"Thanks for the suggestion -- and, in fact, I've decided to act on it."

I might put this at the top of each page ...!

However, it's not just the meta description you have problems with - the title tag is the same on both pages as well.

I would avoid pagination from an SEO point of view (it's always problematic in practice, even if in theory it should be doable) and user experience point of view (I hate it! But also the links don't stand out. And page numbers give no reason to click - they don't tell you anything about what's there).

I can see why you need it on that article as it is so long. But why not chop it into two separate ones instead? One with your commentary, and one with a full list of new members. That way you can link between them with keyword-rich anchor text, rather than "1" and "2". And no duplicate title / description problems.

function paged_meta_description_filter($content) {
global $cpage;
if ($cpage < 1) return $content;
return $content.' - '.__('comment page').' '.$cpage;
}

It simply won't accept it when I save the file. (The addition is deleted.)

The "if function exists" segment is fine. I can paste it there. But the code above is always rejected. Any idea where else in the theme's php pages I could place it?

I read your piece with interest, as I've been having some serious issues with duplicate meta descriptions.

I use Wordpress 2.8, and their code to break up long posts into two or more pages.
I've just begun using the "All in One SEO" plugin, which auto-generates the description tags using the first 20 or so words of each post.

The problem is that the generated meta descriptions for **all** pages are those found on the **first** page of each post.

See:

http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/oscar-2009-academy-invites-new-members/

http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/oscar-2009-academy-invites-new-members/2/

(I've tried two or three different "meta descritpion" or "SEO" plugins, and they've all come up with the same duplicate meta descriptions.)

I was wondering if someone here can suggest a code "addition" to prevent those duplicate meta descriptions; one that I could insert either into my blog's theme's coding, or into the "All in One SEO" code itself, which is the following for the meta descriptions for individual posts (that I could see):

if (is_single() || is_page() || $this->is_static_posts_page()) {
if ($this->is_static_front_page()) {
$description = trim(stripcslashes($this->internationalize(get_option('aiosp_home_description'))));
} else {
$description = $this->get_post_description($post);
}

AND/OR (further down below the plugin's code)

function get_post_description($post) {
$description = trim(stripcslashes($this->internationalize(get_post_meta($post->ID, "description", true))));
if (!$description) {
$description = $this->trim_excerpt_without_filters_full_length($this->internationalize($post->post_excerpt));
if (!$description && get_option("aiosp_generate_descriptions")) {
$description = $this->trim_excerpt_without_filters($this->internationalize($post->post_content));
}

I should add that I've already posted queries in the Wordpress, Google, and All in One SEO forums, but so far (it's been several days) I haven't found a solution to this issue. Perhaps someone here can help me out.

Any assistance would be much appreciated.