When will SEO be integrated?

[kenmcd]

Funny I thought I was talking about SEO/SEF.

Ahhh the ongoing you-are-not-a-coder so you are a lesser being "bullstuff" again.
Yes, coders are all knowing.
Just ask.

Let's have some fun.

My turn:
I, kenmcd, hereby admit and acknowledge I know far less about coding PHP than anyone on the Joomla Core Team, anyone who has coded a Joomla add-on, and for that matter most any PHP coder on the planet. I can make minor changes, but if it gets complicated I can make a mess of things fast.
I appreciate and acknowledge some individuals extraordinary PHP coding talents.
I use Joomla and add-ons everyday made by generous and gifted PHP coders from all over the planet.
I have no illusions about what I do or do not know.
I also do know I know alot about SEO/SEF.
Believe it or not, maybe even more than you.
A non-coder may actually know something which may be beneficial to the development of Joomla.
What a concept.

Now your turn:
I, hackwar, hereby admit and acknowledge I know far less about SEO/SEF than many people who have actually studied and worked in that area for many years.


Anyone knowledgeable in SEO/SEF already knows this from your comments above.
I would just like to see you actually admit it.
I can admit what I do not know.
How about you?

That is the problem here.
I am not "just trying to stir things up."
Geez, the Saka defense again,
"I am not going to talk about his because kenmcd is just a mean nasty poo poo head."

Address the issues.
Yeah we all know you do not like me.
Probably because I continually poke holes in your flimsy excuses.
Address the issues.
Over two years to put in a simple page title hack, and it still has not happened.

Why even bother . . . oink, oink, oink.
Sou-weeh.

[Hackwar]

Ok, kenmcd, you dared me and I'm free to admit it.

I, Hackwar, don't know more about SEO/SEF than kenmcd and probably some more people here on the forum.

However, I know coding and thereby, I know that its a two-liner to put into the views of 1.5 to include your page-title. Now you want this included in the default install, but we want to maintain backwards compatibility. Again, feel free to write your own views including these two lines and all the other SEO/SEF stuff and releasing that as a template add-on.

[kenmcd]

that's a false assumption. they don't work reliably across systems due to the fundamental approach used. its not good enough to be told things like quadruple the default  php memory limits and it will work. urls are not a panacea to solve the problem of google ranking. writing good content is!

You were advised to change memory limits related to a sef_ext.php file for DOCMan, not OpenSEF as implied here.
DOCMAN sef_ext.php Rewrite Update!
http://forum.j-prosolution.com/docman/1 ... pdate.html
http://forum.j-prosolution.com/docman/1 ... l#post7663

This is not a part of OpenSEF, or any advanced SEF component for that matter.
Not sure how this supposedly applies to OpenSEF.
You would have the same issue using this particular sef_ext.php file with SEF Advance.

Advanced SEF URLs are only a piece of the SEO puzzle as anyone knowledgable will profess.
Good content is also only a piece of the puzzle, an essential piece, but just as having SEF URLs is not the holy grail of SEO, neither is just having great content. There are many sites with great content in SE obscurity. To do better then the next site in competing for SE traffic, you have to put all the SEO pieces together. Joomla lacks many of the other essential pieces. That is the point.

the only way opensef could be part of the core would be when it works reliably on all sites on all server configurations. i've lost track of the number of sites I have had to switch opensef off for due to reliability and performance issues

Be happy to work with you on specific issues.
Post in a new thread here in this forum or in the OpenSEF forum.
Let's see if we can openly address your issues.

I see you did also have an issue with Phil-a-Form.
http://forum.j-prosolution.com/3pd-comp ... -form.html
Not a surprise. Phil has stated over-and-over he does not support OpenSEF.
The workaround appears to have worked.
And the ability to more easily exclude non-compatible components has been improved in the upcoming RC6. Now even components with no menu entries (like form components) may be easily excluded.

The last issue you posted in the OpenSEF forum was apparently to be resolved via direct contact with Marko.
http://forum.j-prosolution.com/opensef- ... -sort.html

You posted in 4 threads regarding 3 issues.
So I am certainly unclear on any other specific issues you have which need to be addressed.
Without specifics this just sounds like FUD from another SEF Advance supporter.

[absalom]

Ok, kenmcd, you dared me and I'm free to admit it.

I, Hackwar, don't know more about SEO/SEF than kenmcd and probably some more people here on the forum.

However, I know coding and thereby, I know that its a two-liner to put into the views of 1.5 to include your page-title. Now you want this included in the default install, but we want to maintain backwards compatibility. Again, feel free to write your own views including these two lines and all the other SEO/SEF stuff and releasing that as a template add-on.

