[week 48] Mambo and search engine optimization

[m2k]

Originally Posted by eyezberg

yes it does. or at least, a .htaccess file, which it creates.
as soon as I have a .htaccess with anything else than ErrorDoc in it, the site is no longer accessible, 500 server error on all pages! just tried again with beta7.

I recommend mod_rewrite, but it is not required. You may still use Errordocument, just be aware that most forms probably will NOT work. This is an apache-specific limitation. Let's keep this thread ON TOPIC and discuss it 404SEF speciifc issues HERE Thanks!

[m2k]

Originally Posted by E4ME1

I tried what you suggested but all it did was return a blank page

Sorry, but forgot to mention that SEF must be enabled when you run it.

Third line of actual code is

if ($mosConfig_sef) {

[drugo]

Good news, we're talking about SEO! A part from those fellows who need a site just for friends, or those companies that want another (on line) address for there image, SEO is a must have for every webmaster. I've been posting here and there but without much luck.
It's not just a matter of friendly urls. It may help, but it's just the cherry on top of the cake.
First content: what are you going to write about, which are the best sites and the first ones in the search. Content must be organised, for visitors and for search engines' spiders. Is Mambo suitable to achive that? Yes, but it takes time to understand exactly how. I decided to go for blog categories in the menu (nicer presentation and the possibility to have meta tags - 4.5.1 doesn't show meta for sections and categories!).
The way spiders read your site is an important point: right menu templates are ok, 'cause they put content on top (I've 3 columns so I use rowspan for the central one and double "td" left and right).
Spiders don't read javascript. So, if you want to use one of those nice javascript menus (lots of Mambers do it) at least put another html menu somewhere in the page.
A clean sitemap helps spiders in doing there job (use a component or write it in html with keywords in anchor).
Duplicate url for Home (frontpage url): that's a problem 'cause you loose PR. I had to unpublish the main menu and used mymenu instead.
H1, H2 tags: they still count. I've been hacking content.html.php to get at least H2 tags in my homepage and in every blog categories, but first I don't know if the hack is correct, second I cannot have H1 in every single page's main title. Shouldn't be so difficult for a PHP guru...

Biggest problems: automatic meta tags that come out with 4.5.1 for homepage and blog categories. They are really a mess. I cannot control them and worse I get duplicate (3-4-5 times) keywords. For the spiders this is SPAM and your pages risk to disappear from the search!
Meta for single aricle are ok, also dinamic titles are ok, a part from the homepage's one (I use mymenu also to get rid of "Home" and to put keywords in the anchor link).
So, SEO is a hard job. Spiders strategies change everyday (have you seen http://beta.search.msn?). Choosing the right keywords, adding fresh content and new incoming links, checking the competitors is a daily job. But you need good instruments to do that. Mambo is almost ok. It would be nice if someone good in coding could solve those 2,3 problems left.
As for friendly urls... I had d51-sef before. I've lost it upgrading to 4.5.1. 404 sef is interesting but I'm scared to follow again in duplicate urls problems I had before. A good script must first allow you to unistall it without having to redirect hundreds of lost urls (I've 3-400 redirect permanent in my .htaccess file at the moment).
Ciao

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fotocamere digitali

[bugscout]

hi,

agreement with mostly all that you wrote

A clean sitemap helps ...

some people are the opinion, that sitemaps without text
are out of time for google.

regards

[drugo]

some people are the opinion, that sitemaps without text
are out of time for google.

Hello, SEO is just a matter of personal experience. Anyway, a sitemap can help you expecially with Yahoo that has problems indexing dynamic urls.
After a while you start to understand the way spiders work, then you want them to understand yours. It's an hard but sometimes interesting game. A sitemap can help much expecially if your site's organization is not "clean" (menu, links...). Otherwise don't care about.
Come on Devs, drop a few lines!
Cheers

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fotocamere digitali

[Admin]

Thanks everybody for taking part in this first Topic of the week and for your valuable postings. We have learned, that in fact search engine optimization is getting more and more important. If you want stay above your competitors, you really should take an eye on this topic.

And we have learned, that search engine optimization does not end with the simple rewriting of some URL's with the help of Mod Rewrite. If you ask me, the Mambo developers should improve the search engine optimization in the future releases to push Mambo further against other CMS.