Joomla! and SEO

[CrazyM]

I'm considering migrating my current site (static web pages) into Joomla!. I rank pretty high in all 3 major search engines and do not want to lose these rankings, what do you suggest? Should I go for Joomla!? Should I redirect the highly ranked pages? I'm a bit worried but my site's growing and I need some kind of CMS. Any other option?

[lvalics]

Hi,

I think that your site will be affected, not because of Joomla, but because you will have other links.
A strategy could be to create a copy in Joomla and verify before put online the site with Joomla all links to your site, see which pages was linked and try to create redirect to new page with same content.
Then also be sure that in Joomla you will use SEO links, I know there is a module for this.

See more about redirect on
www.mcanerin.com/EN/articles/301-redirect-apache.asp and http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/mod/mod_alias.html

Hope this help.

[Webnauts]

If you think you can work with Joomla, it could turn out great. If you want just want to use an easy to use CMS, I recommend http://www.cmsmadesimple.org/

But one thing you must keep in mind: No software or CMS can do the SEO for you!

By the way, before making up your mind what CMS you should choose, read this: http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc...kes/index.html

[dharrison]

Thanks Webnauts. That certainly answered the question I was going to ask next. ;)

ATB

[lvalics]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

But one thing you must keep in mind: No software or CMS can do the SEO for you!

Indeed, no ... but if the software is well written, can achieve 50% of the SEO job.
In this I think for URL rewriting, Title Tags, Meta Tags, XHTML ready etc.

I can also suggest to you a small CMS Mini Open CMS, no database require (text based), easy template based and ready for SEO (what I mentioned URL rewriting, Title Tags, Meta Tags, XHTML ready).

Hope this help.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by lvalics

I can also suggest to you a small CMS Mini Open CMS, no database require (text based), easy template based and ready for SEO (what I mentioned URL rewriting, Title Tags, Meta Tags, XHTML ready).

Hey thanks Valics. I would have a closer look at that too. :)

[thegypsy]

We use Joomla extensively with our clients as well as our own sites. It does just fine with SEO. You will need to grab

SEO Patch
SEF URLs (there are a few paid and free)
Meta tag generator

Add these components/modules and you will be good to go with Joomla... need any help feel free to PM

[brandrocker]

do not want to lose these rankings,

Please take into consider the following points before implementing any changes:

If you do not want to lose existing rankings, then my best advice will be to stick to your existing site unless you are quite confident that your new Joomla site becomes an exact replica of your existing site.

Joomla provides modules like OpenSEF which will do the task of creating SE Friendly URLs, also you can add custom description and keyword (not that much important nowadays) for each content item using Joomla CMS.

And finally, as has already been suggested, no CMS can do the task of SEO completely.