I wrote some time ago that OpenSEF development has been taken over by new maintainers.
Because I don’t know yet how and when a new release is planned I thought I would start looking at alternatives to some of the most used features in OpenSEF.
Now, don’t take this the wrong way, OpenSEF is still a great component that has many great features and you can still Download OpenSEF
So here is a short list of the items you could work with to get the best options for Joomla SEO in Place:
- sh404SEF – The best free SEF Component at this moment
I even provides a function to edit you 404 page and give you a proper Joomla 404 Header! - iJoomla Metatag Generator – Getting an overview of the Fields you still have to fill with Metatag Descriptions and Keywords (you can even do it automatically.. not recommend for best results)
- Sef Service Map , this was the hardest one.. because you can give Google, Yahoo, Ask and Live a sitemap file to make sure they can find all the content on your website.
OpenSEF has a great part in it that creates a sitemap.xml file with the SEF URL in it…
I tried Joomap and encountered the same problems as Joemar and tried the new version of Sef Service Map, and that worked out fine!
It even updates the file automatically after the cache time, so this on it a set and forget it… an improvement over OpenSEF.
You can use these separate components and get even better SEO work done, but the installation and configuration takes a little more time, but that is well worth the effort!!
6 responses so far ↓
Michael Zittel // October 15, 2007 at 10:05 am |
Since you wrote this article a new Joomla SEO / EF component has been released by Serr.biz.
It’s called SerrBizSEF.
In addition to SEFS, it allows users to create meta for EVERY page of Joomla, and effectively handles 99% of the duplicate content issues of Joomla.
Now, there is one SEF no matter how you navigate to a content item.
The basic package is free to download.
The upgrade or complete package only costs $19.95.
Upgrade / Complete package includes special rules for:
VirtueMart, Community Builder, Hot Properties, DS Syndicate, AKO comment and others.
Note: We are also working on a package to help people quickly convert from OpenSEF, since it is no longer support and had tons of duplicate content problems…in fact, that’s why we built SerrBizSEF, because OpenSEF creates duplicate content and is unsupported.
Hummerbie // October 31, 2007 at 11:35 am |
@Micheal,
I tried SerrBizSEF, but was not impressed…
It didn’t give me the configuration options I would like to see, maybe it has improved by now, or I should have tried the Sponsored version, but for now my favorite is still the free sh404SEF component.
If you would like to read more about the others, Steve has a great comparison post at http://www.alledia.com/blog/joomla-urls/complete-sef-url-extension-comparison/
ultimoAdios // November 5, 2007 at 9:34 am |
Wonderful! The info is so helpful. You open up another door here. Thanks a lot guys! As of today, I am still using OpenSEF but along the way this will change.
Michael // November 30, 2007 at 1:45 pm |
SerrBizSEF has been updated and includes rules for VirtueMart, Fireboard, Community Builder, HotProperties, etc. It also works with DS Syndicate and JooMap.
Additionally, we have added a NEW Redirect control panel which does the following.
1) You can manually set any url to point to any content item. (Good if you are moving fom one platform to joomla.)
2) You can manually set any url to point off site.
Yourdomain.com/url.html to http://newsite.com
3) If an SEF already exists, and for some reason you change it, the system will REDIRECT the OLD SEF to the NEW one.
For example. SerrBizSEF might automatically create a URL like this for /section/category/widgets.html
Say you change it later to just /widgets.html
SerrBizSEF knows this, and makes a note, and will redirect all requests to /section/category/widgets.html
Toolbe Webmaster Seo Search Engine // January 24, 2008 at 10:06 pm |
will try the posted alternatives, so far i have used opensef.
thx
Kackar // August 9, 2009 at 6:42 pm |
i cant use opensef..