[week 48] Mambo and search engine optimization

Admin · 23.11.2004, 00:29

Hi everybody,

did you know there are more SEO tools available for Mambo than gallery component's? Currently there are 5 free SEO tools, which are com_sef, d51-SEF, SEF_HTML.EMPO.EDITION, 404SEF and the brand new Alias Manager. Core developer Emir Sakic also offers a commercial SEO tool. And please don't forget that Mambo also has a build in SEO.

Are these tools really needed? And if so, are you satisfied with the actual solutions? Do you think, we need even better SEO tools? Which ones can you recommend and which ones not? Or is this SEO talk completely nonsense at the end?

Now tell us what you think...

twysm · 23.11.2004, 02:10

Well, I think it's necessary to get higher PR's so your website will get more visits.
In my case I've been using 404SEF and I really noticed the change, now I get much more visits than before.
I think the best SEO tools are 404SEF, SEF advance and com_sef, but I recommend to use 404SEF it's quite powerfull and very easy to configure and customize, and the best of all, it's FREE

divamissx · 23.11.2004, 03:21

I have a problem with my clients who don't fully understand SEO or how the Mambo CMS handles SEO. They read all kinds of information on the internet and then want me to build the site as if it were a simple HTML page.

And then I read so many forum posts where people cannot get these SEF tools to work properly and that keeps me from attempting to use them on my client sites.

I would be more comfortable with the whole concept if I could simply install a component, do a little configuration based on what the client wants and know that its going to do the job.

descartes · 23.11.2004, 07:06

I have my own Mambo SEF strategie. For smaller Sites I use the Alias Manager from Xaneon Development. It is a splendid component for Mambo 4.5.1 and I'm convinced that the Alias Manager is the best solution for smaller sites. You can mask the URL's very simple in the backend and the solution works fast and stable. The only problem I found: At the moment there's no automation of the URL creation, which makes it very hard for me to use this component over at mamboreport.

Some Alias Manager generated URL's:

http://www.site.com/index.html
http://www.site.com/mambo.html
http://www.site.com/blog/
http://www.site.com/blog/index.html

For greater Sites I use the implemented Mambo-SEF. It is a great solution for me and works fine with most third party CMT's. But why not generate Mambo /component/frontpage/Itemid1/ styled URL's without commas, option, and 'com_' prefix? This looks much nicer for me in addition with the 451 title tag.

...I mean the community have a lot of usable SEF-addons

.

Greetings,

E4ME1 · 23.11.2004, 07:58

One thing I find is that all the current SEO solutions that I've tested didn't work for me because I'm not using an Apache server thus no htaccess files either. I'm running Webstar V server on a Mac running 10.3.6 and the server does include it's own modrewrite type function using a plug in architecture rather than modules. I realise I'm in the minority but I'd love to be able to find a component that didn't require Apache or else find a tutorial explaining how to create my own SEO friendly URL's or at least the basic principles to give me somewhere to start.

I'll be happy when Tiger Server 10.4 comes out next year because I'll be buying an xServe then and migrate my sites to using Apache instead. End of problem. Since I host numerous sites SEO is very important to me.

Thanks
Greg

vrajesh · 23.11.2004, 09:20

Hi,

I do think SEO talk is always sense. It is a must for everysite.

Any search engine will always like to see relevant keywords in title, urls, descriptions, keywords and h1 headers.

If any SEO tools for our Mambo does it, we should welcome. 404SEF is really a boon to every user of Mambo who knows and who cares little about search engines and traffic. I always encourage 404SEF tool for any Mambo site than existing seo inside Mambo.

I also agree that if a site sincerely contains contents related to title and its keywords, it can win search engines.

However, tools like 404sef will definitely help people reach search engines fast.

Regards,

Vrajesh

ElgertS · 23.11.2004, 14:29

My hits shot up after spending time to optimize my site for search engines not just making the Mambo urls friendly, but also spending a lot of time on the keywords. The Mambo-driven website seochat.com was vital in helping me build the best strategy.

Tikimaster · 23.11.2004, 18:42

I got two mambo sites. Both build at the same time, one with sef - one without.

The one without is only spidered on the frontpage. The SEF-Site is well spread in search-engines at the meantime.

A Site NEEDS Search Engine Friendly URLs to get Publicity. And Publicity is what everyone needs who build a website for the public.

SEF with Mambo is a kind of Chaos for me, because the non-SEF Site is running on a Savemode off and modrewrite-off server. I tested about 5 of the SEF Solutions but none works on that server.

Mambo needs a automatic, build in SEF to be more successfull. Only with SEF a Site is spidered well. So I got a wonderfull Googlepagerank with my SEF enabled Site.

greetz
Tiki

Dragon4678 · 23.11.2004, 19:14

I use Emir Sakic's Advanced SEF component and I'm very satisfied with the way its working. As far as actually raising my PR... I'm not sure if it is having any influence on my ranking, but that's because my site is quite new, and I've used SEF advanced from the very beginning...

The thing is though, I simply love the way links are rewritten. Yes, components still are *half* raw (not rewritten), but the content... that's what counts. I know that the keywords that show up in your page is what influences your page's rank. And let me tell ya, those links with all those keywords... repeating from page to page... They ARE going to influence your rating. That's guaranteed.

conum · 23.11.2004, 23:14

I tried some of the so called "solutions" and only had trouble with them.
The real problem is that only frontpage-items are visited by the search-engine-crawlers und spider-bots. I think, the best solution would be, the search-engines learn to crawl through databases.
My frontpage-items are shown on high positions in google with full address and all "&" and "?", the others only show with the address "www. ..../index.php". If you will not / cannot put an item to the frontpage, your item will not be found by s-e. I have some trouble with akocomment, so I cannot put my items with comments to the frontpage

I would like to have a builtin-and-working-from-start-sef

Regards
Konrad