As I mentioned in an earlier post about MojoBlog, that the only thing missing with this Blog tool for Joomla where the SEF options to create nice SEF URLs, and missing the Title tag for each post.
Reading some posts from www.goodwebpractices.com and www.alledia.com I wanted to see if the options in the advanced settings of the SEF Component sh404SEF would help to overcome these MojoBlog problems.
It did!! and it wasn’t even that difficult, so I thought I would share this with you, so you can do the same…
Getting sh404SEF Component and Module ready
First of is getting the sh404SEF component to show you its real strength!
If you installed and use the sh404SEF component (please use the latest release), you will see this basic configuration screen:
And you see nothing there that can help you… now just click on the item next to this screen that says “select advance parameters:
After this, you will see a screen with some more items to use in this great SEF and SEO Component:
As you can see now, there are to items on this screen that you can use to get some great stuff for you MojoBlog posts.
But before you can get to work on those items, you have to make sure of one other very important item to be published!
The sh404SEF Custom module needs to be published!
You can find this module in the normal module overview of Joomla, and you only need to publish it.
The module is part of the sh404SEF Component installation, so you don’t need to install it yourself.
There are a lot of parameters below this screen, but you only have to set it to published, that’s it.
Creating the SEF URL
Once you have done the above things to get everything into place, lets start by creating a SEF URL for a MojoBlog post.
First go to the front-end, while making sure the site, or just the MojoBlog component is NOT showing SEF URLs. You need this to get the “old non SEF URL” to put into the settings.
If you have a post, it should say something in the last part of the URL like
“index.php?option=com_mojo&Itemid=63&p=5″
This will be different on your site 
Copy this part of the URL and then go back to the sh404SEF Panel and click on:
And then choose “new” , this will bring up a field that will aks for that old URL and the new one.
Just copy the code from the previous step into the “Old URL” part and create a nice new one that should get into that place.
Please use “-” to connect the words
For the URL you can use the post title and you could leave out words like “and”, “for” and stuff like that for shorter URLs (Google ignores those anyway)
If you have set the option in sh404SEF that .html should be added to the URL, you can set it here as well.
Save the new URL and you are done with this part, you could check if it works already.
(Make sure the SEF Component is enabled an working again if you disabled it before)
Getting the Title and Metatags to Work
You have seen another nice items in the sh404SEF Control panel… it says “Metatags”
Before you click on it, make sure you have the ”Old URL” you used earlier at hand, because you are going to need it here as well.
After you clicked on the above icon , choose “new meta” from the upper right-hand menu.
You will get a screen like the one below:
As you can see, the first file is where your old URL should go.
Below that you have the fields:
- Title: where you can write your HTML Title that will be picked up by Google
This title is different form you post title and shows only in the Title bar of your browser. - Description Tag: make this into a nice commercial description for you post
- Keywords tag: Keep this few in numbers and make sure those terms are in the post text
- Robots tag: Come in handy you want to doe some Follow, NoFollow or Index, NoIndex stuff
Otherwise you can leave it empty. - Language tag: only useful for multilingual installations.
If you are satisfied with your lyrics, save it and go to the front-end, selecting the post you just worked on, in the source code of that screen you should see the Title, description and keywords you just entered…
One final thing remains, but that is out of you hands…. wait for Google or other search engines to re-index you page so you can check if what you did is indeed what the robots will pick-up…
If you want so see if things work on a live example, go to Hummerbie Mojo Blog and check some of the posts.
P.s. One more tip… the “Old URLs” from MojoBlog contain the last code &p=10 (or another number) and that last number correspond with the post ID from MojoBlog. So if you know that number, you can use the old URL you copied and just change the last number.
Thanks for the post, but all my mojo blogs seem to be http://otakusurvivalguide.com/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,59/ sorts of addresses, with sh404SEF doesn’t like. Any advice on that?
