Hi
Is it necessary to install 4SEF alongside 4SEO during this migration to preserve my existing SEF URLs as they are, or will 4SEO alone be sufficient with Joomla’s native SEF URLs and redirects?
4SEF handles SEF URLs and4SEO handles SEO. 4SEO does absolutely nothing to SEF URLs, so yes, 4SEF is needed to do anything with SEF URLs.
I would like your guidance on the exact steps required to migrate all sh404SEF data—including SEF URLs, canonicals, duplicates, aliases, titles, meta descriptions, keywords, and redirects—to Joomla 4.0 successfully.
This process is fully documented in both extensions. Please consult the respective documentation sections of 4SEF and 4SEO here.
4SEF and/or 4SEO are not a continuation of sh404SEF. They are different extensions, with different features and operate differently. Moving from sh404SEF to 4SEF/4SEO is a migration, and it will usually allow you to preserve most of your data including the ones you mention. Some features such as shURLs don't exist anymore for instance. And of course, 4SEO does many things that sh404SEF could not do, and which are more important now.
If 4SEF is recommended, should I install it on Joomla 3.10 before the upgrade, or can it be added later on Joomla 4.0?
Again, this is all documented, including videos but you must do the entire migration while still on Joomla 3.
sh404SEF must be present on the site to perform the imports. As sh404SEF is Joomla 3-only, you must remove it before even starting the Joomla 3 - Joomla 4 migration process. Therefore all transition to 4SEF/4SEO must be done while still on Joomla 3. When all is working fine, you start migrating your site to Joomla 4.
My Google Search Console reports 266 redirected pages from sh404SEF. Will these redirects be fully preserved and functional after migrating to 4SEO (or 4SEF)?
If these redirects are done by sh404SEF, then it's usually possibly to import them into 4SEO.
(4SEF does not do any redirect. It only stricly does one thing: SEF URLs).
Looking ahead to Joomla 5.0, are there any specific preparations I should make during this migration to ensure compatibility?
4SEF/4SEO (and all our extensions work the same on Joomla 3, 4 and 5). From a 4SEF/4SEO standpoint, the concern you have is to move from sh404SEF to 4SEF/4SEO. After that, there's nothing do.
The one importan thing however when migrating from Joomla 3 is to decide if you migrate the site, or if you rebuild a new one from scratch and transfer the content somehow.
If you migrate the site, all content/articles/categories/etc will keep the same internal ids and all should be good.
If you rebuild the site from scratch, possibly changing things, then essentially nothing can be imported between sh404SEF and 4SEF/4SEO because the item ids are not going to be the same.
Best regards
Yannick Gaultier
weeblr.com / @weeblr
