Hi
Will 4SEF completely replace sh404SEF or will they work together.
They will not, they are mutually exclusive. You cannot have both enabled at the same time. You can (you actually should for importing URLs) have them installed at the same time, on Joomla 3, but just not enabled at the same time.
Or perhaps 4SEF will import my existing sh404SEF urls?
Yes. If you transition to 4SEF, you should do that while still on Joomla 3. That way 4SEF can be installed - with sh404SEF still there, and when you run the 4SEF configuration wizard, it will detect sh404SEF and offer to import sh404SEF configuration and URLs.
You can then make sure everything works as expected. If it does not, just disable 4SEF (there's an on/off switch on the control panel, just use that, don't uninstall or anything) and enable back sh404SEF.
Two important things:
1 - Watch the 4SEF Getting started video. It will definitely answer the question "Just want to get an idea on how 4SEF will replace sh404SEF in my database, etc."
It has 2 parts: the first is a generic introduction to 4SEF, the second part is dedicated to moving from sh404SEF.
The video is at the bottom of the 4SEF product page, and on the 4SEF documentation Getting Started page.
2 - 4SEF is not a replacement for sh404SEF (that's why I changed the name)
4SEF does only one thing: SEF URLs. As close as possible to the sh404SEF URLs. But it does nothing else, and more specifically, it does not handle:
- custom page title, meta description
- redirects canonicals,
- basic structured data as sh404SEF had
- OpenGraph Twitter cards tags
- social sharing buttons
All of these features (except social sharing buttons) have been redesigned and improved as part of our 4SEO all-in-one SEO extension.
4SEO can import custom titles, meta description and redirects from sh404SEF, just like 4SEF can import URLs. It's also best to switch to 4SEO while still on Joomla 3.
In addition to what you've seen in sh404SEF, 4SEO has more SEO features:
- sitemap generation
- structured data generation
- Google Search Console connector
- content replacer
If you use other SEO extensions, it will typically replace 2 or 3 of them, such as JSitemap pro or OSMap, Tassos Google Structured Data, Regular Labs ReReplacer and of course sh404SEF.
Best regards
Yannick Gaultier
weeblr.com / @weeblr