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Yannick Gaultier's extension sh404sef is a great way to make Joomla 1.5 more search engine friendly. Today we're going to be discussing why we think sh404sef is the most important extension
to install on Joomla 1.5.
There are numerous on-page factors which search engines take into account when indexing websites, we discussed these factors in our SEO on-site framework. If you are running Joomla 1.5 without any extensions you lack complete control over some of these factors. The latest build of sh404sef for Joomla 1.5 has some fantastic features which will help you make Joomla 1.5 more search engine friendly and allow you to run a Joomla 1.5 website that can be fully optimised according to our SEO framework.
Killer optimisation features in sh404sef
These are the features that we think are particularly useful in the latest test build
of sh404sef:
- Search engine friendly URLS - Complete flexibility over the url name
- Meta tag management - Ability to set title, description, keywords, robots and language tags for each page
- Remove the Joomla meta generator tag
- Insert h1 tags to Joomla's contentheading and componentheading headings
- Insert the article title into "Read more link"
- Switch Joomla's output to table-less - This has just been added in the latest build and is dicussed in more detail in the interview below.
Screenshots
Here are some screenshots taken from the sh404sef extension interface which show some of the options that can be customised in sh404sef. Click on the thumbnail below to scroll through the 6 screenshots:
Interview with Yannick - Sh404sef's developer
Yannick Gaultier kindly agreed to answer some questions we had about sh404sef...
Yannick, thanks very much for agreeing to be interviewed. Firstly, what is your motivation behind developing sh404sef?
"Developing sh404sef came out of necessity for a couple of friends sites, which needed both SEF URL and multilingualism. There was no good solution for that at the time. Later on, existing SEF extensions went more or less commercial, and I felt I could supply an alternative. The main goal, being a hobbyist, was to not make any shortcuts and provide the best solutions from a SEO and user standpoint. On the SEO side, it I have expanded into many features like page titles, meta tags, h1/h2 tags, article titles in Read more links,... On the user side, I added possibity to run without .htaccess, probably the number h1 difficulty in using a SEF tool. Same for security features, and most of all, as people don't all want the same thing, many configuration options."
"Then people starting using it, and it has grown quickly. Today the main motivation is surely that many people are using it, so you don't want to let them down, do you? As I long as I'll be able to spare enough time, I'll keep it going."
Why have you kept this extensions free?
"Very good question. One I really never asked myself as such. I have inherited the component from someone, and though you could argue I have expanded it significantly, I guess I still see it as "community" property somehow. I do some custom paid work once in a while, time-permitting, but I can't picture myself running sh404sef as a business, where you have to guaranty things such as response time, bug fixes, etc. At the moment, I don't want and can't get into this. I like the idea of being able to make a living with Joomla or even just a web-related business, but I don't think sh404sef will ever really be a part of that."
In the latest build of sh404sef, there is the option to switch Joomla's output to table-less. What do you think is the advantage of switching Joomla's output to table-less?
"There are a number of advantages, and this subject has been very tender for a very longtime, even in the Mambo years. These advantages have mostly to do with the internals of the generated page, and so they probably don't jump in the face of most people, yet they are very real. The most visible one is probably improved accessibility, as table-less output will increase the quality of text-readers used by some disabled people. I am no specialist in that field, but I have basically been told that is a good step in the right direction. Then your page will be lighter, will load and be displayed faster. From a SEO standpoint, your html to real text ratio will be reduced compared to table-full output, and that is a positive factor from most search engines in ranking your page. Likewise, improved display time is considered now a positive factor by at least Google. Then there is the "Semantic web" thing, where again table-less output is a good step forward. I am not too much into that myself, but again any step forward is good to take."
"There are drawbacks as well. The most significant: changing to table-less means the css code used to style the page will have to be updated. Actually, making an existing template compatible with table-less output is only a matter of providing additional classes in the CSS file. As I am basically re-using the Beez template code for outputting HTML, I think we can use the Beez CSS classes names and conventions as a standard, so that designers can start coding against it. If my approach works well (which needs testing of course), it would be great if somehow this option is integrated in the core, so that the CSS classes are really standardized, a necessary step for designers to provide 100% table-less templates."
With SEF urls, meta data control, table-less output and heading tags controlled with sh404sef, is there anything else we can look forward to in future versions of sh404sef?
"Well, there is nothing really cooking at the moment. There is quite a bit of work ahead to make the 1.5.x version stable, so I think I'll try not to add too many features in the immediate future! (Unless something comes along of course...)"
Thank you Yannick
As you can see, Yannick is doing the Joomla community a great service in continuing to develop sh404sef for Joomla. If you aren't already using sh404sef on your Joomla 1.5 website, you should consider downloading and installing the extension. If you are using sh404sef, please consider donating
to Yannick to reward him for his hard work.
Download the latest stable version of sh404sef for Joomla 1.5
Download the latest test build of sh404sef for Joomla 1.5
What is your experience of Sh404sef in Joomla 1.5? Has sh404sef helped you create search engine optimised websites?
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May 13, 2008
Votes: +3