I have been running a test-site installation of the new Joomla 1.5 RC 1 to see what improvements there have been made for SEF and SEO.
There is a difference between SEF and SEO, you can read more about that on Search Engine Friendly or already Search Engine Optimized but I will not go into that much more here, as the point of the exercise was the see what changed / improved.
First thing you notice is that the Basic URL without the SEO Option set is still the same as before.
Next you go into your Global configuration and look up the Seo Settings…
That has changed a little, and has a new option, which is really great!
Did you see it? There is an option that says “Use mod_rewrite” ! and the best part is that is works!
So now if you don’t know how to, or can not use a .htaccess file because of provider restrictions, you can still have SEF URLs like this one..
You see there is now an index.php between your domain name and the SEF URL.
Full SEO Options
You can set both settings and use an .htaccess file to get ride of the index.php so that the full (SEF) URL looks like:
Hmm.. maybe they should call it SEF Settings? But it is a great improvement that you can use the SEF URLs without a special component.
Does that mean that we don’t have to use a SEF Component anymore?
No, they are still very valuable for several functions like URL rewrites… yes those still apply, because you want more control over the how the URL is formed.
The SEF function of RC 1 uses the Title Alias for the URL, so you can play a little with that, but that takes away a possible use of the alias for HTML Title rewrites…
Also you want to control the 404 Sef function and landing page, with Joomla 1.5 RC 1 there is good basic 404 page with the right headers, so old URLs will be removed form the search engines.
Also SEF component is able to prevent Rewriting URLs if a Components doesn’t support them and breaks with te standard URLs.
The Duplicate Metatag problem
What you would see with the “Old” Joomla was that the Global Metadata was inserted into the HTML code together with the Article Metatags like description and keywords.
The problem seems now to be resolved, so if you now fill an article with The Metatags Description and Keywords (and you know you should) than ONLY those tags are in the source code!
From a Search Engine Optimization view, this is a very good thing… problem is that you still get the Global description on every page you don’t fill the parameters, so pleas leave the Globals empty and let the search Engines pick there own excerpts.
You see, there is still a need for a nice Metatag generator if you have lots off pages or multiple editors.
Overall SEO conclusion for Joomla 1.5 RC 1
You have a better Content Management System than before from a Search Engine Friendly and Optimization point of view.
The basics are in Place to get any new website based on this Joomla 1.5 version to get better results, just by activating the SEO Settings on a bare minimum of SEF URLs.
Its a very big improvement that it can work without the .htaccess files that so many people are struggling with, so that every website can have nice URLs to work with, so set that configuration option to ON.
As I will do some more testing, expect more post on these and other items, but please be patient, as I want to Inform you based on experiences, and time is limited..
So if you want to be up-to-date, and you liked the post, use the RSS Feed to keep up..
Hi Hummerbie
We should hopefully have some better improvements in RC 2:
http://www.alledia.com/blog/joomla-1.5/great-seo-improvements-in-joomla-1.5/
Hi Steve,
The picture in your post does promise more on the SEO part, nice looking features!
I hope its done in the next, or the Stable release or yes, I would be dissapointed..
Looks good. I am using the old Open SEF to do what I can in way of SEO.
This is a very informative article. I’m experienced with both SEO and Joomla and will be very happy when Joomla will be 100% SEO compliant (out of the box).
Best regards,
Trond – JoomlaSEO.no
Thanks for the review. I have played around with 1.5 Beta and have to say it looks really nice and promising. I am considering migrating my 1.0 site to 1.5 but might just hold off a while. It would be good to create a template for 1.5 first.
Which kinda brings me to the next question. In terms of article headings is there an easy way to overwrite the contentheading class and replace it was an h1, h2,h3,h4,h5 tag etc.. One of the best things about wordpress is semantically correct code. Something I’d really like to see incorporated into Joomla.
@Gavin
True, I would like to see the same thing, altough most of them are already possible if your Template supports them.
You can then select the css class in your content if your editor supports it.
Or you must af course edit without wysiwig editor :-)
The only way you can have a h1 for your Title is if its incorperated in you template, or to you the Joofox header with is a module that does that.
http://www.antoniodeluca.info/en/services-products/joofox.html
But Joomla 1.5 Templates seem to get better at using these features.
Allgthough it is up to the Templates designers to really get it right (but that is the same with WordPress)
Sorry for this shameless post, but some time ago i have created a simple plugin that enables you to optimize just a little bit further by being able to set the page tag, using the Article Alias.
See: http://www.vak18.com/joomla_plugins/ for information and download.
Hi all,
For those who can’t wait for 1.5 to be stable, may I remind you that sh404SEF already provides for the 1.0.X series:
- SEF URL without mod_rewrite
- total control over Title and Meta tags, for any URL
- h1 tags around contentheadings
- multi-lingual URLs as needed
- https base URL for shared-ssl
All of this withouth hacking the core or templates in any way
1.5 is getting better on URL, I am waiting for RC2 to really give feedback, as they say most improvements will be done for this next release.
Regards to all
@Peter
I’m always on the lookout for improvements of Joomla and SEO, So I will test your Plugin and write some findings.
Good to see some much Dutch people involved with Joomla!
@Sumisha
You have some great extensions and Plugins, currently I have the sh404SEF running on a IIS based website!
Thank you for your work, and I will check the h1 content stuff also.
I could not get the s version running on 1.5 but that is logical since it is totally different that 10.0.x versions.
I am waiting on the RC 2 also to see if the other stuff as mentioned on the Joomlatwork site will get into it..
But it is the same as RC 1, I would like to have more control with a component like sh404SEF.
Hi, Hi:
I played Joomla 1.5 RC 1 for a while to see how its SEF works. However, I got some url as “http://www.example.com/home/44-why-number” instead of “”http://www.example.com/home/why-number” . I was wondering if anyone experienced the same problem? And how can get rid of it? Thanks.
-Tom
@Tom
Please check if you have the latest release and not a nightly build.
The number looks like the part that was mentioned before on the developers Blog as the use of the content ItemID as part of the URL to insure the uniqueness off the URL.
Could you check if the 44 is indeed the ItemID number of the content?
@Pathos
Yes. It’s the ItemID number, but I just downloaded the codes yesterday. I may need do it again to see what will happen.
when i activate both SEO-functions i cannot reach submenus the first menu-page reloads on click…
@r4lph
Please check if your .htaccess file is setup the right way and you renamed the file to .htaccess
Otherwise please first try just using the first option only.
If that works oké you know you have an error in you .htaccess file, or your server does not support the mod_rewrite option on Apache.
P.s. I would suggest not using the 1.5 RC2 version for Live Production sites, as there will be some changes in RC3..
Pathos: What will be the changes that you are referring to, that makes you think it’s not wise to run RC2 now?
@Peter
Changes could be upgrades from a Database point of view, other files coming into the package and removal of others.
It is a RC2 release and there will be a RC3 release…
So the Upgrade paths of RC2 to RC3 and to the first Stable release could become a problem.
Check also the error questions on http://forum.joomla.org/index.php#14
One of my own reasons not to swith yet is that the SEF Functions of 1.5 are not implemented fully.
Also the small amount of extensions available is a reason not to switch to 1.5 for Live sites, that need to be fast and stable.