Can you recommend me a CMS?
 

Hi guys,

Can anyone recommend me CMS that is search engine friendly, relatively easy to use and FREE? I have had a look a Mambo and trying to figure it out. This is my first venture into CMS...

If there is already a good thread somewhere pls direct me to it

I recently wrote a little article about this at www.seo-scoop.com/direct_link.cfm?thepost=71 with some links to help you find the right one. Hope that helps.

Check out Midgard.. just do a google search for it...
U need to have knowledge of PHP for it .

how about phpnuke - any good experience someone?
I am building a new site and got recommondations on mambo server and phpnuke...

oh yeaaaaaah
Php Nuke is not bad !! it come integrated with phpBb and stuff..
Not a bad option..,

postnuke, zope, & plone are great.

I've made a special point of testing dozens of cms systems over the last year or so, http://drupal.org is head and shoulders above EVERYTHING.

I even wrote a little tutorial on what features to enable and how over at the sew forums. Not sure on the link policy here, just go search in the dynamic website issues forum for it if you want.

You dont really need to though, it's dead easy to set up ;-)

Nick

Its all good nick the policy is, if you arent linking to spam crap then you can link. I like to be able to click to what someone is referecing as well. Only time my mods get uptight is when you are posting a lot with your own links as the target, gets construed as spam. But seriously a useful link is a good link.

Drupal
 

I asked the same question yesterday and I had some answers in the seo discussion forum. Then I started to Install most of the ones that comes with Fantastico and Drupal is in my best opinion that does the best job regarding to be a friendly search engine CMS. Try it out. It even let you create static pages in either PHP or HTML without any knowledge of PHP.

Also there are many modules that you can integrate later on as your programming skills gets better. I am building one of my website based on Drupal only.

Good Luck,

Cms
 

I have looked at several CMS scripts but can't find one that is in xhtml (without tables)

Back a few years ago we started designing websites using xhtml and css for the layout instead of tables and hand coding everything then we developed our own CMS, it's pretty scaled down but it does the trick.

You can enter your title/meta info, update content and access form submission and subscriber records.

I have also tried the CMS from http://phpwebsite.appstate.edu/ but it still has tables.

I would be interested in finding a good CMS that is not using tables.

I was looking at Mambo recently, and they do have some xhtml CSS templates available - no tables! I think they either had them, or links to them from the main mambo site, don't have the link handy.

Good luck!

LaryL

i had a look at all the major cms (mambo, drupal, xoops, etc) and without doubt the most flexible and powerful is plone. it does require a fast server with lots of ram, but for the power you get, it's def worth it. it's also css/xhtml based, produces valid code (but has ugly as hell code formatting), and seo friendly (nice urls etc.)

*nuke
 

One thing I would like to share, is that any *nuke website is going to be terrible on resources. Sure, they offer a lot of options, such as integrated bulletin boards, etc, etc, but they are resource hogs.

I've seen sites with 5k unique a day reaching loads of 50+ on the server.

My personal recommendation is PHP-Fusion which can be seen at http://www.php-fusion.co.uk. It has all the features of PHP-Nuke and PostNuke.

I've used all of the CMS's and do like Drupal and Mambo as well, but I definitely have to tell you NOT to use *nuke in a high traffic environment.

The Best SEO Friendly CMS has been found!
 

This is it guys, it's called Etomite Etomite.org.

I have to say not only is it SEO friendly but it's vaild XHTML and probably the most easy to use CMS I've ever seen.

It just rocks, nuff said. (took me a long time to find it though)

Wow, this really looks good. :cool: I am going to set up a test site for this. It appears to address the issue of each page having it's own meta tags. I have used Mambo / Joomla in the past but have found SEO to be lacking.

dazzlin
the link you posted of your article aint working.

sorry, guybrush, my site was down for a few hours today :(
all better now, and hopefully it stays that way.

What about "INTERSHOP" any one use this one???

I higly recommend you Mambo (www.mamboserver.com) or Joomla (www.joomla.org)

Onw of the issues adressed on joomla 1.1 will be SEO compabilty.

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.

the thing which i don't like at the moment is the inability to put custom tags at the section/category levels, though the design team has said that they'd be considering it in the future versions.