Joomla Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Joomla Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search Engine Optimisation & Media

Joomla! uses a similar mechanism on the server to cache pages generated by PHP. This option can drastically reduce response time with frequently visited pages.

Statistics
Here, you can enable or disable the statistics functions for your site:

Figure 4.25: Statistics

Statistics: Here you determine whether or not to generate statistics.
Log Content Hits by Date: Here you enable daily updated content statistics. Not just the complete page accesses, but hits on individual elements of an HTML page are also tracked here. Unfortunately, there is still no analysis program for this data at this time. By the way, very large data sets are produced within a very short time.
Log Search Strings: This switch can give very interesting results. It collects words that visitors to your site enter into the search field.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

Figure 4.26: SEO

Search Engine Friendly URLs: With this switch you can make a search engine-friendly URL from a dynamic URL. If you set the switch to Yes, links look something like this: http://localhost/component/option,com_contact/ Itemid,47/. The principle is based on a feature of the Apache web server. With its rewrite engine it can manipulate URLs at will. Besides the switch, you also have to rename the file htaccess.txt in the Joomla! directory to .htaccess. With Windows, such a renaming is only possible with certain programs, for example, the Ultraedit editor. With Linux, the renaming function is problem-free; the file, however, is subsequently no longer displayed in its FTP client (depending on the server configuration). In addition, the provider may not permit .htaccess files, since they represent a security risk for the web server.

Dynamic Page Titles: No matter what, you should switch this to Yes. The title of your content is then displayed with the page name in the title bar of the browser window for each and every page access:

Figure 4.27: Dynamic Page Title

Language Manager

The Language Manager allows you to select the language for the site; it also allows you to install new language files
here. This can be accomplished by uploading the language file. Joomla!, however, also allows you to load files onto
the server via FTP and then to install them from the file system. The advantage with this is that you can install
several language files in one processing step:

Figure 4.28: Install New Language

Media Manager

Figure 4.29: Media Manager

Create Directory: You can enter a name for a new subdirectory in this field. After clicking the Create icon in the toolbar, the subdirectory is created and can be selected from the options list in the top area (directory).
Directory: Select the desired directory, whose content is to be displayed.
File Upload: Click Browse and select the desired file from your local hard drive. Subsequently, click the upload icon in the toolbar. The file is uploaded and displayed. Joomla! uses media as it is. Remember that it is not a good idea to put a 3 MB picture from a digital camera on your web page in that size. On the Internet, pictures should be no larger than 50 KB. There are people who still do not have high-speed access to the Internet! You should have the following times in the back of your mind as a ground rule for the download time for 100 KB (about the size of a portal web page with pictures):

Table 4.2: Time taken to download a 100 KB file

The maximum upload size per file depends on the PHP configuration of your provider. In my case it is 16 MB. Larger files would have to be uploaded via FTP.
Media Bar: This bar lists the files (media). Depending on the type of file, you will find more information about each below. A stylus icon and a trash can icon are displayed. With a click on the stylus you can create a complete HTML link, which you can then copy and paste into your content. If you click on the stylus of the Joomla! logo, for instance, the Code field displays the following:

<img src="http://localhost/Joomla100/images/stories/asterisk.png" align="left" hspace="6"
alt="asterisk.png" />
That is the HTML code to display a picture left justified with a border of 6 pixels.