I am just trying the new version 1.0.8 of Joomla now which is free for download at http://joomla.org It does have static url capabilities but they sure don't look too sef friendly. There is a free plugin available called open-sef that claims that you can customize your urls to what ever you want to say. Also there is another paid plugin that does the same thing. I am experimenting with this right now in hopes that it will work. It looks like this program could have lots of possibilites and there seems to be many downloads available for it.
Now I have seen some new cms programs that I have not heard of before, posted on this thread so I guess I may have to try one of those too to see.

Here's an update on the Joomla cms that I have been working on.
1. The Open-SEF add on seems to work very well for making sef url's. It will do so automatically to the name of your page. You also then have the option to change the name of the url to what ever you want.
2. There is a meta tag generator that is also free to download that will allow you to set the description and keywords for each page.
So it seems like Joomla may after all be able to do everything you wish to accomplish and more. Also there are lots of free downloads available for Joomla.
I am going to change over one of my sites to Joomla completely now and if all goes well probably do all of them.

Hi,

Thanks for the upate - I'm following this, can you post or PM the url so we can have a look?

Cheers,
Paz.

Hi,

The url was intlws.com/seo but this folder has now been deleted and we are running Joomla live on a main site International Market Place and using many of the optional Joomla components.
This is now joomla version 1.0.10 with the Open SEF and many of the new Joomla mods.

What the Open-SEF seems to do is change the urls to the page name automatically which seems quite good and then you have the option to edit them to another name if you choose from the admin control panel. It stores all the names in the database and uses .htaccess for rewrite. It will require changing the .htaccess file for the 3rd party mod.

The metatag generator adds a control panel so you may write custom description and keywords for each page. Now if you have your global config set with description and keyword metatags and then make custom ones for pages it will add the custom ones to the global ones. So if in your global keywords you have say: pets, pet supplies, pet food. Then that will show on every page and if you make a page for pet food and set custom keywords of: dog food, cat food, fish food it will add those to the global keywords so you will end up with: pets, pet supplies, pet food, dog food, cat food, fish food., for your new pet food page.
If you want to make a unique description and keywords for each page you would just need to leave your global settings blank for description and keywords.

Take a look and do a view source for any page to check the code and the metatags and see what you think. Any input would be greatly appreciated as to what you think as far as the Joomla cms really being SEF.

Hi,

it looks fantastic - validates well, seo friendly urls, control over metatags, I'll definitely give it a go.

There's no sitemap; I'm sure that's very easy to set up automatically too isn't it?

Did you add the news feeds yourself manually, or is there support for that too?

and how long did it take you to set up?

Cheers,
Paz.

Yes the site map is a pretty easy add on. I have one setup on my main sites. It is phpSitemapNG, a php script that creates a google sitemap.
It can be downloaded from http://enarion.net/google/
Just make a seperate admin folder that is protected and once you have the phpSitemap setup it will automatically make a sitemap of your site and exclude any folders you wish. When it is done you can view and edit the results and then it will ping Google. I think that there are some other types available that are made just for Joomla. The phpSitemap can be used on any site.
Once I setup Joomla for a complete site I will add this on.


This is done automatic in Joomla and then you can modify anything, so that is a nice feature.


Once I found all the files and looked it over it took about an hour or so to upload and configure. You just need to make 1 MySql database and then upload the Joomla program and run the install. It will tell you if you need to Chmod any files or folders. Once you have it setup you can then add your mods through the admin section's installer.

It looks like a pretty full featured progarm with tons of add on mods available. I am working now on setting up a full site to run with it and see how it goes.

Cheers,
MadDog

OK.... I'll buy a domain this afternoon.... don't go away...haha

I have been using mambo and now joomla for more than a year.

I recommend using: open sef component: www.open-sef.org with joomla to get "good" seo urls. You can also download some free templates, components, modules to use on mambo or joomla at one of my sites: www.freemambo.com

Joomla is going very well directioned to a seo cms, they are working in all things that can make a site well seo. I think they already do the (titles hack=good seo titles sitewide), but i can´t fouind a link to it.

For those following the Joomla cms program you may want to keep checking the joomla.org site this month as version 1.5 is due out and it is supposed to be a major upgrade. They are addressing the issue of file ownership which was a slight problem before and making some other good improvements. As Blogmaster says the Open-Sef is good for seo urls and you can set custom names. Needs a little more fine tuning which they are working on and it will be perfect for Joomla. Also Remository has a simple one that works well, no admin section like Open-Sef but can be hacked to do what you want easily.

Joomla is a great SEO-friendly CMS.