[Bug]: DocumentHead does not create meta or link tags

[TheSteveK]

Quick summary

The component is supposed to be able to update page meta like title, link, meta, etc... I am working on a task to update the title and meta description for /features/comparison on Jetpack Cloud. The title property and the skipTitleFormatting properties work as expected. However, the meta and link properties do not get rendered (not sure about view count).

There have been a few bugs and PRs over the years to address this issue. The most recent one is #62552

Issues #25493 and #24977 also seem to touch on similar problems.

Steps to reproduce

This bug can be seen on pages that currently use the meta and/or link properties on pages in production. Specifically, I noticed it on wordpress.com/log-in

1. Visit wordpress.com/log-in
2. View the source, or otherwise look at the header tags
3. notice the lack of a meta description and canonical link
4. View the code at client/login/wp-login/index.jsx to confirm it has the meta and link properties defined
5. Repeat with javascript disabled, this also confirms that the meta is not being rendered on the server side either.

What you expected to happen

The page should have the appropriate tags

What actually happened

The page does not have the appropriate tags

Browser

No response

Context

No response

Platform (Simple, Atomic, or both?)

No response

Other notes

This does not affect performance or user experience, but it is not great for SEO efforts.

Reproducibility

Consistent

Severity

None

Available workarounds?

None

Workaround details

No response

[cuemarie]

@TheSteveK , Could you take a look at the comment above, and let us know if this differs from what you're reporting? Thanks for taking a look!

[mattgawarecki]

@worldomonation @cuemarie I apologize for not being Steve, but I do at least remember discussing this issue with him 😉

In my local environment, I still see a disconnect between the properties I add to the DocumentHead component on a given page, and the HTML output that results. For example, I added the following snippet to the top of the return statement in client/my-sites/plans/jetpack-plans/selector.tsx:

<DocumentHead title="test" meta={ [ { my_meta_key: 'my_meta_value' } ] } />

While the title in my browser did in fact change, I wasn't able to find any new meta tags with the key or value from the example. Perhaps I'm writing something incorrectly?

[cuemarie]

Thanks for those additional details @mattgawarecki !

I also sought input here on where this could go for further triaging: p1680652470203909-slack-C01LXBU1N21 and will assign according to the feedback there.

📌 ACTIONS

• Assigned to Serenity

[jordesign]

Highlighting this for attention for someone to pick up