Setting the record straight for sites on Joomla 1.5

[jessicadunbar]

Discuss the blog post Setting the record straight for sites on Joomla 1.5 in this thread:

See the original blog post here: http://community.joomla.org/blogs/leade ... la-15.html

[jgress-]

siteground and cloudaccess both support 1.5 installations. that will give the time required to migrate to 2.5 or 3.x.

[Maverell]

I have a 1.5.26 site which is the main source of income for 4 people. I cannot upgrade it to 2.5 easily as the main component that generates the sales is a third party component that is now not being developed. The way I see it is that the whole site needs to be rewritten from the ground up.

The problem is that a friend of mine did just that and when switching over from his old to the new site his high Google rankings, and traffic, dropped considerably more or less overnight. He has included much more useful content than before and the products he sells have remained the same. He even added redirects from already indexed pages to the relevant new pages. Similar results have been reported elsewhere by many people.

My friends site has not recovered on Google now after 2 months and his income from it is nearly zero. It has recovered in Bing and Yahoo but like me, most of his traffic comes from or should I say did come from, Google. This in itself puts me off rewriting the 1.5 site as 80% of our traffic comes from Google.

This is not a security issue but a business reason not to upgrade !

[jk1]

I suppose many small hosters and Joomla users will soon encounter the problem that there is no php version which allows to run Joomla 1.5.x/2.5.x/3.5.x on the same server.

[instance]

I think the hosting companies who are doing this are using the reasoning that the version of PHP that Joomla 1.5 requires is no longer considered secure, therefore nothing that runs it is secure.

If you have no other way of mitigating security issues, I suppose it's a valid approach. Needless to say we'll be supporting 1.5 sites for some time to come. People underestimate the impact that updating a site can have on a small business.

[Middleman]

I got the notice from Bluehost about Joomla 1.5 however several months ago I upgrade to Joomla 3 and am now running 3.2.1. Apparently they made some type of automatic check and when they did not see 2.5 they assumed I had not upgraded. I skipped 2.5 and just rebuilt my site on 3

[arcadiaaaa]

I'd like to mention forged versions of software here, with built in back doors.
Theres a fair amount of malware out there and the unsuspecting novice is tempted too easily to download and check something out, to avoid payment. I had a couple of cases.

[masterchief]

We really need good data on what versions of Joomla people are using and why they aren't upgrading. At least count I believe 1.5 is still at least half our install base so it's not trivial to ignore the potential for all those site moving away from Joomla when they do decide to upgrade. The reality is 1.5 still works fine for a lot of people.

I'd suggest the following things:

1. We need to do some research (sooner, rather than later).
2. We need to clean up all our existing content about what to if you are on 1.5 (get it off the wiki and onto www.joomla.org with a top level link to a landing page).
3. We need to connect people who want to upgrade their site with people or products to help them do that. I would have suggested using the JRD but it's closed down with no replacement available.

[jgress-]

i'm happy to share all the information i have about 1.5 site users and why they aren't upgrading. i have a lot of info from other members of our JUG as well. is this the right place for this or shall it be elsewhere?

[Webdongle]

...
Needless to say we'll be supporting 1.5 sites for some time to come. People ...

How are you supporting 1.5 ?
Is 1.5 going to be developed to run on servers that update their php versions ?
Is the bug tracker on http://joomlacode.org going to be reopened ?
Is http://docs.joomla.org/What_version_of_ ... you_use%3F going to be updated to show that 1.5 is now no longer EOL ?

We really need good data on what versions of Joomla people are using and why they aren't upgrading.

From what I have seen one is because many 3rd party extensions and Templates are not 3.x compatible.

A lot of popular 3rd party extensions are now compatible with 2.5.x but many will not be developing their extensions for J3 series until 3.5 is released.

Perhaps the release cycle needs to be re examined with a longer support period for 2.5.x ... otherwise we may have a similar situation in a couple of years time ?

[jgress-]

i'm trying to learn the quote thing in here so bear with me, forgive me if i do it wrong.

