sh404SEF

297 reviews

Get sh404SEF (v4.24.7)

Introduction

Site Management, SEF, SEO & Metadata, URL Redirection, Social Share

After more than 15 years of duty, sh404SEF won't be ported to Joomla 4. To move to Joomla 4, please consider our newer extensions, released over the last couple years, including 4SEF to maintain your site SEF URLs (see Related extensions on this page or visit our website) and 4SEO for metadata.
sh404SEF is discontinued from August 17, 2023 - same as Joomla 3 end of support. Please update to 4SEF and 4SEO to maintain your URLs and metadata.

Joomla 4 notice

We created sh404SEF® for Joomla with SEO in mind. sh404sef helps you improve your search engine rankings and get more traffic to your website. Satisfy many of the Google recommendations for search engine optimization with just a few clicks.
sh404sef also includes many security features.

sh404SEF® is the most popular and longest developed Joomla seo extension. We are dedicated, full-time Joomla professionals who work each and every day to bring you the very best extensions and prompt support. Our staff have over 20 years of combined experience with Joomla (and Mambo) and we maintain some of the longest, continually developed Joomla add-ons available.

Brand new documentation set, including "Getting started" as well as other specialized short videos.

Features:
* sh404SEF rewrites Joomla URL to user-friendly format (SEF URL or URL rewriting): mysite.com/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=69&id=34
becomes mysite.com/en/sh404SEF-and-url-rewriting/list-of-available-plugins.html but it does in a way that prevent Joomla standard SEF duplicate content issues.

Important: from version 4.17, we automatically add robots meta tag required for full visibility in Google search results.
NEW: Support for Google Analytics version 4
NEW: Full Turkish translation
NEW: insert a QRCode anywhere, on any page
NEW: Redesigned Google Analytics reports, can now also display on frontend without having to log-in
NEW: block requests based on simple rules
NEW: Redirect mutiple URLs together, no more using .htaccess
NEW: Add canonical tags to mutiple URLs in one go
NEW: URL shortener can now shorten any URL, not just of current site
NEW: extended Structured data support: social profiles, corporate contacts, logos
Connector with wbAMP, our Accelerated Mobile Pages for Joomla plugin
Automatic redirect of 404s errors to most similar page
Google Sitename, Google breadcrumb and Google sitelinks search JSON+LD markup
Using oAuth2 for Analytics authorization
Twitter Cards support
Google Analytics Universal support
Google Tags manager support
all output through JLayout, easily override in template
Create and insert Open Graph data: quickly and easily add social media buttons to your entire site to allow sharing on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Linkedin and Pinterest.
Integrated Google Analytics reports display
Automatically generate tiny URLs (shURLs) for your content
Full urls and bulk meta data management
Multi-lingual support
Easily redirect 404s to suggested SEF URLS
Instantly add global support for canonical URLs (add rel="canonical" HTTP headers)
Removes automatically duplicate URLs, a common problem with Joomla websites
Create human ear and search engine friendly (SEF) URLs
Control URL re-write mode on a per-application basis
Support for Google News URL format
Easily customize the page title and page description with bulk updater
Create customized error pages (i.e. 404) with relevant links, suggest best match pages
Harden against cross-site scripting attacks (XSS)
Harden against malicious page requests
Limit flooding attacks
Protect input forms such as the contact page from spam (using Project Honey Pot)
Control site access from suspicious domains (using IP address whitelisting and blacklisting)

We Support many third-party SEF plugins via the standard Joomla installer.
Components we support natively include: VirtueMart, K2, FlexiContent, Kunena, Jomsocial, Community Builder and more.

Write a review

Fast and clear support

Jan (2).
Posted on 08 August 2011

Many thanks to the developers of this great extension, even there forum-support is fast and easy to understand.

Regards, Jan

Good extension but doesn't work

nozao (18).
Posted on 06 August 2011

This extention is good but we can not use it with several extensions like Mighty resources.That is not a bug simply, it doesn't work and no plugin exist too bad thank you

Owner's reply: Hi
Sorry Mighty resource does not provide a plugin for sh404SEF. Many extensions, though of course not all, do.

However, one thing is for sure: if you cannot have SEF urls with Mighty resource and sh404SEF, you cannot have SEF urls at all, either with Joomla SEF or any other extension.

That's because sh404SEF can directly use plugins for Joomla SEF (router.php files), Acesef and Joomsef.

Rgds

Very quick support!

Ahmad Fahim Ayub (1).
Posted on 04 August 2011

A great plugin that I wanted to use for many year, finally had a chance! It worth more than its cost and support is awesome!

Thank you for your efforts, mate:)

Indispensable in 2006 not 2011

Yaw Adom-Mensah (2).
Posted on 01 August 2011

While I agree on the developer's emphasis on sh404 being more of SEO rather than SEF, It is logical to note that SEF result in SEO, that is, without SEF URLs a website cannot be SEO optimized.

Although, there are many manual configurations that could be set to optimize individual web pages in sh404, unfortunately, the extension is unable to handle this primary task of SEF URLs effectively. While standard joomla content get translated easily, the extension falters and is inconsistent on popular platforms such as jomsocial and docman in J1.6/1.7. Two of the main extensions that made me purchase sh404.

