Html title best practices and usage (wp_title, title-tag support, etc..)?

Question

I really can't get the right practices from official docs. I think it's a complete mess.

At some point, they started to say to activate the title-tag feature: after_setup_theme >

add_theme_support('title-tag');

• Ok. At this point they stated we should delete the <title> tag from page and stop using wp_title(). Perfect.

• So we had to use the 'wp_title' filter to modify our titles. Right. I did, that worked, once upon a time.

• Then they said ''wp_title' filter was deprecated, and we should have used pre_get_document_title and other filters. Wow, great. Currently they seem not to work, though.

• Then they said ''wp_title' filter was 'reinstated until alternative usages have been identified and a path forward for them defined' Sexy.

But if I look into the core code, I can see that the 'title-tag' has no filters to modify its output. So if I want custom coded texts inside my titles, should I use wp_title() again and disable 'title-tag' support?

Really, can someone shed a definitive light on this topic?

Answer 1

Do you have any SEO plugins installed? They usually fiddle with this logic. Having Yoast enabled, the pre_get_document_title does not work for me, instead you should use wpseo_title per their documentation.

Having said that, with SEO plugins disabled and add_theme_support('title-tag'); enabled, the pre_get_document_title filter works for me without any problem.

add_action('after_setup_theme', function () {
    add_theme_support('title-tag');
}, 20);

add_filter('pre_get_document_title', function ($title) {
    return 'ORO!';
});

Result is, that I see ORO! as the page title.

Answer 2

As far as I can say, currently for me the best option is the old school wp_title() thing: that will work. So:

• Do not add title-tag theme sopport
• Keep your <title><?php wp_title([whatever options]) ?></title> on page
• If you need further customisations, feel free to use the wp_title filter > it's not deprecated and will correctly work.

Until the next wp messy recommendations..