At last count I believe 1.5 is still at least half our install base so it's not trivial to ignore the potential for all those site moving away from Joomla when they do decide to upgrade.

you are absolutely right and they do.

1. We need to do some research (sooner, rather than later).

i'm happy to provide all the information i know after migrating sites since 1.6 and teaching meetups and workshops on migration. just tell me where is the best place to give this info or i can talk to david about it. i have a list compiled after 2 years of migrating 1.5 to 2.5 (or trying to get people to migrate in many cases).

2. We need to clean up all our existing content about what to if you are on 1.5 (get it off the wiki and onto http://www.joomla.org with a top level link to a landing page).

i can help with this. pm me or a ton of people have my email.

3. We need to connect people who want to upgrade their site with people or products to help them do that. I would have suggested using the JRD but it's closed down with no replacement available.

i think having people get into contact with their local JUG organisers is the best way to connect people with others who can help them. not only that but it gets them involved with a group where they can continue to learn and keep up with what is going on with joomla. even if there isn't a group in their town, they can find one close or one that speaks the same language.

in our group, we get inquiries regularly for things people need. as organisers, we know who is in our group and their skill sets. if someone needs a migration, we know who does them and who doesn't like to do them. if someone needs work with a specific extension, we know who in our group is best suited to help them. the inquirer gets sent to a potential good fit.

sometimes, i have to go outside of my group. a guy contacted me with a spanish/portuguese/english site for migration. i logged into the backend and went um...no... it was all in spanish. i referred the man to a developer in the JUG Rio group who speaks all three of those languages. the man is happily having his site migrated.

i think it would be excellent utilize the world-wide JUGs that are so enthusiastic about joomla. what's even better is that it's already established and the groups are all published. it wouldn't require yet another site or system or portal. the JUGs are there. utilize this fine resource.

[Webdongle]

...
i think having people get into contact with their local JUG organisers is the best way to connect people with others who can help them. not only that but it gets them involved with a group where they can continue to learn and keep up with what is going on with joomla. even if there isn't a group in their town, they can find one close or one that speaks the same language.
....

That is one way but there are at least one drawbacks to that
Volunteers could end up providing a free service for businesses and thus take work away from companies who provide professional services.
Yes, I know I do quick fixes but I am careful not to take big jobs off the professionals.

Besides which not everyone can(or wants to) visit their local JUG

A more practical way would be for ... companies who provide professional Joomla services ... to contact the owners of 1.5 sites and sell them their migration services. Users of 1.5 sites who come to this forum can be given information on how to migrate their sites or pointed to http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php?f=177

Users of 1,5 will soon find that their Host as updated the php when their site stops working.

An even bigger problem imho is the length of support for 2.5.x ... Joomla needs to be stable. By stable I mean no changes except for bug and security fixes. 2.5.x and 3.x need to offered side by side and the current 'release cycle' needs to be scrapped. If that does not happen then we will face a similar situation(with upgrading/migrating) every few years !!!

[jgress-]

That is one way but there are at least one drawbacks to that
Volunteers could end up providing a free service for businesses and thus take work away from companies who provide professional services.
Yes, I know I do quick fixes but I am careful not to take big jobs off the professionals.

i can understand why you might think this. let me put your mind at ease.

fact #1. in our JUG, i estimate 90% of our _active_ and _regularly involved_ members offer professional services. we don't take jobs from them. we give them jobs.

fact #2. the JUG itself is volunteer as far as educating on joomla, holding joomla jug meetings, teaching people, having presentations, and providing resources so that people can work on their own sites AND socialize with like-minded people.

fact #3. we may work on people's websites as part of a demo on a specific joomla topic, yet that is rare. we normally present topics on a demo site. for liability reasons, we can't just login and work on peoples sites for free.

fact #4. prospects come through JUGs. there's no way we can stop it. people figure "here's a group of people who know joomla. this is a good way for me to find professional services and actually be able to talk to them - even meet them."

i don't know what other JUGs do. so i decided to ask some of them.

in general, we all follow similar protocols:

1. we teach people through the JUG - that is absolutely volunteer and our MAIN purpose. it is why we exist first and foremost.
2. we don't do free work for people on their sites.
3. when work comes through, we get it to someone who is a good match from a skill-set perspective and provides professional services through the group if at all possible.

hopefully that helps from an understanding perspective. it's fine with me if this isn't a good option to #3 of masterchief's post. it was just an idea. bouncing ideas.

