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Joomla 1.5
Oct
25
2007
SEO Comparison of Joomla 1.0 and 1.5

After the big chart earlier this week comparing the Search Engine Friendly URL Components for Joomla, I wanted to take a similar approach and compare the SEO features of Joomla 1.0 and 1.5.

What's On the Chart? 

On the chart is a rundown of all the key on-page SEO factors. We can't help you when it comes to building links or writing articles people want to read, but we can advise on the technical stuff.

Who May Find This Useful

Hopefully this chart will help people who:

  • are thinking about upgrading to 1.5
  • want an easy reference chart for SEO improvements in 1.0 or 1.5

The Small Print

  • The factors are heavily based on SEOMoz's Google Search Engine Ranking Factors because it does a good job of combining the wisdom of many experts.
  • The list is more-or-less in the order of importance given by the SEOMoz team. Page titles are much important than duplicate content for example.
  • The Joomla 1.0 codebase has been around for at least 3/4 years, whereas 1.5 is still Release Candidate. Of course it has less available extensions.
  • Some important on-page SEO factors have been left out, notable keywords in body text, bold print and h2 or h3 titles. This is because they can just be done with any WYSIWYG editor.
  • I'm sure that plugins will emerge to cover all the current holes in 1.5. Give it time. However, if SEO is really important to you and thinking that you should wait before using 1.5 ... you're right.

Joomla 1.0 and 1.5 SEO Features

 Part of 1.0 Core? [-]1.0 Extensions to Provide / Improve This Feature [-]Part of 1.5 Core? [-]1.5 Extensions to Provide / Improve This Feature [-]
Keyword Use in Title Tag
Yes, but with very little flexibility
Use the Joomlatwork.com SEF Patch or or sh404SEF, Artio SEF, SEF Advance, SerrBizSEF, JPromoter for unique page titles
Yes, but with very little flexibility.
Use "Alias for PageTitle Plugin"
Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords

JooFox Content Analyzer will calculate your keyword density

Not Yet
Keyword Use in H1 Tag

JoomSEO or sh404SEF

Not Yet
Keyword Use in Page URL

sh404SEF, Artio SEF, SEF Advance, SerrBizSEF, JPromoter
Much better core URLs
Not Yet
Keyword Use in Alt Tags and Image Titles
Any good WYSIWYG Editor. Be sure to set alt tags manually
Any good WYSIWYG Editor. Be sure to set alt tags manually
Any good WYSIWYG Editor. Be sure to set alt tags manually
Any good WYSIWYG Editor. Be sure to set alt tags manually
Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag
Yes, but only for core content items
SEF Patch or sh404SEF, Artio SEF, SEF Advance, SerrBizSEF, JPromoter
Yes, but only for core content itemss
Not Yet
Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag
Yes, but only for core content items
SEF Patch or sh404SEF, Artio SEF, SEF Advance, SerrBizSEF, JPromoter
Yes, but only for core content items
Not Yet
Avoids Duplicate Content
non-SEF URLs and Print / PDF buttons can cause duplicate content havoc
Turn off PDF and Print pages
Has SEF URLs and "no-follow" on key links
Not Yet
Avoids Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Many Pages
Site Title and Global Configuration metadata appear on every page
SEF Patch or sh404SEF, Artio SEF, SEF Advance, SerrBizSEF, JPromoter
Site Title and Global Configuration metadata appear on every page
Not Yet
Google Sitemap

Joomap, SEF Service Map

XMap
 

Comments  

 
#1 Klaus Nitsche 2007-10-26 01:30
Right on Steve! This is an excellent comparison that tells it all.

The conclusion really deserves to be moved out of the small print: If you care about SEO, and you have a new project now, do it with 1.0.x and use the extensions available to make the SEO improvements you need.

I do have a small addition to one of your points: Duplicate content is not just an issue with PDF and print pages, it also occurs with content items, due to the way Joomla handles the ItemID. That has always been a major problem with the Mambo/Joomla core with regard to SEO, and it goes for Joomla 1.5 as well as 1.0.x. I described this in my recent article about the current state of SEO features in 1.5 RC3 (www.nitsche.org/news/joomla/seo-einstellungen-in-joomla-1.5-rc3.html). (German language - see if Google can translate it into something understandable for you - I can come up with a translation if needed.)

