sh404SEF 4 overview
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.
sh404SEF is a general purpose SEO extension for the Joomla! Content Management System. Its feature sets is always evolving to adjust to a changing environment, but it covers the following areas:
URLs creation and management
The basic building block upon which many features are then built is the creation of so-called Search Engines Friendly (SEF) URLs within a Joomla! site. While Joomla! itself also by default provides SEF URLs, sh404SEF strives to first build more efficient URLs for your site pages, and second to allow you to manage them.
The latter is done by storing all URLs in the database. Those URLs are created and stored whenever they must be displayed on a page of your web site. Once URLs are in the database, we can perform various operations on them, such as manually customizing a URL. We can also attach much information and actions to each of them, such as meta data or automatic redirect to another page.
sh404SEF also provides you with a higher level of control on how URLs are created (ids or not, categories or not, etc)
Note that as URLs are stored in the database, whenever you want to change settings that alter URLs format, you will need to "Purge" URLs (ie: empty the URLs database), so that new ones are created.
Common SEO
This area comprises primarily meta data and page titles handling, either automatic or manual. A central place to create or modify meta data provides faster and more efficient data entry and review, for instance. In addition, several adjustments will be made automatically to a page content, to improve SEO performance.
Social SEO
sh404SEF integrates share and like buttons for the most common social networks. You won't require another extension, and buttons can be automatically inserted anywhere on any page. Proper sharing of your content is a very efficient way of eventually getting links and more SEO performance.
Analytics
You can't improve what you can't measure. So we wanted to make it easy to view general and detailed stats and graphs about your site traffic and visitors, right into your admin control panel. In addition, sh404SEF will take care of inserting Google Analytics javascript snippet in your site pages, no need for another plugin.
A useful 404 error page
sh404SEF helps keep on your site visitors who hit a 404 - page not found error. First, by generating a 404 page that uses your site template, instead of an (almost) empty page. Then, using its knowledge of your site URLs, by showing that visitor a list of pages that are most likely what they were looking for: pages with similar URLs most likely have similar topics.
Optionally, sh404SEF can also automatically try to redirect visitors faced with a missing page to the most similar URL it could find in its database.
Anti-spam and Security
The most efficient way to get out of search engines results is to have you web site infected by malware. When search engines identify this situation, they will normally remove you from their results entirely and instantly. A more subtle damage is done by allowing spammers to place spammy comments on your blog, or bad links in your forum posts. This will degrades the quality associated with your content, and its performance.