[jgress-]

more in from fellow jug organisers...

not all groups will refer someone to someone in the group. they just say no. they let the person find someone completely on their own.

so maybe not an idea.

i have another idea too - what about the certification program that folks in the community are putting together? perhaps that could be a means for 1.5 users (or whoever) to find people to help them with what they need.

i realize there is back and forth opinion on the certification program. i'm not stating an opinion. i'm just stating perhaps it is an option to get people connected who need to be connected.

[waarnemer]

This is speaking for 1.5 but I noticed hosting companies also have problems with 2.5+ a lot of hosting providers offering virtual hosting tend to copy a "bruteforcefix" .htaccess file into to administrator folder. They do this on wordpress too...btw...

"... as long as Joomla and Wordpress don't fix this we have to..."

Is the main phrase...
I already had a thread started on this.. http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=621&t=815268

Some action I think is needed as 2.5+ awaits same treatment by hosters

[nwidesigns]

I don't think Joomla supports older branches long enough and if they don't want to use longer support terms then they need to take a more subtle approach integrating new features and functionality that make it so difficult to migrate.

I am a proponent for migrating and updating and think everyone should do their best but we are talking about lots of small businesses and start-ups that simply cannot afford it. I think the way Bluehost is handling this is all wrong but welfare hosts like them are less concerned with the idea that Joomla 1.5 is insecure and more concerned that their vanilla servers with their default installs of the OS and hosting management software will continue to make them rich with as little effort on their part as possible. Because they wont hire skilled help to properly harden their servers they have chosen to force the cost onto the customer. Hence the saying that you get what you pay for!

[Webdongle]

I don't think Joomla supports older branches long enough ...

1.5 was supported for some time but the new release cycle is causing a lot of problems for many companies. The reason many companies chose a CMS for a website is so that they can update their sites without extra cost. Having to pay when an update/migration is needed or fails negates the reasons for using a CMS.

If this release cycle is not changed then we will see many companies turning to another CMS where they do not have to pay for their site migration every 18 months.

The Joomla 'one click update' is OK in theory but in practice is not viable. The difference between 2.5 and 3.x is so large that updating is beyond the scope of the average user. Also many 3rd party developers will not be updating their extensions until 3.5 is released.

When 2.5 reaches EOL many 3rd party extensions will not be compatible with 3.5 and many of those that are will not work when 2.5 is updated to 3.5. This means that there will be companies with 2.5 sites that have extensions which have no compatibility with 3.5 and 2.5 sites ... and companies with 2.5 sites that will need to pay to have their site updated and the 3rd party extensions migrated.

Support for 2.5 needs to be longer ... if it is not then there will be a lot of users moving to other CMS's and potential Joomla users will be lost. No this is not just my opinion ... just look around the forum and see this is just an echo of the deep seated feeling of many of the average users.

[huy_seo]

My friends site has not recovered on Google now after 2 months and his income from it is nearly zero. It has recovered in Bing and Yahoo but like me, most of his traffic comes from or should I say did come from, Google. This in itself puts me off rewriting the 1.5 site as 80% of our traffic comes from Google.

[waarnemer]

@huy_seo


Make a subscription on your site on google webmaster tools.. wait a day or too and see the figures. A site being on 1.5 is no reason for Google not having you indexed.

Bad index usually means bad content.
Also check if your robot.txt file is not excluding all and check your pages fro no-follow, no-index statements..
If your site is holding malware, google also may exclude you.. you could check..

[michalp]

@huy_seo

I have a site in Joomla! 1.5 and have no problems with rankings in Google nor in other search engines. This must be something else...

When it comes to upgrading to the newer version of Joomla - I still not decided to do it because of complicated process of upgrade and because of one important extension.

I don't have any problems with PHP version on my host. I can even decide which version to choose.