Steve’s Blog

Add your Virtuemart Products to Froogle

I’m very careful about recommending products on this blog, plugging only about 10% of the stuff that gets sent. Thats mainly because so many developers harvest email addresses and send out a mass mailing. Just a two-line, personalised message and a sample of the product is enough to get my interest.

It also helps if something comes from a friend who doesn’t know you’re going to give them a mention.

Today, I got a very pleasant surprise from Ian from NewWorldDesigns.co.uk, who’ve worked with for a long time. His first commercial product came out today and its a great start – its a RSS Feeder for Virtuemart. It allows you to submit a feed of all your products to Google’s shopping search engine. It works out of the box and without any hacks. Its simple to set up and the demonstration video gives you a good idea of what it can do.

So, no affiliate links, no paid posting, just a recommendation. Its a good product.

Find Out More

Read MoreAdd your Virtuemart Products to Froogle

Joomla Extension of the Month – July 07

July Extension of the MonthThis month’s award goes to one of the best Joomla extensions and one that is almost certainly the most under-appreciated.

JACLPlus is a hack that allows you to create an unlimited number of new user groups and give them fine-grained access to different content areas on your Joomla site. It works with a few extra components such as Docman and Repository, but by-and-large it is a solution for improving user access to the core of Joomla. Instead of simply restricting people according to "public" or "registered", you can now create user levels of a complexity that rivals

Why is JACLPlus not currently given the credit it deserves?

  1. Installation. Over the years it seems to have acquired a reputation for being a somewhat difficult hack to apply and to an extent that used to be true. However, Byostech.com are charging ahead with development and installation on most sites is a breeze (be warned – as with anything, test this on a demo site before going live).

  2. Marketing. Its admittedly poor. They don’t have a logo or any slick 3D box images. Oh, and guys, you make a great product but the colors on your website make my eyes scream for mercy. Please soften the palette a little.

Our experience is that neither of these things is a genuine issue. JACL Plus is also a really stable product. We’ve clients using JACL Plus to manage 1000s of users generating over 10,000 hits per day. Its a great product and a worth Extension of the Month for July.

Read MoreJoomla Extension of the Month – July 07

Automapping and Duplicate Content

This post is a follow-up to our previous discussion of automapping, and why it can be really useful in helping you avoid duplicate content problems on your Joomla site.

For those of still thinking about how to handle duplicate content, head on over to the official word from Google. One of their key tips is "Understand your CMS". As the saying goes, "a bad workman blames his tools." Joomla sites can rank well but to make that happen you do need to understand something about how they work.

If you haven’t already, make sure you understand what Itemids are and why they can cause difficulties for your site’s SEO. If that makes sense, dig into this great post on the Joomla forums from Ken McDonald, Project Administrator for Open SEF. He explains how different SEF URL components deal with the problem of Itemids, outlining the advantages and disadvantages of each solution:

Continue reading “Automapping and Duplicate Content”

Read MoreAutomapping and Duplicate Content

Can Some Domains Extensions Hurt your SEO?

There’s a great thread over at Domainstate.com, reacting to the news that ICANN, who control top-level domains on the Internet, have decided to create yet more extensions. After the runaway success of .aero, .coop, .museum and .name, people are clearly desperate for more. DomainState offered their ideas in the form of a fake press release:

Continue reading “Can Some Domains Extensions Hurt your SEO?”

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GroupJive Springs Back to Life

GroupJiveSad but true. When our clients ask for social networking we almost always them advise them to use Drupal. Its user profile system is comparable to Joomla’s Community Builder, but Drupal is a better choice because of its immensely powerful groups system. Using Organic Groups, Drupal users can create and manage their own groups, adding on dozens of other features from forums and blogs to photo galleries and even registrations. If Joomla is going to compete for social networking sites, it needs groups. It needs Group Jive, the one extension attempting to meet that need.

Unfortunately, things haven’t looked good recently. Development moved to a new site, slowed down and finally at the end of May, the developers of Group Jive admitted that the extension’s development "hasn’t proceeded like you expected". They asked for help.

The good news is that the request worked. Mark Raborn, the Program Manager, posted that the GJ development team now has 23 people on board. A roadmap is apparently in the works and the release of GroupJive 1.5 now has a new lease of life.

Good news for GJ and good news for Joomla! as a whole. Head on over to GroupJive.org and find out more.

