Joomla is a powerful and award-winning CMS that enables building of a variety of websites and online applications. To say that “some of the best global-level websites have been built on Joomla and are running successfully” clearly testifies the level of preference and popularity of Joomla for websites. In spite of being so hugely popular CMS, Joomla fails to weave together the same kind of magic for search engine optimization purposes. Websites using Joomla are actually not considered search engine friendly and thus, such websites lose out a range of potential benefits offered by this optimization process. To deal with the concerns of SEO, webmasters now have started availing a wide range of SEO extensions for Joomla. In this write up, we will highlight the most beneficial and popular SEO extensions for Joomla.

SEOSimple

Webmasters follow specific search engine optimization guidelines wherein Meta descriptions are accorded relevant texts to match page’s contents. It would indeed take a lot of time and effort once the description of each and every page is manually inserted. SEOSimple mechanically utilizes relevant texts by lifting them directly out of each page to make the Meta description to enable ease and time-saving. With a quick downloading and installation time, SEOSimple promises to be a good extension for Joomla websites.

Compatibility: Joomla! 1.5, Joomla! 1.6, Joomla! 1.7

SEOSimple Extension for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory)

iJoomla SEO

iJoomla SEO is really a very beneficial extension for Joomla as it boasts of too many features and options to give a new meaning to SEO. Some of the features and benefits are:

●      Tremendous reduction in the time taken by search engine optimization ●      Meta tag management in one convenient page ●      Keywords or phrases monitoring on Google ●      Facility of special treatment to specific keywords ●      Good management of keywords saturation ●      Anchor links designing for specific keywords Compatibility: Joomla 1.5, Joomla 1.6, Joomla 1.7 Compatible

iJoomla SEO Extension for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory).

RSSeo! Suite

RSSeo! Suite, labeled as the most complete SEO suite for Joomla, offers many features and benefits to bring home the majority of optimization gains. Some of the advantages and features of this Joomla extension are:

●      Feature to analyze and evaluate rival’s SEO performances ●      Facility to index all website pages ●      Option to set redirects for the old links ●      Generation of Google and Yahoo! Sitemap ●      Monitoring of keywords ●      Integration with Google Analytics Compatibility: Joomla 1.5, Joomla 1.6, Joomla 1.7

RSSeo! Suite Extension for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory)

Auto-Frontpage

Auto-Frontpage is a very essential extension for every Joomla website as it effectively deals with publishing and republishing issues. As the name clearly suggests, it allows automatic publishing of new articles on the frontpage of a website; more so, it enables the same privilege for old articles by helping them republish on the same frontpage of the website. With automatic update of content, this extension keeps users and search engines busy. It also kills the need of manual publishing that normally takes a lot of time. Webmasters have the advantage of fixing a specific time-period to alter the content of the website to suit the need of users and search engines alike.

Compatibility: Joomla! 1.5

Auto-Frontpage Extension for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory)

JoomSEO

Keywords play a major role in search engine optimization results and rankings of a website and thus, any extension that supports keywords is immensely desirable. JoomSEO is a wonderful extension that allows automated conversions of right keywords at appropriate places to achieve good SEO results for a website. Some of advantages of this extension are:

●      Great scope of customization ●      Choice of putting Meta keywords, titles, descriptions, and heading tags ●      Option to either show or hide the site name ●      Facility to change the number of keywords in a title ●      Facility to alter the length of a title ●      Option to remove bad words from the keywords list Compatibility: Joomla! 1.5

JoomSEO Extension for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory)

Website Name

Website name is a free SEO extension that allows displaying of website name in the title on each page. Once the name of website appears as per the rule, its optimization results tend to improve. With a fairly quick downloading and installation time, this extension can easily be configured to make the name appear either to the left or right of the page title.

Compatibility: Joomla! 1.5

Website Name Extension for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory)

SEO Canonicalisation Plugin

SEO Canonicalization plugin serves the purpose of ‘canonicalization’ wherein users are redirected to a site irrespective of the selected domain name. Earlier, webmasters were bound to use .htaccess redirect to meet the same purpose. This extension not only serves a vital purpose, but also scores for having merely few bugs. In many cases, access to a Website is prevented once this extension is not properly configured. Webmasters are required to assess the "Check Settings" option of this extension prior to using the extension.

Compatibility: Joomla! 1.5

SEO Canonicalisation Extension for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory)

J! Redirect 301 Plugin

Brands often have more than one domain to create awareness and enhance visibility.  J! Redirect 301 Plugin is helpful for search engine optimization if the Webmasters want any of their domains on a single server to be redirected to the main one. This plugin will give a chance of permanent redirection to a mentioned domain.

Compatibility: Joomla! 1.5

J! Redirect 301 Plugin for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory)

Article- Generator

Fresh content plays a key role in effective SEO of a website and thus, websites always update the content manually. Article-Generator is a beneficial extension that regularly updates a website with fresh content. This extension asks for some specifications and keywords to generate fresh article. But there is a drawback as this plugin is not free. You can purchase it for 9.99 Euros.

Compatibility: Joomla 1.5

Article-Generator Extension for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory)

Joomap Plugin for Remository

Joomap is a popular extension that offers a remarkable ease of use and configuration for Joomla webmasters. By using the Joomap extension, webmasters can easily create a sitemap for submission to major search engines. It suits the laymen and experts alike and hardly poses any kind of issues either in use or configuration. With almost negligible reports of errors, this SEO extension works fine and fetches good results. Content Categories and Menu Structure are displayed in a Google sitemaps list through Joomap to add to the SEO value of a website.

Compatibility: Joomla! 1.5

Joomap Extension for Joomla (Courtesy: Joomla Extension Directory)

Conclusion

Despite being hailed as a commanding CMS for websites and online applications, Joomla fails to rise to the expectations when it comes to offer good search engine optimization results.  With so many popular Websites using Joomla and so much revenue on stake, any solution to perk up SEO performance of Joomla websites is a welcome move. Above extensions for Joomla are steadily gaining prominence for their ability to simpler the complex SEO process and ensure better results and rankings. Webmasters now have specific extensions to achieve the desired result in terms of SEO to retain their existing Joomla websites. We invite our readers to provide the valuable suggestion and feedback through comments.