Thread: SEO for Joomla websites

I have noticed that some of the websites developed using Joomla contains search engine UNFRIENDLY urls.

It makes difficult for search engines to crawl your website and hence poor ranking in search results.

Are you also worried about the wierd looking URL on your website using Joomla ?

There is a simple piece of code in your joomla configuration file, which converts your ugly URLs into search engine (and humans too) friendly URLs, which is very important for search engine optimisation.

Right, lets jump to the work then !!

Go to your root (/) folder on the web server and download the configuration.php file on your local machine and take a backup of the same.


Now, search for $sef in the file and check what value is already assigned to it. If the assigned value is ”0”, your CURRENT url must be looking ugly ,something like …….

http://www.yourdomain.com/index.php?...d=57&Itemid=67

Can you understant id ? NO!! So how do we expect search engines to understand what it is?

Remember, search engines are ”learning” to think like a human being. If a human cant understand , don’t expect the Google Robot to index your site

Set the value of var $sef =’1′ , upload the configuration file to root (/) folder and see your ugly URLs turning into understandable and HUMAN readable urls.

(Note : if $sef is not present, simply declare it by writing var $sef =’1′ on a new line in the configuration.php file)

I will keep on writing on specifically on Joomla Websites..so please check it regularly.

Thanks

FOLLOWING REPLY TO ABOVE POST COPIED FROM SAME FORUM

One of the first and most basic things you should configure in Joomla is to select the "YES" option to automatically format URL's to "SEO-friendly" ... it is the top-right of your GLOBAL CONFIGURATION panel screen, and you will find it here:

DASHBOARD > GLOBAL CONFIGURATION

It would have been more useful to "remind" newcomers how to create page names and Page Titles using Key Words, or even how to use TAGs more effectively before posting articles (being sure they relate with specific value phrases carefully composed within the written Content) so they too, conform to standard optimization practices!

But then, these things are covered in the Joomla Tutorials in depth ....