| Joomla URL Week Part 6 - Conclusions |
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| Friday, 06 April 2007 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Fortunately, over the next three days we analyzed the three components that allow you to produce Search Engine Friendly URL and found that each one offered potentially significant improvements. Today, its time to answer the question:
"What is the best URL setup for Joomla and why?" Recommendations for Each SEF URL ExtensionArtioSEF: Recommended for smaller, low-traffic sites and those hosted on Windows Servers. The Control Panel is remarkably simple and the default settings require almost no modifications to make sure that it is ready for SEO. The problems come when you have more visitors because the number of database queries produced can slow the site down greatly.
SEF Advance: This is the safe choice for sites that don't mind paying the 40 Euros price in exchange for a stable product and guaranteed future development. In terms of features and options it has less than OpenSEF and roughly the same number as Artio, but it does have excellent support, great stability and very few bugs. OpenSEF: This is the choice for websites who are want to manage all aspects of their SEO in one place. The range of tools available makes this truly an SEO component rather than just another SEF URL component. It can be strongly recommended for sites that are not likely to have many thousands of pages of content.
Its simple - there is no right answer for every site. There is one additional fact that you need to consider. Not all SEF URL extensions work with all or even many other extensions: How SEF URL Extensions WorkSEF solutions work by adding an extra file called "sef_ext.php" to each component. Unfortunately an sef_ext.php that works for one solution may not work for others. That means that Community Builder would need three different files to enable it to work with each SEF URL solution. Needless to say most developers can't keep up with all three, and the writers of the SEF URL solutions can't keep up with the multitude of new components being released. Inevitably your choice won't work with all the components you use, so you need to focus on the functionality that is most important to you.
For example, SEF Advance produces great URLs for Community Builder, but Open-SEF is a much better choice for Virtuemart. Neither of them work well for Jomres so if you're building a hotel site you need Artio.
In short, if you're building a social networking site, use SEF Advance, if you're building an ecommerce site, use Open-SEF, if taking bookings will be key, use Artio SEF and so on....
The following is a work in progress, that will help people work out which components are compatible with SEF URL solutions. There may be mistakes and there are definitely plenty of exclusions, so feel free to post more details in the comments section and I'll add them to this table. As time goes on, I'll also be working on adding more components and more details:
SEF URL Components and Comptabile Extensions
Links to the SEF solutions' own lists of components they are compatible with: SEF URL Components - The ConclusionIf there is one thing I came to realise during my tests of these SEF Components it is this: Joomla has poor default URLs but it has three mature, reliable SEF Components. I would be happy to use any of them on our sites or our clients sites. The trouble each of these components only work with around 50% of Joomla's major extensions.
"Want to use Joomlaboard? Great, use Artio or OpenSEF."
"But what about my Community Builder installation? In that case, you need SEF Advance."
We can't expect SEF Components to work with every available component - far from it. But its a shock to realize that it is still impossible to get SEF URLs with Joomlaboard and Community Builder - perhaps the most popular combination on Joomla sites.
The question needs to be asked - would we be better off if there was more cross fertilization in the development of these three components? Yes. Three mature, reliable SEF Components that only cover a limited number of the extensions is not a perfect solution.
There seem to be three ways in which Joomla can overcome this problem:
For now we need to scan through the available options and choose on a case-by-case basis. I hope this series has been useful and your comments on how to improve any of these articles are very welcome.
Comments (16)
  written by Barrie North, April 06, 2007
I am going to go out on a limb and fly in the face of conventional Joomla wisdom and say that the basic Joomla SEF is all you need. Here is why:
• There is very little documented advantage by having a keyword in a URL • It’s the anchor text in a link that is critical, not the URL itself • 3rd party SEF solutions are very hard to maintain and cause frequent problems, the time spent maintaining them could be spent writing content or getting link requests • They don’t work universally with all extensions • If you have to change your 3rd party SEF component, you have just flushed LOTS of backlinks OR have to do a huge amount of redirecting. Quite simply the amount of overhead is simply not worth the benefit, it’s a classic case of the 80/20 rule in SEO, 20% effort will get you 80% of the results.  written by steve, April 06, 2007
Hi Barrie
Thanks for such an interesting and thought-provoking post. I agree with you on almost every point! I'll try and address the topics one-by-one and explain why my interpretation is different: • There is very little documented advantage by having a keyword in a URLOpinion does seem split on this one. Visit http://www.seomoz.org/article/...ng-factors and scroll down to #6. My feeling is that even if it doesn't help in ranking, it may help in CTR. • It’s the anchor text in a link that is critical, not the URL itselfTrue - but if people do link to you by URL rather than anchor text, that can help. • 3rd party SEF solutions are very hard to maintain and cause frequent problems, the time spent maintaining them could be spent writing content or getting link requestsTrue. Overall though, I've had more SEO clients with duplicate content and penalty issues caused by core URLs than I have clients with 3rd party SEF URL problems. If the Itemid is left in the URL it presents potentially serious problems with duplicate content pages. http://www.alledia.com/blog/se...imisation-(seo)/joomla-seo-%11-why-less-is-often-more/ • They don’t work universally with all extensionsPerhaps the biggest problem of all. The more I look at this, the clearer it seems to me that the only real solution is a fundamental improvement in the core, similar to that being worked on by the core team currently. With Joomla's modular structure, 3rd part solutions will remain only a partial solution. • If you have to change your 3rd party SEF component, you have just flushed LOTS of backlinks OR have to do a huge amount of redirecting.Agreed, to an extent thats why I wanted to write these articles - I hope they'll help people make the right choice when they launch their site, and that they'll be able to stick with that choice over the long-term. In addition to this, I'd also recommend SEF URLs because: 1) They're more user-friendly and memorable. When it comes to advertising, example.com/register or example.com/component/option,com_registration/task,register/ ? 2) Usability. Good URLs can be as useful as a good pathway indicator. They allow you to easily see what section of the site you're in. 3) They may lead to a higher click-through rate from search engine results, because people see they keywords they're looking for bolded in the listings (although I admit this is just a hunch) 4) You do use SEF URLs on compassdesigns.net and joomlashack.com. I think we'd be hard pushed to find more than a few major, commercial Joomla sites that don't. Sometimes theres a certain wisdom in crowds. 5) If Joomla wants to be taken seriously, I think SEF URLs are essential. It will probably be hard to continue selling Joomla to medium-to-large companies if they have to use the current core URLs. For corporate use, presentation is important, and clean URLs play a big part. written by steve, April 06, 2007
Hi Justin
Interesting question .... managing a problem occuring on 16 sites must be a nightmare. What SEF component are you using and what kind of invalid URLs are being produced? Steve  written by Zorro, April 07, 2007
Barrie, I disagree respectfully.
