sh404SEF configuration

sh404SEF is a Joomla-3 only extension. It will be/has been discontinued on August 17, 2023.

You can switch from sh404SEF to 4SEF for SEF URLS and 4SEO for an all-in-one Joomla SEO extension, which both run on Joomla 3 and Joomla 4.

Please refer to the sh404SEF FAQ page for more details.

Main configuration

All sh404SEF settings have a tooltip displaying help on a particular configuration option. Just hover with your mouse over any given item to display that tooltip

sh404SEF configuration is accessed through the Configuration available on all backend sh404SEF pages:

Clicking that button opens up a popup with almost all sh404SEF configuration options. Here is how it looks:

Additional configuration options

Some specialised, or less used, configuration options are not included in the main configuration popup. As sh404SEF relies on plugins for many features, some of those plugins have their own settings, which can be accessed the usual Joomla! way, using Extensions > Plugins manager, then locate the desired plugin and open it to access the parameters.

In the Joomla! plugin manager, search for the string sh: this will display all sh404SEF related plugins (and possibly a few more depending on what you installed on your site)

Social buttons plugin

This is the plugin you'll most often want to configure, as it enables buttons to perform sharing on social networks. Please refer to the dedicated Going further page written on that topic, you'll find it here.

Similar URLs plugin

This plugin probably won't require much configuration, as it uses sane defaults. It handles finding URLs that are similar to a given one, and is used by the advanced 404 error page. Again, read all about it in the dedicated page available here.

Offline code plugin

The offline code plugin improves on Joomla! default offline mode, by first making sure an actual 503 https status code is returned in all case, but also by:

• making administrator login optional (more secure)
• adding a configurable retry-after delay

shLib plugin

This plugin is a shared programming library. It contains basic piece of code that are shared by several of our extensions (sh404SEF and Josetta). You may need to access it if you want to enable/disable sh404SEF built-in logging features. This may be useful to debug issues on your site. It's also where you can setup the connection details of shared memory caching, should you want to use that instead of the more usual disk file caching of SEF URLs that sh404SEF uses (basic settings for caching are under the Advanced tab of sh404SEF configuration popup).