Merged Kunena and SEO: Why would I need ANY third-party SEF plugin?

There is a huge number of discussions in these forums about third-party SEF products (like sh404SEF). From what I've seen they cause more problems than they're worth.

Why would I need to use sh404SEF? I don't want to seem disrespectful to lda, but why would I need SEO using Joomla core ?

It seems to me that there's a lot of "folklore" and hype about the need for adding further complexity to Joomla by installing these products. Are they necessary? Do they really live up to their promises?

I use the built-in Joomla Search Engine Optimization (SEO) facilities and I don't have any problems converting those "ugly" URLS into "user-friendly" ones. For example, see my test site at www.enduring.com.au/40P_demo/forum

Simple, really!

I haven't been able to find any answers or convincing arguments for the huge interest in these 3rd-party products and home-grown hacks. Could someone please tell me why that's the case. :S

Thank you. All contributions, in support of (or against) SEF tools, appreciated.

Just wrote a long post that my browser chewed.

Basically, ditch the 3rd party sef. I was needing it in the old versions of J! pre 1.5 but now you can do without it.

Thank you, eezz. This is exactly what I suspected: if you're using Joomla 1.5.x you don't need any SEF stuff at all!

What really surprises is that sh404SEF is listed at JED as a "J! 1.5 native" extension. Why bother, if J 1.5 already has the functionality inbuilt? :S :blink: :side:

Dear sozzled,

Just continuing this healthy discussion

I use the built-in Joomla Search Engine Optimization (SEO) facilities and I don't have any problems converting those "ugly" URLS into "user-friendly" ones. For example, see my test site at www.enduring.com.au/40P_demo/forum

The following link is from your test site:

www.enduring.com.au/40P_demo/forum?func=view&catid=9&id=160#162

I call it very UGLY URL because it doesnt make any sense to me, my users or search engines.

Now just install the sh404sef and check yourself the same url.

Before making any comment or starting any argument ONE MUST check, verify the argument from both sides. Have you ever use sh404sef on your site? I have been using sh404sef latest beta version on my 1.5 site since last 2 years and i do not have had any major issues related to it.
Morever sh404sef is open source product developed and managed by Shimusha alone.

And we must promote encourage open source products. If you have had any error for Sh404sef then please contact to the developer on his forum. And i am sure he will rectify it.

NEVER CRITICIZE ANY COMPONENT WITHOUT TESTING IT FULLY (I have seen your couple of posts where you mentioned about another open source component COMMUNITY BUILDER to remove it if it giving you ERROR). DO NOT PASS YOUR PERSONAL COMMENT AS GENERALIZED COMMENT.

Ending this discussion in positive note. No personal attacks or grudges.

Thanks for your reply, sunny.

I suppose, depending on your viewpoint, if you're threading your way through deeply-nested forum messages then you have to deal with long URLs. Depending on your viewpoint, these URL might appear a little unfriendly. By the same token, if you've got a message in a discussion forum, URLs in discussion forums necessarily get messy because of the way they're structured. We're already well acquainted with the long, "ugly" URLs from web-based news sites.

In the Kunena context, for example, if you'd like to get the URL of message #17168 in this website ( www.kunena.com ) - a website that doesn't use SEF tools - is it really that worrysome that the URL is www.kunena.com/forum?func=view&catid=83&id=17168 ?

I suppose, you could argue, instead of referring to message #17168 we could refer to as ... well, what could we refer to it as? The first message in the discussion topic called message Why would I need ANY third-party SEF plugin? ? You could argue, I suppose, if a tool translated the URL into something like (if it worked) would be equally as "ugly".

sunnyjey wrote:

Now just install the sh404sef and check yourself the same url.

Sorry, I don't want to do that. I'm asking people to provide a convincing argument for products like sh404SEF instead of the "suck-it-and-see" argument.

Would you agree that "ugliness" or human-readable meaningfulness have little purpose in the context of web-based discussion forum URLs? Maybe not.

A lot of the other points in sunnyjey's response assume that I personally have a problem or an axe to grind about sh404SEF. I don't have any problems at all with sh404SEF.

sunnyjey wrote:

NEVER CRITICIZE ANY COMPONENT WITHOUT TESTING IT FULLY (I have seen your couple of posts where you mentioned about another open source component COMMUNITY BUILDER to remove it if it giving you ERROR). DO NOT PASS YOUR PERSONAL COMMENT AS GENERALIZED COMMENT.

I was not criticising sh404SEF and I'm disappointed if people think that I was. I was simply asking the question: why would I need it? I haven't yet seen any information that helps me understand the matter any better.

I have not recommended that people must or should remove Community Builder. I have always insisted that people have a choice: they can choose to live with problems and errors caused by incompatible versions of Kunena and Community Builder (or whatever other Joomla products they've installed) or they can remove the source of the problems. If people are prepared to live with problems, that's their choice. If people want to bullet-proof their website, that's their choice too. Every choice you make comes with a cost.

In like manner, sunneyjey, I think this discussion can be healthy and helpful and I, too, have no personal grudges in here.

Thanks again for the feedback.

I use SH404SEF on my site but have it skip Kunena. I used SH404sef on my site when it was j1.0- now that I ported to 1.5, I don't want to drop it because I've gotten a large page ranking and don't want to take a hit in the search engines. Plus I'm lazy to put in all the redirects...

Oh yeah, I think the standard SEF for Joomla is great, but in some scenarios I want to have a custom URL- whereas the standard Joomla SEF won't allow me to do that. But I think to myself... do I want to sacrifice the ease of the core Joomla SEF for a handful of custom URL's?

Thinking too much makes me lazy also. So I'm just gonna keep SH404sef since getting rid of it will hurt my head.

They've got a pretty cool security layer to protect your site from wannabe hackers and script kiddies though. It even reports to Project Honeypot.

Overall I'd say that a 3rd party SEF component makes sense. The default Joomla SEF is quick and easy, but it's just that for now.

I do realize with the more sites I make, the more slim they become (less dependant on 3rd parties)- probably because subconsciencely I've realized that maintenance over multiple sites means work.. and well, I've already mentioned that problem that I have with laziness.