A couple of weeks ago I posted about a new SEF extension called SerrBizSEF from Serr.biz.

I pointed out some holes I saw in their component and business model. They were kind enough to answer, replying several times in the comments section. Today they posted an extra long and detailed response including several juicy tidbits of news about their new component.

Especially after yesterdays post about bad news ranking well and good news disappearing, I felt it was fair to post their response as prominently as the initial criticisms. Here it is in full:

SerrBizSEF Developer Response 

"Regarding auto mapping, we have created SerrBizSEF to do the following. Once an SEF is created for a content item, any future internal (dynamic) urls that are created are AUTOMAPPED to ONE sef.  So, lets say I create an item in section called "widgets", a category called "green" and titled the item "small".  The resulting SEF would be /widgets/green/small.html.

Now, let's say you add this item to Frontpage, Latest news, and News flash.  Joomla wants to create 3 different dynamic urls plus the original.  When SerrBizSEF is active, only ONE SEF is shown no matter how you navigate to the item.

Additionally, you can easily change which dynamic URL is the one SerrBizSEF should use. By default, SerrBizSEF will use the section/category/title url.

As you know, OpenSEF would make different SEF's for each and trying to define which internal url to use quickly became an endless nightmare. We have worked hard to make the management of this as simple as possible.

Comparing ourselves to OpenSEF, we think this is a huge advantage and the pros are obvious.

Comparing ourselves to SEF Advance, we find our install much easier as you don't need IconCube, which can be a bit of a pain in the butt for non geeks. Heck, it can even be a pain for geeks. That's one plus. More importantly, our system makes, in our opinion, better SEFS. SEF Advance urls look like a path to folder, not a file

/widgets/green/small/
Vs ours
/widgets/green/small.html

Another point of comparison is price. We have decided to launch the basic product FREE through December 1 2007. All people need to do is register and download the product and install. (Official Launch Sept 1.)

Upgrade for 3rd party extensions are tentatively priced at $24.95, which includes 5 priority support tickets.

As a bonus, anyone using SerrBizSEF can be added to a new section on Serr.biz. This will help their SEO link popularity. Details are here:

http://www.serr.biz/emarketing-services/serrbizsef-user-profiles.html

Comparing ourselves to sh404SEF, we have not used that component.  However, the information on the site is not very detailed and didn't excite us. Lack of detailed documentation annoys us greatly.  Plus, it's purely a FREE product and might disappear like OpenSEF at some point. We wanted control and good documentation, so we made our own component. We have not launched yet, but already we have a long list of help topics, tricks and tips.

View here: http://www.serr.biz/ask-a-question/joomla-seo-serrbizsef.html

Another aspect of the SerBizSEF is that it comes bundled with a Social Bookmark module.  This module serves two functions.  It assures that all words in title and meta are in the body copy, which is good SEO.  Also, it helps promote a users site by allowing visitors to bookmark their users site in the popular social bookmark sites. This too is good seo.

As for SEF_EXT, we decided NOT to use the SEF_EXT format. For speed we serialize the rules we create and to assure quality of code. At a later time we may use sef_ext, but for now we do not.

As for other comparisons, we look forward to the launch and making SerBizSEF a most excellent SEF component. All suggestions and recommendation will be greatly appreciated.

Oh, real quick, one thing we think is very important is our SEO knowledge and skill outside of Joomla.  We have been in this trade for over 8 years. We come to the table with SEO EYES first, and JOOMLA second. We think this is a huge advantage for anyone using our products and services. When you work with Serr.biz, you get practical knowledge based on solid results in a wide array of industries and platforms."