I filled the meta description field in the “SEO / Meta data” part of the category page with the following:-
Hard Drives in 3.5" and 2.5" sizes
I then noticed that the literal HTML generated for the meta description in the header was as follows:-
Note the content attribute- this should end with the double-quote following ‘sizes’, but due to the first double-quote in the description (apparently) not having been filtered out, it is closed following ‘3.5’ and hence the remainder of the tag is messed up.
I’m guessing this wasn’t intentional? At the least I would have assumed that double-quotes would be filtered out or converted to single quotes.
Any time quotes are used in a meta description, Google cuts off the description. To prevent meta descriptions from being cut off, it's best to remove all non-alpha/numeric characters from meta descriptions. If the quotes are important to include they can be changed to single quotes rather than double quotes to prevent truncation.
That's very interesting, thank you- the implication being that we shouldn't be using double-quotes in meta descriptions at all.
That said, it doesn't really address (or negate) my original question- namely, whether CS Cart's behaviour is an oversight and/or bug. IMHO, it should either filter, convert and/or (at the very least) draw the user's attention to the problem of double-quotes.
Even if the user is aware of the issue, it's still possible to overlook it- for example, in this case! I spotted this due to Firefox's source code highlighting (see original quote above). The text was cut and pasted from elsewhere and in context, the double-quote meant “inches” (rather than being used as an actual enclosing quote) which made it easier to miss.
Anyway, not the end of the world, but something I'll have to keep an eye on. Thanks,