I do think that keywords in URLs are a major factor. I have Joomla sites that have been around for some years. I always used to use the built-in SEF URLs such as /content/view/blah/blah. The pages were well indexed and well linked to, but had real low positions in the SERPs. Then I started using OpenSEF on these sites. Within a very short time (2-3 weeks), the sites were practically skyrocketing in the SERPs. To me, that is a strong indication of the value of "pretty URLs". On the issue of overhead, I think there may be a slightly higher initial amount of work when setting up a site, but after that it doesn't matter much. written by Justin Whittaker, April 07, 2007
Hi Steve. I only use SEF components on 4 of the sites and I always had duplicate URL's as well as ones for the email form and PDF buttons; which just cluttered everything up. I only use Open SEF.
 written by AmyStephen, April 09, 2007
Steve - your work is amazing. Every day I visit your site, I learn from you. Thank you for sharing so much of your knowledge with the community.
written by steve, April 10, 2007
Hi Justin
Were you able to use the automapping with OpenSEF so that all the regular Joomla URLs are redirected to the SEF URLs? Also - PDF and email buttons should go  I think Brian made a post here a while back that he often found PDF pages ranking more highly than the regular content pages. Amy - many thanks for the kind words written by Barrie North, April 10, 2007
@Steve and Zorro
I agree that SEF helps human readability and probably click through, last year I coined the term "HUF" - Human Readable URL's, which is a better name for them. I agree that they are useful, but that's not the real analysis, the question is *how* useful. Does using them and spending the time managing them give an appropriate ROI for the time spent, time which could be used writing content, or mananging PPC, or, etc etc. written by steve, April 10, 2007 I agree that they are useful, but that's not the real analysis, the question is *how* useful. Does using them and spending the time managing them give an appropriate ROI for the time spent, time which could be used writing content, or mananging PPC, or, etc etc. Hi Barrie. Agreed. I've seen people have nightmare times with their URLs, having to chop and change all the time, and creating enough redirects to make their htaccess files about 1000 lines long. I wrote these articles in the hope that people can make the right decision first time out when launching their site and have a setup which requires minimal maintainance in the long-run. Thats the idea anyway written by Lawrence Meckan, April 12, 2007
Contrary to Barrie's notions, SEF readability is an underlying principle of the web since Tim Berners-Lee first started it. Pretty urls do not change and are meant to remain persistent as much as they are meant to provide meaningful human interaction. After all, if the URI says one thing and the content says another, isn't that just another form of black hat spoofing / SEM (?
Regarding there being an inadequate solution to SEF with 3 products (plus one core) on the market, the obvious solution is to converge the applications in order to increase overall usability and 'bang for buck' for the client. Though I very much doubt Emir would like to lose his vendor-locked revenue stream for CB (and a few other key apps) compliance in regards to SEF.. not to mention the politics involved (which product gets pride of place ? Johan's 1.5 solution, Ken McDonald & OpenSEF, Emir with SEF Advance..). written by steve, April 13, 2007
Hi Lawrence
the obvious solution is to converge the applications in order to increase overall usability and 'bang for buck' for the client. I have a list beside me of three more SEF URL solutions that will need reviewing in the next few days and weeks. Add those to the 3 components reviewed here, Joomla's 2 default settings and an array of solutions for Windows servers, and things get very confusing very fast. Theres a post of Google Groups where Hannes raises the idea of OpenSEF being integrated as a future possibility: http://groups.google.com/group...ad/thread/ d5242174686a2abf/cd5ff126de7c3d52?q=Joomla!+Devel+Discussion&rnum=1#cd5ff126de7c3d52 Steve  written by aravot, April 15, 2007 I have a list beside me of three more SEF URL solutions that will need reviewing in the next few days and weeks. Is sh404SEF one of those, I just started using it and would like to hear your thoughts. written by steve, April 16, 2007
Hi Aravot
No problem at all - I was waiting for the release of JPromoter from JoomlaEquipment in order to review the other 3 SEF URL components together. Look for a review in the next couple of weeks. Steve written by Zorro, April 17, 2007 I was waiting for the release of JPromoter from JoomlaEquipment Well, here we go: http://joomlaequipment.com/ind...&Itemid=10 Too bad it's not open source ... I would have loved to see some competition for OpenSEF. And I wonder why they're not using it on their own site? written by VideoDump, January 11, 2008
I searched high and low for a good SEF for J! with Seyret.. I must say Artio JoomSEO is the best bet. It has a plugin for Seyret. Check it out at my site .
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In Parts 1 and 2 of our survey, we talked about 
Won't it be tiresome having to monitor the SEF components across all websites? I have created over 16 websites so far and some of them generate too many invalid URL's, etc. Is there not an easier way to control it?