@Cassie: Please check if the Mojo component in the sh404sef configuration is now also set tho “Use default” and if you have the permalinks option in MojoBlog itself also set to “default”.
In this case you should not use the “custom” option!
It that is oké, try to set the URL in sh404sef as stated above to also have a .html at the end just like the rest of your site.
Many thanks for this. Saved me hours of potential head scratching!
Thanks for the tips. I did everything, but I don’t see anything in the sh404sef config that mentions mojoblog.
@glorybound: You will have to check in the fonfiguration under components.
Sometimes you have to click on “show advanced settings” in the right hand header of the sh404SEF Controlpanel to see more information.
Under the components Mojoblog is mentioned as Mojo.
Thanks for the reply. I did find that and it is all default, but I am still not getting results. The is my url, which looks odd.
index.php?/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,131/ index.php?/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,131/=&lang=en
Joomla is putting the “=&lang=en”
Thanks,
http://www.whitebirchstudios.com
OK, I got the menu url to work, but my permanent links are not working. To get the menu link to work I typed in what you are showing above, but typing in my ID number
@whitebirchstudios: Site is looking good at this time, if you get a parameter like you mentioned, you are probaply using JoomFish.
In that case you need to create separate URLs for each language.
I copy and past into ‘Old Non-SEF Url’ this text
index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=16&Itemid=21 ……… but when I click save sh404SEF changes it to ……index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=21&id=16&lang=en&task=view . I know it has something to do with joom!Fish, my site is english and Spanish but I can not figure it out.
I edited the content.xml and set translate =”1″ as per sh404SEF instructions. in the sh404SEF configuration page I get a note “NOTE: SEF support in Joomla/Mambo is currently disabled. To use SEF, please enable it from the Global Configuration SEO page.” but if I enable SEO all my links break. any help appreciated. Liam.
Please ignore my first question. I need to get Global Configuration SEO search engine friendly URL set to ‘yes’ to work before I can start to configure sh404SEF with joom!Fish.
@Liam: You can find more information on Joomla and .htaccess on my other website http://www.pathos-seo.com/joomla-seo-optimization/joomla-seo-and-htaccess-files.html
Hi all… Need Help…
I m using View/Edits Custom Redirects option to make my groups url search friendly. This is happening. All i need to do is add them as Old URL and write the new url i want.
For eg. index.php?option=com_group&task=groupprofile&gid=122
Now the problem is that gid is created at random and new for every group. tomorrow the gid may go upto 130 or 140..so its not feasible to add new links everyday. How do i deal this??….
Hummerbie,
I have the exact same issue as Cassie:
My urls appear as follows “component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,59/”
I followed your instructions and all settings are correct permalink in Mojo is “default” and sh404sef configuration component is “default”. What I do not understand is what you mean by:
“In this case you should not use the “custom” option!”
If not then what do I use or how do I make it work so I can convert this:
/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,59/
into this:
/great-ways-to-find-friends.html
Thanks in advance for your help..
@shashank: Are you referering to the Mojo component, or an other component like Community Builder and extra extensions? Becouse Mojo does not produce URLs like that.
If so, please state the component and I will see what is happening.
@Ryan: In the Mojo component you have the possibility to change “permalinks” this option should be set to “default”,but you allready have that set the right way.
What you could try to do is to set sef to not use sef for the Mojoblog component. Then call the post you want to convert and use the part after the http://www.example.com like
index.php?option=com_mojo&Itemid=63&lang=en&p=6
and set that as a non-sef url in the custom redirect.
Do not use the /component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,59/ URL, because that will not work… you really need the url that comes up without the rewrites.
Once you have set up the custom redirect, reactivate the rewrite option in sh404SEF again.
thanks Hummer that worked. But now joomla is putting lang=en behind all the URLS? And I am not using joomfish? Any ideas?
index.php?option=com_mojo&Itemid=26&lang=en
@Ryan: Please check in sh404SEF if you have the language settings correct?