But you're more than willing to slap me around, claiming that I don't know the code..

Since when has the Core team invoked hypocrisy?

[Hackwar]

I'm not part of the core team. And I know enough about SEO, SEF and accessibility, that I can say its all easily possible with 1.5.

[brian]

no I don't support any sef components. in fact opensef was the only one I ever tried.

[kenmcd]

However, I know coding and thereby,

Never doubted your coding abilities, I have seen your work.


Regarding J 1.5 - I have just started discussing with Richard.
I know the hacks for J 1.0.x
At this point I know little about how the big changes in J 1.5 will affect applying the SEF Patch.

Recently Richard has been looking at J 1.5 in regards to the SEF Patch.
He was disappointed to see nothing had been done for improving SEO/SEF.

Not sure what you mean about maintaining backward compatibility regarding something like Page Titles.
Perhaps that is just ignorance on my part from not examining J 1.5 closely yet.
Maybe discussions with Richard will provide me some insight on this.

[kenmcd]

no I don't support any sef components. in fact opensef was the only one I ever tried.

Again, be happy to work with you on specific issues.

[absalom]

I'm not part of the core team. And I know enough about SEO, SEF and accessibility, that I can say its all easily possible with 1.5.

You've part of the Development workgroup, got that nice shiny "Development" button, and you're not trying to lecture me on how the core works ? Interesting.. :P

I'll leave the "know enough" claims for other threads and hard data hopefully generated tomorrow, if you please, though when people usually claim they "know enough", that belies that they know enough to be both dangerous and very, very wrong.

[Predator]

Back to Richard's email . . .
Richard gets constant user questions about why his Joomla SEF Patch is not incorporated into the Joomla core and he inquired if I had some influence with the Joomla core team about getting the SEF Patch into the core.
(I had a good laugh on that one. Richard is fairly new to Joomla and has apparently not read this thread. Add enthusiastic knee slap and hardy guffaw here.)
At this point it appears that no one who understands the SEO issues has the influence to get SEO fixes into the J core.

FYI: Richard got the Emailadress of Johan Janssens from me to get in contact with him as a request from Johan, to add the SEO Patch to 1.5 Final.

[Hackwar]

I'm part of the Development Working group, this is not the core team. I don't really have more insight on the core team than you have.

[DocMartin]

from Hackwar:

I, Hackwar, don't know more about SEO/SEF than kenmcd and probably some more people here on the forum.

I'm glad to have posted some links to info that will help raise your knowledge. After all, as developer working on code aimed at building websites, could be good to know about some key issues.

Look forward to seeing some insightful posts in future.

[Predator]

To clearify some thinks i will explain what is SEO what decisions are made regarding SEO in Joomla! 1.5 and why.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO
(SEO) is a set of methods aimed at improving the ranking of a web site in Search Engine Results Placements (or SERP).

SEO is primarily concerned with advancing the goals of a web site by improving the number and position of its search results for a wide variety of relevant keywords. SEO strategies can increase both the number and quality of visitors, where quality means visitors who complete the action hoped for by the site owner (e.g. product or service purchase, sign up, learn how to,..etc).

Search Engine Considerations
There are a lot of factors that influence search engines algorithms that determine the ranking of a web site, thus the placement of a given web site on its search results.
Today, most search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret. Most important factors are:

• Content (Quality, Uniqueness, Relevancy, and Age of contents)
• Google PageRank™ (Google search engine only)
• Link Popularity (Back links, Saturation, and indexed pages)
• Age of site
• Meta Tags (Title, Keywords, Discreption, robot,
  Length of time domain has been registered
  Negative scoring (excessive meta tags, heavy advertising, SE spam,... etc)
• External links, incoming Back links from other web sites.
• Overall site's design and navigational quality
• DMoz Inclusion (Open Directory Project listing)
• Quality of HTML coding, presence of coding errors
• Text within the title tag
• SEF URLs
• HTML tags (headings, bold and emphasized text
• Keyword density, relevancy, and proximity
• Incoming back links and anchor text of incoming back links
• Web host uptime
• Hand ranking by humans
• Search engines specific factors

SEO and Joomla! 1.5

We talked a lot about SEO and SEF on our summit last year and came to the conclusion that creating pretty nice URL's with the current structure will created huge load the server, so we made it easier for 3rd Party to create their own solution by moving SEF to plugins. Changing the structure in Joomla! 1.5 will break any website, so this was a decision to be backward compatible.

