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28 Jan 2010

Top 10 SEO Extensions For Joomla 1.5 in 2010

Author: Don Gilbert | Filed under: Joomla, SEO
Joomla SEO Top 10 SEO Extensions For Joomla 1.5 in 2010

Many of us have found Joomla to be one of the best options for building websites quickly and easily for a variety of industries. This is because it’s ease of use, has many plugins, and its scalability has earned great applause. Unfortunately, Joomla is a little backward SEO wise, and makes it difficult for your content to rank well. Never fear, we have listed here 10 great plugins we have used on clients sites and seen great results. So make 2010 a year of SEO zen with your Joomla website. Please keep in mind that these plugins are somewhat exclusive, while some can be combined, others cannot. Proceed with caution.

1. RS SEO- This great component does a number of invaluable SEO tasks including: crawl your website and index all the pages, modify the Meta Keywords, Meta description and Title on the fly, grade each page for SEO effectiveness, create Google and Yahoo! sitemaps, constantly monitor your competitors and compare them to you, monitor important keyword positions, and set permanent redirects for old links.

2. iJoomla SEO- Another great full featured component with a plethora of SEO features including: position of keywords in Google, use of h1, h2, h3 tags instead of contentheading tag, individual metatag control per page, automatic linking based on keyword, 301 redirects, ability to add nofollows to links (or leave dofollow, if you prefer), and image seo optimization.

3. SEF Service Map 2 (with PingBack system)- This component creates a complete XML sitemap of your site which it then uses to actively report (ping) new or modified items to Google, Yahoo, and other services. (Pinging is one of the tools that makes WordPress so AWESOME for SEO!) Thanks to that, indexing robots (spiders) will visit your site much more often and the site can index itself without your further activity. Make sure to sign up with Google Webmaster, Yahoo Site Explorer, and Bing Webmaster Center to tell these services the location of your sitemap.

4. sh404SEF This component adds search engine friendly url’s to Joomla but is much more robust than the built in SEF. sh404SEF lets you create unlimited short URLs for any page, remove duplicate URLs, customize the page title and page description, automatically emphasize all your article titles with “Heading tags,” spam and hacker management, and IP blocking. It also works with or without .htaccess support.

5. Joomla 1.5 SEO Patch- This patch solves the issues in regards of the settings within the html head section of your Joomla pages. The patch allows you to gain fully control over the META and title settings in the http header settings in Joomla 1.5 generated pages.

6. SEO Canonicalisation Plugin- SEO Canonicalisation is a system plugin for Joomla! 1.5 that enables site ‘canonicalisation’, which means that when a user hits your site from another domain than your preferred (for example, www.website.com instead of website.com), Joomla! will redirect the user to the appropriate hostname. Previously this would have to be accomplished by adding a .htaccess rewrite rule to handle the redirect.

7. SEOSimple- This simple Joomla 1.5 plugin takes the starting chunk of text from the page content and applies that as the value for the meta description tag in the page head. Search engines often use a Web page’s meta description in the SERPs, and as such it is important that these meta descriptions have relevant text related to the page content.

8. J!Redirect301- This extension works just as it sounds. The plugin 301 redirects your domains to one domain so that only one version of your site is indexed and also can be used to redirect individual pages to a new a page so search engine results are not lost.

9. Website Name- This Joomla 1.5 plugin displays the Website name in the page title. This is useful for SEO purposes, because it shows relationship between pages of your site. You can choose to display it before or after the Content Title.

10. GD SEO Verify- This nifty little plugin makes verifying your sites at Google Webmaster, Yahoo Site Explorer, and Bing Webmaster Center much easier on the backend of Joomla.

Of course, there are others available, but as the title suggests, these are the top. What plugins do you use? Do you see some that we left off the list? Sound off below.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 28th, 2010 at 6:00 am and is filed under Joomla, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

37 Responses to “Top 10 SEO Extensions For Joomla 1.5 in 2010”

  2. Excellent article!

  4. Thanks! Do you use any of these? Which ones? Are we missing any from this list?

  6. Question re sh404sef. I read since it was purchased, and is commercial, it no longer works as well. Any feedback to that? I’ve been using Artio JoomSEF. I could not find most of these. I’ve searched and searched. That in itself is problematic. Why is it so hard to find these? Any clues to find Joomla extensions, other than the “official” site and Google searches?? Thanks and namaste.

  8. I have not updated to the latest version of sh404SEF since it went commercial, so I can’t comment on that part.

    However, I updated to the latest version just before it went commercial and can provide that for you if you would like. Send me an email @ don at ifbdesign dot com and I will get it to you.