There is an option that says “insert language code into URL” you could try to set that to No.
For my every thing is set to yes and “default”, but maby your installation has mutiple languages installed.
Hummer,
Thanks I did as you said but still no go, it still inserts lang=eng although I set it to no?
I really want to put a blog into my site for SEO purposes, I believe that combining a news site and blog would create huge SEO advantages? Would you recommend installing a fresh copy of wordpress in a subdirectory (example: http://www.mysite.com/wordpress) or just use mojoblog? which in your opinion would work better SEO wise?
Thanks
@Ryan: In my own experience I use the option Joomla site with WordPress in a subdirectory.
But don’t call the subir “wordpress” and not even “blog” because the SEF components for Joomla insert “blog” if you choose a blog layout for a category.
I have one site http://www.pathos-seo.com with a wordpress based blog in http://www.pathos-seo.com/joomlablog/
An other site is setup with http://blog.hummerbie.com with WordPress and http://www.hummerbie.com as the main Joomla site.
Both work great together, but on this blog I am focussing on using Joomla for Blogging, which is a great option if your URLs would work.
Drawback of using Joomla and WordPress together is finding templates that fit, and you have to update two systems, with WordPress as beeing more demanding with the Plugins updates.
Thanks for all your help Hummer, we are going with the sub directory and will uninstall mojo. I have been reading through your website and you have great info on SEO when it comes to joomla and wordpress……… Running them both will be a SEO challenge and I will let you know how it goes.
Thanks
Hummerbie,
Sorry its me again LOL. Is their a mod out there that allows you to display recent posts that you have made on your /wordpress blog on the homepage of your joomla site?
Sorry for all the questions and thanks for your help…..
@Ryan: Not that I know off, It is possible to use a function from feedburner to bring your WP Content into your Joomla website.
You can find it under the Feedburner tab, Publicize and is called BuzzBoost
I use it here: http://www.hummerbie.com/search-engine-optimization/design-cars-blog.html to show http://blog.hummerbie.com
But you have to look out for things enclosed this way, they can easily break a layout.
You could use this little trick: Create a page in Joomla where you can use the Buzzboost function and then set this page to be featured on the Frontpage.
I just checked, and it worked out fine.
You cann have both this way.
You could also check extensions in Joomla about Feedreaders, but I haven’t found one yet that I liked.
Thanks Hummer, I will be trying this asap.
By the way would you recommend getting the site map plug in for wordpress? I already have a sitemap for joomla but it obviously does not show the blog in it? Is it a good idea to have 2 site maps, one for joomla and the other for wordpress?
@Ryan: Definitely get the xml sitemap Plugin from http://www.arnebrachhold.de/projects/wordpress-plugins/google-xml-sitemaps-generator/ , and there is more that you can do to SEO WordPress.
I am going to write about in on http://www.hummerbie.com, covering the best SEO Plugins as well.
There is no problem in getting two xml sitemaps, since WordPress is in a subdir of your main website.
Ryan, thanks I downloaded that plug in and installed it. Works great! Now does the wordpress sitemap submit automatically to SE’s? I cannot submit it manually to the Google webmaster central because I already submitted my joomla one?
@Ryan: You can manually submit different sitemaps to Google, even for one domain! Using Google webmaster central is always a good thing to do.
You can read here: http://blog.hummerbie.com/sitemapxml-and-autodiscovery-by-google-ask-yahoo-and-live-via-robotstxt/ how to make it easier for SE’s to find you sitemap.xml file.
Do you know if there’s a way to auto-assign page titles, based on the blog entry’s title? Sh404SEF does this with content items in Joomla.
@Zeno, At the moment there is no way to do it automatically, because the information if not in the same database table as the Joomla Title, your really have to do it manually.
