When editing a Page in dotCMS, there are some basic required fields needed for the page to exist, such as the Title, Host or Folder, URL, Cache TTL, and Template fields. However, additional “Advanced Properties” can be added to a Page by clicking on the “Advanced Properties” tab.
The image below displays all of the Advanced Properties available on a default Page Asset.
Basic Properties
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Show on Menu | If this is set to true (box checked), the Page will appear in dotCMS front-end menus (generated automatically by dotCMS using the navigation tooling). |
| Menu Sort Order (legacy) | When the Page is displayed in menus, the number in this property specifies the position of the Page in the menu (relative to Sort Order values of all other items displayed in the menu). Note: Manually setting this value is no longer supplied, since menus can be re-ordered using drag-and-drop from the Page editing screen; this field is supported for backward compatibility only and will be deprecated in the future. |
| Friendly Name | If your Page uses one of the built-in dotCMS Templates (or a template that uses the same page header code), the value of this property is used to improve SEO (Search Engine Optimization) when search engine robots craw your site. |
| Cache TTL | The time (in seconds) that Page will be cached for performance. Example: 300 = 5 mins. Changes to the Template, Containers, and content on the Page will not be reflected until after this timeout has expired, so if a Page has a large Cache TTL you may see an old version of the Page when displaying it in Live mode or on the dotCMS front-end. DOT_DEFAULT_PAGE_CACHE_SECONDS sets the timeout for newly-created pages. |
Advanced Properties
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Redirect Url | If this value is set, dotCMS will automatically redirect users to another URL when they attempt to visit the URL of this Page.
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| HTTPS Required | If this property is true (box checked), dotCMS will only display the page if it is accessed using HTTPS protocol. Note: Use of the HTTPS protocol requires an SSL certificate on the dotCMS server and the proper configuration of dotCMS. Verify that your site can serve HTTPS pages by speaking to your webmaster or local system administrator. |
| SEO Description | Meta Descriptions, which are HTML attributes that provide concise explanations of the contents of web pages, are commonly used by search engines on search result pages to display preview snippets for a given Page. |
| SEO Keywords | Entering a list of keywords (comma separated), gives search engines clues as to how to categorize the content of this Page. For example, when creating a page for college admissions you might list key words such as: apply, admission, enroll, signup - or any other terms that you think visitors would use to find your Pages. Hints for best SEO results:
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Meta Tags in Templates
Meta tags should be created in templates that parse the Velocity variables for the SEO description and keywords on each Page. Use the following code at the top of templates to retrieve the metadata set by Page creators.
<meta name="keywords" content="${dotPageContent.seokeywords}" />
<meta name="description" content="${dotPageContent.seodescription}" />
For more information on calling page properties in Velocity, see the Page Content in Velocity documentation.