  10. @Jenny I think your frustration is why many consider wordpress the more viable option for SEO. There are alot more plugins for SEO and it automatically does some things better than Joomla. Often it makes sense to buy a commercial solution like RSSEO for Joomla to do a wide variety of SEO tasks. We will definitely be focusing on Joomla regularly in the future as we use it on a daily basis-will

  12. I have recently posted a blog on my site that covers something very similar to do with Virtuemart: http://www.ianrsmith.co.uk/search-engine-friendly-sef-urls-for-virtuemart/

    Really great post!
    .-= Ian´s last blog ..How to click on Adsense ad urls on your own site without clicking your ads =-.

  14. Is this a Joomla site?
    .-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!! =-.

  16. Certainly not. What would give you that impression? We are the Masters of SEO, not the Masters of Joomla SEO – we deal with any and all areas. We’ll probably put together a list of other CMS SEO tools as well.

    You can’t be a Master of SEO and expect to use Joomla as your blogging CMS! (Although we do use it on some of our client sites, just because of it’s variety of extensions.)

  18. Dennis we use WordPress on masters but we often use Joomla on client sites depending on their needs. Their is no doubt that WordPress is king for SEO.

  20. Very nice article.. Thanks for sharing..

  22. I have been reading the articles on this site for sometime. This is my first comment. Your blog has been very useful for me and it provides very good content.
    .-= Jeff´s last blog ..front page – Page 2 of 12 =-.

  24. It is an interesting and rich article,all seo needs to discover more details and new ways all the same

  26. I do not agree WordPress is best for SEO. I’ve gotten very good SEO results for my Joomla-based punk photo site because I use keywords, related items, titles, alt tags.

    I first built my site in Dreamweaver (the ONLY game in town years ago), then WordPress, but Joomla RULES for my needs. I need a ROBUST CMS, with a grid for lots of layout options, and minimal PHP knowledge. I think we need to look at the BIG picture!

    You can have the BEST SEO tools, but if you don’t have a thoughtful organized design, good user navigation, meaningful content, then what good is SEO backend? I’ve seen more CRAP WP sites than I care to think about!

    food for thought . . . good threads here!

  28. Well, WP is certainly best – at least in Google’s eyes. That’s why it took over 3 years to build my Joomla based site to a PR3 and only 3 weeks (no kidding) to build my WP based site to the same rank.

    WordPress kicks butts and takes names when it comes to SEO all day.

  30. Thanks for the article. @Don Gilbert is right. WordPress is easily the better at SEO.
    .-= Media Street´s last blog ..Website Design and Development =-.

  32. WP is EASIER (vs Joomla) for SEO, but SEO is NOT the only game in town. Esp w/rise of Social Media. I found this site/posting cos of a Facebook posting from a top Joomla themer/consultant (Barrie North FYI).

    I never found you via Google, and I do Google for vairous SEO inquiries.

    Maybe WP for SEO (and Barrie and others refute that). SEO is not the ONLY metric to measure for online success.

    YOUR best is not always MY best. No matter the topic.

    There’s quite a bit of compromise — IF you are not a programmer and using off the shelf s/w and themes.

    You cannot have the best of both worlds: design flexibility, CMS vs SEO. Pick one, and make the best of it.

    I DID CREATE A WP SITE. It was so hard to use/limiting I had to switch to Joomla. Plus with so many WP extensions, I found conflicts, constantly updating extensions, and it was NO easier to learn nor use than Joomla. For me.

    Three years vs three weeks.

    Maybe there are other factors involved? Or does one live by metrics? I don’t even want to go there.

    When people put more time into social media, better web design, alt tags, valuable links, improve the USER experience, they’d get as good results as focusing on Page Rank.

    Why? Cos in ALL my years online (since 1992 at least), I never ever ran into some peeps who are HUGE in Social Media, which is proving as important as SEO.

    Mari Smith is THE best online resource I’ve met. I found her via Facebook via another new friend who is a long-time fan of my photos. I follow her (and other trusted, cutting edge writers) for latest, greatest info, not Google. Or say Guy K, whom I met when he was an early Mac evangelist, and alltop.com. Or copyblogger.com.

    Hmm, isn’t that why Facebook is taking on Google as a viable search engine??

    http://bit.ly/cgbGc3

    It’s not just what you know, but who you know and how you use all that.

    FUN STUFF cos there are NO universally BETTER anything.

    Only what works for each of us. I feel like you guys are so set that WordPress is SEO King of the World.

    I understand and applaud you are a SEO MASTERS, not Joomla (which is a good thing, important to cover a range of options). BUT SEO is not the ONLY element in online success these days.

    I’d love to use WP for MY own sites, but I’m a Joomla gal. Just works better for my brain. I pump up the social media (cos I am far more into that than following metrics), and the SEO is working out fine.

    It’s kinda like a recipe. You change the seasonings a bit and it’s a whole new dish. But just as edible as others, according to our tastes and needs.

    PS I was briefly involved in a new MLM. I was forced to use the company site. My site was top of Google for a few days. People wrote and asked me how/why. Totally luck of the draw. Didn’t translate into any sales. It’s not always positioning which counts.