I really have to disagree with the above statement that “at the moment there is no way to do it automatically”. While I use the technique you’ve described for certain items that SH404SEF does not automatically handle correctly (and I use this technique OFTEN–it’s great!), there is a MUCH better way of handling mojoblog posts than doing it by hand like this. Check out my blog at the following link to see it in action:
CMNY Cakes blog
There is a rich discussion of the topic at the joomlify.com forum, which is of course at the developer’s website. Check out the following stickyied topic at:
http://www.joomlify.com/forums/index.php?topic=147.0
@SokJuice: Great info, Thanks!
I will surely check this one out later today and update the post if it works! I saw on the ML version site there was an alpha version of a plugin as well.
Hi Hummer,
Thanks for the informative post.
I have a small database driven website built using Joomla. Using sh404sef for generating SEF urls. I have few questions. Could you please help me with them?
1. sh404sef inserts %20 for the space characters, which I want to get rid of. The page titles are generated from what I have in my database records. How do I change the URL encoding scheme without changing the underlying database contents?
2. xyz.com/component/option,com_xyz&arg=1/ – This is what a typical URL looks like. Is there a way I can eliminate the words “component”, “option” and the component name from the URL?
3. I set “show language in URL” to “No”, but I still see “lang,en” at the end of the URL. How do I remove this?
Thanks.
@Manjusha: Which version of Joomla are you using?
ad 1. From the sh404SEF configuration the title alias should be used to generate the URL, if you change that title be hand to “This is an example” then you will get the %20% in your url.
To get rid of those %20% you need to rewrite it to “This-is-an-example”, that way you don’t have any blanks in the alias.
After you have done that, clear ol the SEF urls wiht the option in the sh404EF component and let it create the nes ones.
sh404SEF changes blanks into %20%.
ad 2. From the component part you need to get a sef extending file form the component developer, wich in some cases is not doable.
The other option you have is to use the custom url option in sh404sef with wich you can create any URL you want elleminating all the thins you don’t like.
That however can be a tremendus job if you use that component for a lot of things.
ad 3. Do you use a language component like JoomFisch, that might cause the lang.en extension to you URL. But it might also be created by the components you use.
I haven’t seen the indistars component anywhere else…:-)
Thanks for the info, Hummer.
I’m using Joomla 1.5
ad 2. if a url is like:
xyz.com/component/option,com_xyz/…
I’m able to set a custom redirect so as to remove the words “component”, “option”
but, if the url is like:
xyz.com/component/option,com_xyz&arg=1/…
it fails. SInce there are arguments embedded in the url
ad 3. As far as my knowledge is concerned, I’m not using any language components.
i use sef404 to,but this some bugs i found on my web
I use sef404 on most of my Joomla deployments. Very nicely written tutorial. Keep up the great work. Knowledge is power everybody!
Best Regards,
Brandon Briggs
Joomla Gold Video Series
Thanks for the article.
Is there a way to get the “old” or real URL without turning off sh404SEF?
I ask because I have a working site and sh404SEF is turned on and working and I don’t want to turn it off just to get old URL.
Or am I missing something?
Thanks,
Paul
@Paul, Yes there is, you can find a module from JoomlaPraise here http://www.joomlapraise.com/joomla/extensions/free/praiseurl.php
Temporary publice the Module and you can get the real internal URL from Joomla! after you are done, just unpublish te Module until you need it again.
It is a great time saver!
Thanks Herbert.
The link you provided doesn’t work so I checked the Joomla Praise site and didn’t find the module that you mentioned. I also searched on the Joomla org site and it didn’t pull up in the search.
I read a notice on the blog that Joomlashack bought them so I checked their site under extensions but didn’t find the JP module.
hey! I am not getting this weird Url that is shown below after i have enabled sh404 and sef in global configuration.Can u please give some detail steps to rectify it to my sef url.
index.php/component/option,com_mojo/Itemid,30/p,647/
Pls let me know as soon as possible as I spended 2 days to try to rectify it.
hi. after i have enabled sh404 it’s a conflict with my sitemap. And I steel have some URL’s not user friendly
. Can U suggest me any help?