this.Helper.ViewData["Title"]
                                     ?? resourcemng.GetString(string.Format("mt_{0}", sb)) ?? string.Empty));
                        break;
                }

                return new MvcHtmlString(meta.ToString());
            }

            #endregion
        }
    }

Then in your _Layout.cshtml file you use it like so: ...

    <head runat="server">
        <title>@Html.MetaTag(MetatagType.Title).Render()</title>

@Html.MetaTag(MetatagType.MetaData).Render()

...

In your resources file you should add the following (Controller-> Home, Action->Index):

mt_home -> homepage Title

md_home -> homepage description here

mk_home -> homepage keywords

for about page mt_home_about -> about title etc.

You also have an option to overwrite metadata from resources in specific views like so Index.cshtml:

@{
    ViewBag.Title = "New TITLE";
    ViewBag.Description = "New Description";    
}