Starting everytime flamewars against Emir because of his commercial SEF Advance and repeating this everytimes like a broken long-play record is getting boring, unproductive and childish as Emir is not the only one who is responsible for SEF in Joomla! or the only one who decided what will be added to Joomla! for SEO, the Coreteam is decided this.

SEF is only a small part and if you look to our http://www.joomla.org it use standard SEF links, is not valided and also not patched for better SEO, but we have there a Google Pagerank now from 9 (max is 10).

What does SEO means now for Joomla! 1.5?

Many of you know the SEO Patch from Joomlatwork, the Team of Joomlatwork offers us to integrate this to the Joomla! 1.5 Version and we thankfully agreed on this as due to the downloads they have, we saw that it is a really populare patch also it is really well supported and therefor a great additional to rise the SEO ability in Joomla! 1.5. 

Here a feature summary.

http://www.joomlatwork.com/products/fre ... oomla.html

This is what i call productive, so be productive insteed of flaming and complaining, any suggestions about improving are welcome and will be added if possible.

[infograf768]

What does SEO means now for Joomla! 1.5?

Many of you know the SEO Patch from Joomlatwork, the Team of Joomlatwork offers us to integrate this to the Joomla! 1.5 Version and we thankfully agreed on this as due to the downloads they have, we saw that it is a really populare patch also it is really well supported and therefor a great additional to rise the SEO ability in Joomla! 1.5. 

That is good News indeed, Marko, but, honestly, as it does not break anything in the 1.0.x series, why not include it in Core there.
That would be a nice addition to 1.0.12 (the final bug-free version of 1.0.x) and demonstrate interest for the Community needs and feed back.
My 2 French centimes.

[eyezberg]

JM, I (have to) agree as I'm using this too on my own site , but in 1.0 it would introduce new undocumented features (such as title and metas per menu item), and afaik, this should not happen in maintainance releases.. even though it would be nice if it did. But then, who's going to update Help screens? Again only afaik, no-one, as the reduced Doc Team is directing all it's efforts towards 1.5!

[absalom]

So what about human readable URIs ?

When are they appearing ?

[DocMartin]

Whenever human readable, more SEF URLs make it into Joomla!, hope the aim will be for these to also enable Cool URIs, which don't change:

It is the the duty of a Webmaster to allocate URIs which you will be able to stand by in 2 years, in 20 years, in 200 years. This needs thought, and organization, and commitment.

- I think could also add re duty of coders to enable website builders to retain URIs (URLs), even as site building software is upgraded.

(so can perhaps have a few options, allowing most people to generate URLs as they have before changing over. Options as in OpenSEF, say; might be a few others).

See also Jakob Nielsen, from 1999:

The URL will continue to be part of the Web user interface for several more years, so a usable site requires:
a domain name that is easy to remember and easy to spell
short URLs
easy-to-type URLs
URLs that visualize the site structure
URLs that are "hackable" to allow users to move to higher levels of the information architecture by hacking off the end of the URL
persistent URLs that don't change

URL as URI

Good to see from recent posts that knowing code and knowing SEO not necessarily mutually exclusive!

How much new documentation, should SEF patch make it into 1.0.12?
Esp if 1.5 still seems some way off, maybe I could help w this (easiest if can do so partly by editing - if needed - SEF patch info, which as I recall is v clear)

[infograf768]

I don't think indeed that doc would be a problem.
The only possible caveat to foresee is that any new feature which has been added in the 1.0.x series until now has broken some stable aspects of it and created problems to the users.

Now, if sufficient efforts are brought into this, it could be avoided as the patch is stable indeed.

My concern by raising this issue is that 1.5 development is taking so long that I do not expect a stable release for months and even then users will have to wait for extensions to be updated (specifically scripts to transfer database).

As it is expected that eventhough 1.0.12 will hopefully be bug-free, some other versions may be necessary in the future to cope only with security issues, to integrate the patch now makes sense.

I am not optimistic though as to a positive answer from the Dev team on this.
As we say in French: "Chat échaudé craint l'eau froide", which basically means that these new features introduced in 1.0.x in the past have created such turmoil that no one wants to take that risk now.

We just may get the obvious reply: If you want it, use the hack.

[pollen8]

SEF is only a small part and if you look to our http://www.joomla.org it use standard SEF links, is not valided and also not patched for better SEO, but we have there a Google Pagerank now from 9 (max is 10).

I don't think any of these points would have a relavence on the page rank, which is purely concerned with how many sites link to your site and the quality of those sites.

[G-wizz]

Having read trough most of these posts and having played around with the 1.5 beta, I'm a bit shocked. I can't figure out why it is so hard to put in some improvement on page-titels and content headers etc. Developers scream "backward compatibility" put you can make these improvements switchable, or not? I have to pay a programmer to re-fix the h1 tags every time an upgrade is launched. I also have to explain to my customers why sometimes the page titles are not as good as they should be. I hang on and say that it will get better with J. But so far alas..

