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A Joomla SEO Post I didn’t want to write…

Filed Under: Joomla Seo

This is really a post about Joomla and SEO I would rather not have written…. but it is a great case studie, so here we go…

About 3 weeks back I did some work on my major dutch website, replacing a SEF component, replacing the template and also updating the site to Joomla 1.0.13 which I should have done some time ago.. (no not to Joomla 1.0.14 yet, but you will see in the end why not).

The SEF Components

I wanted to replace the OpenSEF component with sh404SEF, mainly because of the way the later works by sending real 404 headers.
This site had more pages in Google than there were actual pages… I must admit I did some heavy testing with different SEF components in the early days , thus creating more URLs pointing to the same content.
But they al said to the search engines:
He I am OK look Ma, code 200! So all pages stayed in the index.

So cleaning that up was one of the aspect to choose for sh404SEF, the other reason was that OpenSEF is no longer under real development.

Oke, back to the site in question. All things with previous site conversions went without any problems, but with this site I also wanted do a little change in the URLs.
I covered that by redirecting the old URLs to the new ones with 301 redirect in the .htaccess file, so that was covered.


The new template and site upgrade

This was not a great undertaking, as Joomla works great with templates and this one is really clean and fast, even more then the old one.

Upgrading a Joomla website within the 1.0.x range isn't hard to do as well.

Both items were ready in about 30 minutes with some tweaking here and there.


The Google results

After a few day however I found that my visitors number were dropping dramaticly…

The need for the SEF Patch for Jooma

Is this new SEF component the cause of this problem? That was the mayor change on the site?

But I did redirect all those pages, so this could not have caused such a dramatic drop!

Now one thing I always do if I have to look at a site in trouble is run the command site:www.example.com in Google.
And there it was! The problem I was having with the site was the basic one with any not optimized Joomla website!

Standard Joomla gives out the HTML Titles composed of [sitename] – [pagetitle] and this site ad a long title.
So there were a lot of hits showing… my site title and not my carefully crafted pages titles.

Then it hit me, I had upgrade the site to 1.0.13, but had forgotten to install the Joomla SEF Patch by Joomlatwork.com after that.

The Solution to the problem

For those of you that don't now the SEF Patch yet (shame on you), one of the things that is done by the patch is that it changes the way the title of the pages are shown.
Basically it just shows the page title as the HTML title tag, you know, the number one SEO Ranking factor?

Installing the free Patch is just uploading the Page via FTP, or if you have the paid version, which is installed as a component, but thus giving you even more controle over the HTML title (costs 8,33 Euro, which is really a bargain)

I Installed the SEF Patch, and run a new sitemap.xml creation to see if all page titles were back the way they should.
Then off to the Google webmaster tool, removing the old sitemap and telling Google there was a new one.

The results of this action you can see in th graphics above, the site is doing oke again and is now back to where it was before and slightly growing further.

Conclusion:  if you upgrade a Joomla site, even if it is your own, you should always make sure you have the SEF Patch in place!

P.s. Why no upgrade to 1.0.14? There is no patch for this version yet :-) (to my knowledge that is, maybe Richard can shed some light on this) 

 

Update: The Joomla SEF Patch for 1.0.14 is now ready for download at http://www.joomlatwork.com/downloads/

Joomla and Missing Metatags

Filed Under: Joomla Optimization, Joomla Seo, Search Engines

If you are like me, you like to have your Metatags like description and keywords filled with relevant content..

You could have Metatag generators for you website, or overviews of the content with a component like OpenSEF.
But what if you don't use OpenSEF but sh404SEF?
In that case you could register and download the Joomla Metatag component form iJoomla.

But if you just want to see what pages still are in need of content for these Metatags.
In that case there is now a very simple but effective and easy to use modules, with two versions, one for the Joomla 1.0.x versions and for Joomla 1.5…

It is written by Dan Rahmel who also wrote two Books about Joomla!
and

And it is easy to install.

The module is installed as a normal module, but it is only for the administrator.
That is why it is listed under the Administrator part of the Modules and has to be published and positioned on the cPanel, which means that it will be visible on you administrator homepage (the first one after you login)

Joomla Missing Metadata Module

After publication you find the items without the Description and Keywords listed on a separate Tab on the Administrators page.

An overview of the Joomla items missing the Description and Keywords

You can download the version you want from JoomlaJumpStart.com where you can even find more information on Joomla and the insights of Dan Rahmel.

There are people who will tell you that Metatags like the Description and Keywords are useless these days.. for Search Engine Optimization that is.

But try to work on writing good solid page descriptions and use just up to a maximum of 10 keywords in the keyword field.
Use the keywords you have used in the page, and in the Title and wait for the next index round of Google.

The Descriptions field mostly show up under you page title and should be written as a small advertisement to bring you the visitors you want.

Change Joomla Weblinks text

Filed Under: Building a Joomla website, Seo Basics

Change the standard Joomla text of the Weblinks component

 

Most people have the standard text of Joomla weblinks component in the Links page.

 

"We are regularly out on the web. When we find a great site we list it here for you to enjoy.
From the list below choose one of our weblink topics, then select a URL to visit. "

 

But what if you want to change this text, where do you go to change this text?

Location of the Text


This text comes from your language file that is located in the languages directory of your Joomla site.

 

The easiest way to change this text is bij going to you administrators panel > site > language manager > and then choose cthe language file you want to edit.

Af course it needs to be set to writeable…

 

How to change it

 

Find the section in this english.php file that says:

 

/** components/com_weblinks */
DEFINE(‘_WEBLINKS_TITLE','Web Links');
DEFINE(‘_WEBLINKS_DESC','We are regularly out on the web. When we find a great site we list'
.' it here for you to enjoy.  <br />From the list below choose one of our weblink topics, then select a URL to visit.');
DEFINE(‘_HEADER_TITLE_WEBLINKS','Web Link');
DEFINE(‘_SECTION','Section:');
DEFINE(‘_SUBMIT_LINK','Submit A Web Link');
DEFINE(‘_URL','URL:');
DEFINE(‘_URL_DESC','Description:');
DEFINE(‘_NAME','Name:');
DEFINE(‘_WEBLINK_EXIST','There is a Web Link already with that name, please try again.');
DEFINE(‘_WEBLINK_TITLE','Your Weblink must contain a title.');

 

(Psst.. its near the bottom of the file….)

 

Here you can change the first two lines to whatever suits your own needs.