Kind regards,
Zorro
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#2 Tom 2007-10-26 07:24
This is a great post! The comparison is just what I've been looking for to help me to decide when to make to switch.

One thing I'd like to know more about is the use of sh404SEF to control the page titles and H1 tags. I've read things about it, but it's not clear how it's achieved. Maybe a blog post on this could be on the cards? The page title control is a major downfall of Joomla in my opinion.

Thanks,
Tom
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#3 Amy Stephen 2007-10-26 09:52
Have you had a chance to review Charl van Niekerk's xHTML project from SOC 2007? Charl indicated it would be released with v 1.5 stable (forum.joomla.org/index.php/topic,217834.0.html), but, it's available now to download and review (and to adapt/use now, as many of us are). It directly addresses many of the items on your list. (In fact, it goes well beyond these traditional SEO areas and advances into Microformats, a topic I expect to hear a lot of you SEO experts to blog about during 2008.)

We are going to need to continue to work together to advance Joomla! v 1.5. It's our future. Steve - your analysis continues to be an important part of that and I appreciate your contributions to our community.

Thanks!
Amy :-)
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#4 Steve Burge 2007-10-26 10:56
Hi Zorro

Thats a great post - I just read it via Google translator. Do you mind if we translate it and post it here?

Hi Tom

The short answer to that is that you need to publish the extra module that auto-installs with sh404SEF. It needs to be in the last module position. So if you check this site: http://www.alledia.com/?tp=1 you'll see that its the "right" module position. Its different on each template so add /?tp=1 to find yours.

Hi Amy

I've been watching that closely and its good news. The easier it is to share and syndicate the information we produce, thet better it is. We actually do much more SE Marketing (interacting with other sites) than we do SEO: (technical changes). Microformats will only help that.
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#5 Klaus Nitsche 2007-10-26 13:57
Quote:
Thats a great post - I just read it via Google translator. Do you mind if we translate it and post it here?

Go ahead Steve ...
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#6 Amy Stephen 2007-10-27 10:28
Steve - just to clarify, Charl's work is for semantic improvements in Joomla! v 1.5 across the board (i.e., standard tagging, improved meta data, removing tables, validating to strict xHTML), in addition to the introduction of Microformats, where appropriate. It will likely be core v 1.6 which will be fantastic news for everyone! It's no wonder they have asked him to join the developer team.
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#7 David Towers 2007-10-29 04:05
Excellent post Steve! This answers the questions I have been looking at for the past few months!
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#8 Barrie North 2007-11-01 20:35
Interesting analysis, I think there is more under the surface though....

One thing that 1.5 seems to resolve is the problem of appending article keywords/descriptions/title tags to the global ones. On one RC (I forget which), they would correctly replace instead of append, making the interior pages much better, as we would want with a deep pyramid topic schema.

Second of course, its a few minutes work to slap a template override on and have all the HX tags replace .contentblahblah automagically.

I think a summary would be to say that 1.5 will perform better out of the box, but the "tweaking" potential for 1.0 will remain much greater for a while I would think.
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#9 Zulu Boandami 2008-03-22 22:07
You should really update this post. It would be great.
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#10 Technology Addict 2008-05-30 07:38
Hello everybody, and thanks for the well written article and for the comparision charts.

I agree with Zorro: If you care about SEO, and you have a new project now, do it with 1.0.x and use the extensions available to make the SEO improvements you need.

I have a travel website builded on 1.0 with extensions Benidorm Hotels (virtualbenidorm.com) that had no problem with the urls and met all my SEO needs. In exchange, now I'm building a new site, on Joomla 1.5 and I experienced a hard to solve problem. Titles work fine for the static content, but for the menus that show information in a blog style from a category I get duplicate titles... I could not fix this with the alias plugin.
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