I expected to find a button in 1.5 which would have added and h1 tag to the contentheader (and not break an old template if you leave it off). Or something else that would have made live a little easier...

This backward compatibility reminds me of MS and all the [censored] we have to endure form IE. I know we can do better...

Please commit to make at least 1 significant improvement each release. It is a major issue and for most of my customers. They are struggling to get into or stay Google's first page and need all the help they can get. Writing content costs money too (a lot really) and leaving some of your potential in the bin just because the technology makes it difficult just feels stupid.

[Websmurf]

You can include certain template files you your template that will override the default template.
In this way you can make Joomla look any way you would like.. tableless, h1 tags etc.

[G-wizz]

I searched for that. Especially that bit about replacing h1 . All solutions I found included core hacks... Or is this new to J1.5? Can you please include a link to a description of this solution

ThanX in advance!

Gerard

[Websmurf]

Ok, it's quite easy actually. Here's what i've done.

- we want to override the view of the content component, so we'll have to create a new folder com_content in the html directory of our template: /templates/rhuk_milkyway/html/com_content/

- after that, the view we want to override is the article view, so create a new folder article in the folder created above:
  /templates/rhuk_milkyway/html/com_content/article/

- now, since we only want to modify the current view a bit, we're going to use the default view. copy the file default.php from /components/com_content/views/article/tmpl/default.php to /templates/rhuk_milkyway/html/com_content/article/

- now to add the h1 tags, open the default.php file and add the h1 tag on the correct places (result: http://websmurf.xs4all.nl/1.5beta/index ... 1&Itemid=1)

This will only change the heading on the full article, so you will have to run past all the different views to change it on all pages.

basically the structure is:
/templates/xxx/html/yyy/zzz/file.php

Where:
xxx = your template
yyy = the component you wish to override
zzz = the view you wish you override
file.php = the page you wish to override

[G-wizz]

ThanX al lot! That is interesting! Looks like there's a lot more to those templates than I knew (no suprise realy). I'll play around with it to see if I get it and understand better what this al means (like, what do you do when you upgrade). Let you know when I made some progress.

Looks like I got my homework for this weekend...

By the way, is this new to J1,5 or has this been around much longer?

[Websmurf]

No, it's been around quite a while longer as far as I know (at least since april if i'm right).

[infograf768]

What we do need now is a number of overrides which cover different needs.

A lot of work...

[Think]

Ok, it's quite easy actually. Here's what i've done.

- we want to override the view of the content component, so we'll have to create a new folder com_content in the html directory of our template: /templates/rhuk_milkyway/html/com_content/

- after that, the view we want to override is the article view, so create a new folder article in the folder created above:
  /templates/rhuk_milkyway/html/com_content/article/

- now, since we only want to modify the current view a bit, we're going to use the default view. copy the file default.php from /components/com_content/views/article/tmpl/default.php to /templates/rhuk_milkyway/html/com_content/article/

- now to add the h1 tags, open the default.php file and add the h1 tag on the correct places (result: http://websmurf.xs4all.nl/1.5beta/index ... 1&Itemid=1)

This will only change the heading on the full article, so you will have to run past all the different views to change it on all pages.

basically the structure is:
/templates/xxx/html/yyy/zzz/file.php

Where:
xxx = your template
yyy = the component you wish to override
zzz = the view you wish you override
file.php = the page you wish to override

You will have to admit though that no regular joomla user would even understand this, much less be able to implement it. And there's the rub--until this is all easily done, say with simple switches or check boxes, it will be useless to the masses.

[eyezberg]

Not really, I'd expect some (free of course) accessible or seo template overrides to become available soon, dropping these into a folder wouldn't be too hard.. and professional sites should requiere this from their designer.

[G-wizz]

@ infograf768

What we do need now is a number of overrides which cover different needs.

A lot of work...

Is there a list of what's required? Or could we make one? Or is that a silly question? 

[nibra]

What we do need now is a number of overrides which cover different needs.

A lot of work...

Is there a list of what's required? Or could we make one? Or is that a silly question? 

Indirectly, there is. Look into the J1.5 code base, go through all components and modules.
Copy all
/components/com_yyy/views/zzz/tmpl/*.php to /templates/xxx/html/com_yyy/zzz/*.php
and all
/modules/mod_yyy/tmpl/*.php to /templates/xxx/html/mod_yyy/*.php
and change these files to your needs.

Regards,
Niels