From cc7f527a6a39ca38721a2d77d5f6f6eb4bb7edeb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Matt Hanley <3798302+matthanley@users.noreply.github.com>
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2022 19:09:03 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] =?UTF-8?q?=F0=9F=90=9B=20Added=20fallback=20for=20meta=5F?=
 =?UTF-8?q?description=20to=20custom=5Fexcerpt=20(#13927)?=
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

closes https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/issues/13920

- Custom excerpt should be used as a fallback for meta_description in line with the behaviour of OG and Twitter metadata
- We specifically don't want to use the full fallback to the auto-generated preview text when a custom excerpt isn't defined, because we trust search engines to be able to summarise content better than we can
---
 core/frontend/meta/description.js           |  6 +++---
 test/unit/frontend/meta/description.test.js | 12 ++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 15 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/core/frontend/meta/description.js b/core/frontend/meta/description.js
index b684dafcdf..077fc1819e 100644
--- a/core/frontend/meta/description.js
+++ b/core/frontend/meta/description.js
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ function getDescription(data, root, options = {}) {
                 || settingsCache.get('description')
                 || '';
         } else {
-            description = data.post.meta_description || '';
+            description = data.post.meta_description || data.post.custom_excerpt || '';
         }
     } else if (_.includes(context, 'page') && data.post) {
         // Page description dependent on legacy object formatting (https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/issues/10042)
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ function getDescription(data, root, options = {}) {
                 || settingsCache.get('description')
                 || '';
         } else {
-            description = data.post.meta_description || '';
+            description = data.post.meta_description || data.post.custom_excerpt || '';
         }
     } else if (_.includes(context, 'page') && data.page) {
         if (options.property) {
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ function getDescription(data, root, options = {}) {
                 || settingsCache.get('description')
                 || '';
         } else {
-            description = data.page.meta_description || '';
+            description = data.page.meta_description || data.page.custom_excerpt || '';
         }
     }
 
diff --git a/test/unit/frontend/meta/description.test.js b/test/unit/frontend/meta/description.test.js
index bd1089f248..7d0c7dcb8f 100644
--- a/test/unit/frontend/meta/description.test.js
+++ b/test/unit/frontend/meta/description.test.js
@@ -68,6 +68,12 @@ describe('getMetaDescription', function () {
             should(
                 getMetaDescription({post}, {context: 'post'})
             ).equal(null);
+
+            post.custom_excerpt = 'Custom excerpt';
+
+            should(
+                getMetaDescription({post}, {context: 'post'})
+            ).equal('Custom excerpt');
         });
 
         it('has correct fallbacks for context: page', function () {
@@ -83,6 +89,12 @@ describe('getMetaDescription', function () {
             should(
                 getMetaDescription({page}, {context: 'page'})
             ).equal(null);
+
+            page.custom_excerpt = 'Custom excerpt';
+
+            should(
+                getMetaDescription({page}, {context: 'page'})
+            ).equal('Custom excerpt');
         });
 
         // NOTE: this is a legacy format and should be resolved with https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/issues/10042