Steve’s Blog

What the Bleep is the Title Alias?

"What the bleep is the Title Alias? Do I fill it in? Should I leave it blank? Help!"

This is definitely one the most common questions I get from clients using Joomla for the first time. Theres nothing to indicate what its for, and if you click on the "Help" button you get something thats less than helpful:

"Title Alias: Enter a short name for this Item."

Thanks for that! So this is my best attempt to answer that question and save myself from answering it again too many times in the future… Just what is the Title Alias for?

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Chinese Names Being Taken Back by Registry

It’s rare that I post about things outside of the Joomla world, but I’m a domain-addict who lived in Asia for several years and those two interests came together in this story.

Apparently the Chinese government, through its proxies, is taking back domain names that have already been registered and paid for.

The China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) is responsible for Chinese .cn domain names. It is a private company but one with deep government links and its been responsible repossessing domains during the past month.

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The Impossibility of Hiring Good Staff

Hiring Good Staff Is anyone nowadays keen to work for someone else? In the online world, I’m not so sure.

Scoreboard Media started me on this train of thought about six months ago by asking:

“If you can rank a site in lucrative markets, why would you do it for clients instead of for yourself?

Last year, we pointed out that very few Joomla companies employ more than five people, and don’t see anything changes this year, next or in fact any time soon. The simple fact is, there is a new business model emerging:

Companies have a core of 1 to 4 people, often equal in status. They specialize in a particular niche and then they rely on partnerships with other similar, small companies to cover their other bases. Actual hiring seems to be a thing of the past.

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Do Search Engines Treat Joomla Sites Differently?

Recently I’ve seen people talk about the idea that search engines profile websites partly on the script they use. This idea makes some sense to me because it is possible to make reasonable accurate generalisations about some CMS systems:

  • WordPress = blogs, so they need to be updated regularly to rank well. Many great, high-quality blogs, but theres also a reasonable change that your average WordPress installation is a splog, give the large number of people using automatic RSS importers.
  • Gallery2 = photos. Often little accompanying text, which doesn’t make for great SEO material.
  • OSCommerce = shopping carts, so clearly a commercial site, and one that may be short on text and interesting articles.
  • Pligg = social news, often short snippets of articles from elsewhere. Little original content except comments.
  • Joomla = ….. ?

    • Do search engines treat your site any differently simply because its built with Joomla?

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    Free Copy of the Joomla SEO eBook Part 2

    Joomla SEO eBookThis week is the second week of our special month-long competition here at Alledia.

    Answer a simple question and you can win a free copy of our Joomla SEO eBook. This week’s first question:

    "Recently I’ve seen people talk about the idea that search engines profile websites partly on the script they use.

    • WordPress = blogs, so they need to be updated regularly to rank well. 
    • OSCommerce = shopping carts, so may be short on text.
    • Joomla = …..

    Do you think that search engines treat your site any differently simply because its built with Joomla?"

    Please post your answers in the comments section below. The best answer will win a free copy of the Joomla SEO eBook.

    The winner and answer will be announced on Wednesday morning US Eastern Time (GMT minus 5).

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    New Mambot to Add Headline Tags to Joomla

    One of the most important SEO tactics is to wrap your page titles in headline tags such as <h1> and <h2>.

    Unfortunately Joomla doesn’t provide these out of the box and instead puts page titles inside a relatively meaningless table cell:

    <td class="contentheading" width="100%">My Title</td> 

    There are some extensions that allow headline tags currently, including JoomSEO and sh404SEF. There are also some core hacks that achieve the same thing.

    However, we needed a simple and easy way to apply headline tags to articles, without hacking the core and without utilizing any larger components. 

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    Free SEO eBook Winner and New Ping Component

    On Monday we offered a free copy of our Joomla SEO eBook for the best answer to the following question:

    “What’s the easiest way to tell Google what’s new on your Joomla! site?“

    We really had some great answers, including;

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    Free Copy of the Joomla SEO eBook

    Joomla SEO eBookFor the next four weeks, we’re going to have special competition here at Alledia to get you through those manic Mondays.

    Answer a simple question and you can win a free copy of our Joomla SEO eBook. This week’s first question:

    "What’s the easiest way to tell Google what’s new on your Joomla! site?"

    Please post your answers in the comments section below. The best answer will win a free copy of the Joomla SEO eBook.

    The winner and answer will be announced on Wednesday morning US Eastern Time (GMT minus 5).

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