Install was quite easy but now my home link in main menu is acting erraticaly. Every now and then, the usual site home link is replaced with aliases, other sites name from the server, home link with the mail. prefix , or, even worse, site links with https instead of http. To stop that, I have to put the Joomsef off for a while then flush the caches then put Joomsef back on. It's then normal for a few hours and it starts all over again until I redo the flushing procedure. The worst now is the fact that all search engines have indexed the bad home page link and tonnes of wrong url of my site and I've got more and more 404 :(

I must say that I spend hours changing all configuration setting that could impact on that to no avail. I deeply frustrated with the product and if I don't find a solution urgently I will give it up.

Ok to install, a bit complicated to manage but works good… but no answer at all when you get a problem and ask for support… what a shame…

I'm using Artio JoomSEF and the Virtuemart extension on my site. This software does what it says it will do. It will generate SEF URLs from Virtuemart content and will also automatically populate MetaTags for the products. Installation was very easy. At first the software didn't work for me. Every URL on my site would produce the default web server 404 page. However, after a call to their Support staff, they helped me identify the problem. Just make sure you have "AllowOverride" set to "All" in your httpd.conf. This solved my problems. SEF URLs and MetaTags are being generated. Glad I made the purchase.

I brought this because of a recommendation.... Sadly this was a poor recommendation and at best a costly experience.

JoomSef on the whole does a very good job of handling Joomla, it pretty much runs side by side and gives you full control over your meta date, manages your url's great.



However, its a completely different story when you introduce another 3rd party component. Which lets face is now in every joomla site!!



The support is lame and can be very costly, the search function in the forum, always returns no results, making it impossible to find anything. The lack of forum users, leaving comments or feed back is just a small part of the unpleasant experiences. For the cost I would expect a lot more help or advice but all I get is delayed responses recommending I spend more money on support services which really don't justify the initial cost of the component.



I would imagine the owner will rely with the comment blaming the other installed components for the lack of it versatility. But if it can't handle other table data from other published fields then this was clearly not for my site.



The owner is offering support at a further cost to allow this component to be used in conjunction with another component I also found here (Joomsport).



My recommendation is check with the owner before trying, to see if you would have issues with other components already installed on your site. This would save you countless hours and hard earned cash in the long term.

Well I tried this free version out JoomSEF, and after installation and enabling my Global Configuration setting SEF, it seemed to work at first.... I clicked my "Guides" link.... and the URL was looking as i had hoped /guides

However, upon clicking around the site a bit more and being logged in on the front end, I encounter more errors of Page content not rendering at all other then a default 404 or a redirecting loop of sorts. I would love to get my site to have user friendly URL's but apparently I'm either missing something critical when it comes to my configuration or I'm just using to many ext's that aren't compatible with this component.

I'll be testing this out more trying to get to the bottom of it but I'm not holding my breath since all the other SEF components tend to have similar issues like this. :(

Let's face it, SEF plugins are difficult to handle. You practically have to be an expert in server redirects to understand what is going on. If you have a complex site with many plugins then it is pretty much a big mess waiting to fail.



However, this one is not a buggy one like the others. I have tried SEF404 and AceSef and both of those are either way too complicated to manage, or do not adhere to rules properly. Yet here with this one by Artio, things are working properly and there is no more confusion about what is going on. Locked urls stay locked unlike others that do not. Also we use JotCache and it works in sync. I am using a free version which is not great because they have to put their links all over the place, they should give us a choice about where these are going to be put. I see that others rate it low, but believe me, they will also rate the others low because of the learning curve. This one looks a lot like a knockoff that came lately, but it manages links much more smoothly and consistently.

This software has a good idea on the basis, but it keep some problem that goes beyond documentation and support:

it's the "angry point" of your configuration.



it seems that there is NO way to configure the SEF system without unexpected behaviour happening all over your site.

I bet the problem also rely on the complexity of joomla itself ( plugins order, caching system, wathever ) , and on the fact that there are no comparison product really available against JoomSef itself...



The low score, to me, depends on this fact: you cannot even hope to find a suitable configuration without testing every possible option, and after you've end with it, it still won't work the way the documentation explain it to you.

That's enough to make me desire to get rid of this product as soon as possible.

In terms of control over URLs and meta, it is probably the best extension out there. The link it puts on every page will hurt more your SEO than the URLs will help.

Of course it is GPL and you can remove it.

I would like to try the paid version, if it was GPL and I can use it on several projects, but that's not the fact.



I don't mind paying for the sub-plugins, but it is very unclear whether these work with the free version or not.



If you are unexperienced user, you better play with it first, before installing on a live site.



I would give 5 stars, if the extension was coming without the link at the bottom.

I just installed and uninstalled the component.

Which is quite a shame because it looks like it's doing what I need.



I say looks like because :



-melting free version with commercial version in the JED & in the website does not allow us to see clearly what is provided or not, therefor you have to install the component to see what is provided or not.

This is something the JED should also work on, as it's not the first time it happens and it already misinformed me very badly.



-as there is not documentation available so far, you have to install it, whatever it takes for your website.



And this is why I uninstalled it : it just decided, that by installing it it had to rewrite all my urls, even though I did not click on anything.



Usually when you a install a component you then need to activate it. Joomsef is activated by default and rewrites all your urls the way it decided to.

And even after being deactivated, my urls were still changed ! I had to remove it completely.



For people not having any SEF already activated or with a bad ranking, this is great. Just install it, it does the rest.



For people with already a good ranking who just wish to change some parameters, wait until there is some documentation.

Otherwise you'll find yourself with a lot of 404 ; and as this component offers a lot of parameters, unless your already familiar with it, there is probably no chance for you to fix them. Bye Bye good ranking.



I got lucky, because first thing I do when installing something is check my website and look for changes.

I have asked support for help with my site, and the same day i got answers for my problem.



Answers took every part of my question.



More teams like this !



Thanks