Issues Emerge From My Google Webmaster Tools Account

I checked the stats of my Joomla! website lately from Google Webmaster Tools account. I was really shocked to see all the negative things showing up there: Not found(5), Duplicate meta descriptions(9), Short meta descriptions(3), and Duplicate title tags(25). And most of these issues were caused by the forum that I've set up for my Joomla! website earlier. My main concern now is to find solutions for these problems.

How to fix pages not found problems?

Usually these pages are not existing so I just ask Google to remove the urls for me. This is how I've accomplished this task.

• Log in to my Google Webmaster Tools account, click on my website/Diagnostics/Web crawl/Not found to find out the urls.
  
• Click on Tools/Remove URLs/New Remove Request.
• Select Individual URLs: web pages, images, or other files ...
• Click on Next>> button.
• A new page shows up, enter the url that was listed as not found in the text field, and make sure you only keep the portion after http://www.yoursite.com/.
• Choose Google web search results.
• Click Add button/Submit Removal Request.
• Repeat the above steps for other urls to be removed.
  

It will tell you that your url removal is pending and will take 3-5 days to finish the process. So you need to check back to see the update. Alternatively you may create a 404 pages for those not found pages.

How to fix duplicate meta descriptions and/or duplicate title tags and/or short meta descriptions?

Basically I can use Sh404sef to solve these problems. See this post here: How to Optimize Your Joomla! Website?. However, some of these problems here were generated by Fireboard, Sh404sef does not seem to be able to pick up the urls, so I can't rewrite them to be more search engine friendly. See one of the examples here: http://www.internetoutput.com/Forum/?catid=11&func=credits. I will find a solution for this, so stay tune...

Update: I use a robots.txt to fix forum problems. Read more from this article here: What Should be Included in a Robots.txt?

How to Optimize Your Joomla! Website?

If you have a Joomla! website, you probably realize that you get many duplicated titles and descriptions especially for those pages generating by components. How can you avoid situations like that? There is one unique way to solve these problems but first you need to install Sh404Sef. If you did not install it yet, this post, Which Joomla! Sef is better? OpenSEF or Sh404SEF?, will show you how.

Now that you've installed Sh404Sef, you need to login to your Joomla! administrator's interface (backend).

• Click on Components/sh404SEF on the menu bar.
  
• A new interface is open; click on View/Edit SEF Urls.
  
• Select the item you want to optimize; click on New Meta.
  
• Type in a title in a Title tag, a description in a Description tag, and keywords in Keywords tag.
  
• Click Save which is at the upper right hand side corner to save it.

You have to repeat the last three steps for each of the items you want to optimize. After that you can check each of your website pages by clicking on it; then select View/Page Source from your browser's menu bar; you can see that each page has its own title, description, and keywords. Thus avoid duplicated title, description, and keywords.

For the home page, click on Components/sh404SEF on the menu bar from backend; click on Home page Meta which is on the upper right hand side corner; type in main title in a Title tag, main descriptions in a Description tag, and keywords in Keywords tag. Have something to say about this topic, feel free to leave your comment(s).

Related article
How to Control Title Tags and Metadata Description in Joomla

Which Joomla! Sef is better? OpenSEF or Sh404SEF?

Both OpenSEF and Sh404SEF are Joomla! components. They are purposely designed to rewrite Joomla urls to a more user-friendly format. Sh404SEF is the best plug-in for search engine friendly urls so far and it is FREE. A couple improvements have been made since OpenSEF.