Read MoreGroupJive Springs Back to Life

Review of Heavenly Titles Module

One of Joomla’s inbuilt SEO flaws is how it handles page titles.

The titles of your Joomla page probably look like this:

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

That makes about as much sense as wrapping up the paragraphs on your page with code like this:

<td class="paragraph" width="100%">This is my paragraph and it rambles on and on….</td>.

Whats wrong with <p> and </p>? Fortunately Joomla does use <p> and </p> but it doesn’t utilise <h1> and </h1>. Fortunately, there’s a new module that offers a potential solution….

Continue reading “Review of Heavenly Titles Module”

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New Joomla SEO Forum

As promised – we have a major bonus available today for Joomla SEO eBook Subscribers.

We’ve opened a new Joomla SEO Forum. Over the next few months, we’ll build the forum into the most comprehensive Joomla ranking resource on the web.

What does this mean for you?

Existing SEO eBook Subscribers

  • You receive free lifetime membership to all areas of the forum.
  • You can download the SEO eBook whenever you want from the forum.

Future SEO eBook Subscribers

  • You can join the forum and subscribe to have access to the SEO eBook.
  • The price of the book is not changing ($37) and in addition to the book, you will now get 6 months of forum access and free updates.

Non SEO eBook Subscribers

  • Continuing our tradition of giving away the best free Joomla SEO information on the web, non-subscribers will also have access to sections of the forum. We’ll be on hand to answer any Joomla SEO question you have.

Click here to visit the forum now!

Read MoreNew Joomla SEO Forum

SEF URL Updates

Some quick updates from the world of Search Engine Friendly URL extensions for Joomla:

Finally, we’re continuing to test sh404SEF on live sites and are finding it to be a great, stable SEF extension. Highly recommended.

Read MoreSEF URL Updates

Some Thoughts on GPL Business Models

A warning in advance – today’s blog post is a little disconnected. It is really a collection of thoughts I’ve had as people struggle through the question of “How 3rd party developers make money in the GPL’ed Joomla world?”

  • Size matters. Successful GPL models will probably need to be based on large and very important applications. I can imagine that Community Builder, Virtuemart and Fireboard would be the extensions that are in the best position to move towards a subscription model. However, all of those are currently GPL so I’m left struggling to find examples of non-GPL extensions that are ready to make the move. We may find that smaller apps are left behind because fewer people are willing to pay recurring fees for components that aren’t mission-critical. On his blog, Roberto Galoppini agrees that the smaller non-GPL extensions might not make the move successfully to the GPL:
“I guess that only a fraction of Joomla! Extensions are really important to the majority of users and customers.”
  • Community matters – but takes a long time. Community Builder, Virtuemart and Fireboard are in the best position because they have had years to build a following. Skore mentions that he had one subscriber per week during the first months of development and close to a year to become profitable.
  • Template developers have an advantage. Template clubs have the ability to issue fresh product every month. Component developers can issue bug fixes but they don’t have the “Wow!” factor to help retain people month-on-month. Its also an unfortunate fact of life that most people never update their extensions. They install and forget, not having or wanting to spend the time keeping up with developer’s new versions.
  • The developer’s alliance idea is intriguing. Roberto mentions this on his blog. Would people subscribe to one site which offers support and downloads for not just one extension but several, even dozens? I think that we’re likely to find out at some point.
  • What reward do subscribers get? Some people are already trying the subscription model with components. Skore with this Account Expiration Component is a good example. His advantage is that people can make money with his extension. Subscribers have a direct interest in keeping his extension going because it makes money for them. Components that have a less direct relationship to the subscribers’ wallet may find life more difficult.
  • Replacement is unlikely. Its been mentioned a few times on the forum that people will step in to take up the slack on projects abandoned by developers upset at the change in licensing stance. This is a nice idea but I don’t think its likely to work in reality. Past experience has shown that the majority of projects never do find a new developer. See this thread for a list of the currently abandoned extensions. Some of the most important and popular extensions may be continued but most will not.

  • Change is likely to come from new, unburdened developers. Skore mentioned on the Joomla forums that he’s young, has no family and thus in a much better position to take risks with his business model. People with mortgages and families have less leeway to experiment and are faced with some difficult decisions by the changed licensing stance.

I will probably add this list over the next day or two as I mull over the matter more.

Read MoreSome Thoughts on GPL Business Models