    Glad I found you. GREAT site! Namaste and thanks!

  34. PS why don’t the paragraph returns work??? Do I have to hit two of them? I hate big long text blocks. URGH.

  36. Thanks for putting your effort into that last comment – I appreciate your interaction with th community. I will take me a little while to come up with good answers – this is just a preliminary comment.

    About the carriage returns, I can’t stand that they don’t work either. Our template pulls them out for some reason, and I am working on that now. I can’t stand huge blocks of text either.

  38. Don, it’s a treat to communicate here.

    RE paragraph spacing issues: As you know, I use Joomla. I used MyBlog from Azrul, and if I entered text within the blogging extension, vs directly into Article Manager in Joomla, I ran into this problem. I think it was also dependent upon the theme. So it’s very hard to determine the cause, the blogging ext or the theme? Wouldn’t matter, cos not being a programmer, I couldn’t fix it!

    I am laughing now, but it’s not funny. It’s times like these I wish I were a top notch PHP programmer. As if I don’t wear enough hats!

    I recall this was a MAJOR problem for a LONG time on Huffingtonpost.com. They finally fixed it. I’ve heard top SEO presentations saying huffpost use WordPress. NO, Movable Type.

    Thanks for realizing I DO put in a lot of time and thought in my posts. I don’t think most people realize that.

    and I don’t expect fast answers. Hey, if it were that simple, I’d figure it out myself. LOL!

    I have my work cut out figuring out best SEO ext for Joomla. Text from official sites are fairly worthless.

    I want real user comments. And that’s hard to find. So it’s up to us to implement and figure it out. Which is why I am in no hurry to redo my broken site. Gotta just bite the bullet . . .

    You take care and thanks again. ;-)

  40. Would you say Joomla, vBulletin, or WordPress is best for integrating social group blogs?

    VBulltetin w/Blog is expensive and everyone loves it, Joomla always needs updates and 3rd party plugins , and WP lacks forum integration. I’m leaning on leaving Joomla for WP just to compare SEO ranks.

    However, I wonder why so many are willing to pay top dollar for a VB forum and not a blog?

    Thanks.

  42. Thank you for including RSSeo! on the top 10 seo extensions; we are continuously adding new features to keep up with the changes from this industry. For example, as website speed could be considered the next ranking factor (according to Matt Cutts), we have added a new feature to “Pages” that calculates some loading factors, like page size and page loading time.

    We are planning to develop a seo plugin for WordPress that basically will follow the same model as RSSeo! for Joomla!, but will have some adapted features for WordPress.

    So if you are planning a “Top 10 seo plugin extensions for WordPress in 2010″, I hope it will be on your list too.

  44. Im not a Joomla blogger but I think, this plugins are great. Retweeted this one.
    .-= Ron Leyba´s last blog ..Webthesurfi Rugs Webdesign =-.

  46. This is a good news for webmaster who are using Joomla. I have a Joomla site and I think this will be very useful for me to use on the site. I hope to et better result with this plugin. Thanks for sharing…

  48. Excellent
    good
    very useful

  50. Is this a Joomla site?
    .-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..The Time Has Come. The Deal Is Done. It’s Time To Move!!

  52. Well every one here is right with his opinions. Actually WordPress vs Joomla is another debate. Here we are just considering SEO. And as far as SEO is concerned we are just talking about the Title,Permalinks,Meta Tags and stuff. And whether it is Joomla or WordPress the SEO components remains the same. The thing which is different is teh accessbility of plugins in Joomla and WordPress. I personally would vote for WordPress :)

  54. [...] 10 SEO Extensions For Joomla 1.5 in 2010 http://www.mastersofseo.com/top-10-seo-extensions-joomla-15-2010/ Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Next Post"Top Kill" [...]

  56. Great job.
    Carry on.
    Every one like it.
    Thank you for this blog
    ..

  58. Excellent
    good
    very useful

  60. I really havn’t tried the Joomla. But I will be using this Joomla in the future, can you tell me which is the plug in that I can use to do all of those task? Would there be no conflict, because I really hate debugging?

  62. Au fait post! I am enchanted to know your valued acumen. It will offer me huge help.

  64. Do these work with Microsoft IIS? Specifically looking at iJoomla SEO for their modification of the h1, h2 tags.

  66. Thanx So Much You have olved My problem of Joooomla Seo

  68. I appreciate it very much, at least I know from it someone is reading the contents I have here, great modifications in html tags, Thanks.

  70. Quiet helpful collection. As I moved form WordPress to Joomla, I was looking for osme permalink change plugin and found J!Redirect30. Thanks alot

  72. Permalink was my problem with joomla. anyway WP is great for SEO.

  74. An excellent post, providing something good to read,it’s just good to came across the post.

    Thanx

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