• It is secure and manages title & meta tags
  

• It is optional to work with/without .htaccess file
  

• It handles header a lot better than OpenSEF
  

• It produces valid page not found 404 errors
  

• Its speed is fast in terms of caching
  

• It uses small DB (database) queries
  

• It eliminates duplicated links

If you are interested, download com_sh404SEF_Version_1.3_RC_build_150.joomla.zip here. The installation is very easy. Just follow the instructions below to install it:

• Do not unzip the file you just downloaded
  

• Go to your admin area, click on Installers/Components on the menu bar
  

• Find the url that you just downloaded com_sh404SEF_Version_1.3_RC_build_150.joomla.zip file, and click on Upload File & Install button
  

• If you succeed, sh404SEF should show up in the Components tag
  

• Click on Modules/Site Modules on the menu bar, make sure sh404SEF Custom tags module is the last module published, and make sure you publish it in the last module position in your template; otherwise it won't work properly.
  

• Click on Components/sh404SEF on the menu bar and click on Click here to switch to extended display (with all available parameters) button on the upper right corner
  

• Make sure you click on sh404SEF Configuration button, and configure it to meet your needs

If you did not have enabled Joomla Default SEF in Site/Global Configuration area, check Extension - The OpenSEF Component For Joomla! 1.0.x to get that done. Follow instructions there to make changes to .htaccess file or you can check Sh404SEF documentations out; they tell you exactly what you need to do.

Two problems I found so far. One of them is my Sitemap is still looking like this: http://www.internetoutput.com/component/option,com_sefservicemap/Itemid,40/ which I don't like it. I created an url using View/Edit Custom Redirects. However it doesn't seem to be working.

Another problem is that I don't like index.php showing up in my urls. I found the solution for this from Joomla Forum. Go to Components/sh404SEF on the menu bar, click on sh404SEF Configuration, click on Advanced tag, find Rewriting Mode?, change it to be with .htaccess (mod_rewrite), and save it. I tested my website and it works!

Update: Sitemap link has been fixed. Now it looks like the way that is supposed to be: http://www.internetoutput.com/sitemap.

Extension - The OpenSEF Component For Joomla! 1.0.x

What is The OpenSEF? It is an open source advanced Search Engine Friendly component for Joomla!. It enables automatic search engine friendly URLs for Joomla! core components and manual text-based search engine friendly URLs for 3rd-party developer components. Moreover SEO Assistant adds many search engine optimization tools.

With this extension your URLs will become more friendly to the Search Engines. Instead of your URL looks like this http://www.yoursite.com/index.php? option=com_weblinks&Itemid=23, it will look like this http://www.yoursite.com/web_links.html. You can tell that the latter one is more readable by Search Engines. Thus it is called Search Engine Friendly URL.

Download OpenSEF for Joomla! 1.0.x here: the latest release is joomla_com_opensef_2.0.0-RC5_SP2.zip. Here RC means 'Release Candidate' - meaning it is not final. It is not recommended for production sites because it may contain bugs. However, I've already installed it because many sites are using it without problems. I don't see any problem to my website either. If you want to go on, follow the instructions below:

• Do not unzip the file you just downloaded

• Login to your admin area, click on Installers/Components on the menue bar

• Browse the URL of your downloaded joomla_com_opensef_2.0.0-RC5_SP2.zip file, then click on Upload File & Install button

• If it is succeeded, click on Site/Global Configuration on the menu bar, and click on SEO tag

• Once it is open, click 'yes' for Search Engine Friendly URLs

• Make sure you rename htaccess.txt(which should be in the root directory of your website) to be .htaccess

• On the menu bar, click on Components/OpenSEF/Configuration, set OpenSEF Enable? to be 'yes', and save it

• Download .htaccess file, open it, and find Begin - Joomla! core Section; Comment this section out (put # in front of each line in this section)

• Scroll down, find Begin - 3rd Party SEF Section; Comment this section in (take out # that is in front of each line in this section)

• If the line, Option +FollowSymLinks, causes problems with your server configurations, comment it out too

• Finally save .htaccess file, upload it to you root directory of your server, and now you can check your URLs to see whether they changed to be Search Engine Friendly URLs

If you have any doubts, please ask or leave any advice or comments.

Related Articles:
How to Optimize Your Joomla! Website?
Which Joomla! SEF is Better? OpenSEF or Sh404SEF?