As noted by earlier reviewers', Joomla has come a long way in SEF/SEO optimization since the humble beginnings of mambo and joomla 1.0. Perhaps, if you are still using LTS J1.5, then you may need sh404, but for websites on J1.6/1.7 this may cause more trouble to you than good. Among others, purged and deleted URLs could resurface when you never expected, raising questions on the database integrity. Today, many new extensions/components contain their own optimized SEF URLS that are short and concise and by far superior to what sh404s algorithm offers.

As and when jomsocial and perhaps docman, with 2.0 coming up updates their own SEF algorithms, sh404 could be redundant.

On support, it is fair at the forums and nothing beyond that. They are quick to blame you as the cause of the under-performing extension and are sometimes clueless on what may be going on, making you wonder if they understand the framework of their own extension themselves.

Owner's reply: Hi

Frankly, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. You seem to agree with me on SEF urls being only a smaller part of SEO, but you continue by only talking about SEF urls?

On this topic of SEF urls, then you say sh404SEF is not "consistent" for Docman and JomSocial sef urls? I don't know what that means, especially for Jomsocial, for which sh404SEF has a built-in plugin, extremely "consistent".
We don't have any issue pending for our JomSocial plugin ATM.

Likewise, I'm not sure what evolution between J! 1.5 and J! 1.6/1.7 you are referring to. There has been no evolution at all in that area (routing), and the routing mechanism is one of the few that was not touched going from 1.5 to 1.6/1.7 of Joomla!
Every comment made on Joomla URLs, or more exactly on Joomla routing, is applicable to 1.5, 1.6 and 1.7

The one question you provide more details about: "purged and deleted URLs could resurface when you never expected, raising questions on the database integrity." is easier to answer however: purged url will ALWAYS resurface. That's because sh404SEF does not create urls. It only translates them to a more readable form. It is your Joomla site that creates urls, and then asks sh404sef to translate it. If you purge urls, then next time Joomla wants to display that same url, it will again ask sh404SEF to translate it to a SEF form, and the SEF url will be back. Sh404SEF has no influence on what links and urls are displayed on your site, it only respond to requests from Joomla! itself.

I think you may want to ask those questions on the forum again, and maybe give us a chance to look at your site specifically to provide more detailed answers.

Rgds

FANTASTICKKKKKK!!!!!!

daniele (27).
Posted on 28 July 2011

Very good Component. For me its the best too! Work really good, without any type of problem! I have learned easy to make a plugins for my others components that's I use in my site. Note: Before I have finded the component without buy it (for try it), and then, it have surprised so much, that I have buyed it too. (FOR RISPECT OF PROGRAMMER'S STAFF). I'm a correct person! Ciao!

Best, but goodbye...

BBC2009 (8).
Posted on 18 July 2011

5 stars for one extension with very, very complex code, and difficult to develop. Support at forum is also usually OK.

But, have to say...i decided not to use any third party SEF extension anymore.

It would be Joomla SEF all the way now. With Joomla 1.7 even better.

Now when Google give advice not to use SEF URL´s, and that dynamic URl´s are OK for theirs spiders, there is no point in using third party SEF. Also not any need for Joomla SEF.

I have been slave to third party SEF extensions for long time.

Regarding just sh404SEF. You can become irritated with fact that sh404SEF try to much, almost as James Bond.

- Google Analytics in Admin ?

- Div´s replacing tables !!??

- Honeypot and firewall functions !!??

- Template switcher ?

What´s next ? Gallery ?

Come on. Stick to the SEF.

Owner's reply: Hi

An interesting review! Let me first say I thank you for your 5 stars and the usage of the word "Best". As you might guess, I am of a different opinion when it comes to your following comments however.
Let's start by the end: "Stick to SEF". No. Because sh404SEF is not a SEF component, and has not been a SEF component since I took over in 2006. It is a SEO and security extension. And even security is really more a SEO thing as well.

It seems you have missed the logical pattern in all the features you listed. They all aim at improving one thing: ranking.

1 - SEF urls: I have no idea where you got the strange idea Google advice not to use SEF urls. Quite the contrary. Not only do they say it, but they have written it, on their blogs and in their Beginners SEO optimization guide for instance. Spider's ability to handle dynamic URL has never been a reason to use SEF urls, not since 2005 or so anyway. SEF urls are only about ranking a little bit better than your competition.
2 - Analytics: how do you want to optimize your site content without measuring results? Analytics goes hand in hand with SEO, it is a pre-requisite for any kind of SEO work, and my goal in putting it in to your Joomla's site backend is to raise awareness and facilitate this job
3 - Div replacing table. I suggest you Google for table-less layout and the SEO benefit fo using lightweight markup in your page's html. Please note that from version 1.6 on, Joomla! has switched to table-less html, and so this feature has been removed from sh404SEF for Joomla 1.6+
4 - Honeypot and firewall: SEO is (mostly) about quality content. Preventing crappy content to get on your site (Hoenypot), or preventing your site to be totally banned from Google search results because you have some malware in it looks like a very important thing to do in terms of SEO!
5 - Template switcher: we're now living in a mobile world. You must adjust your content to your users, and search engines have already started to take this into account, that's why I try help in this transition

Going back to the basics, SEF urls, I would also like to comment that if you go away from a SEF extension, you'll have to cope with the two biggest issues in Joomla urls:
a - duplicate content: urls are mostly based on menu items, and this will very often generates multiple urls to same content, thus "splitting" authority between links, instead of concentrating it. The menu-based architecture has some great benefits in terms of ease of use for the final users, and I'm not advocating dropping it, but it does have some issues
b - urls length: especially now that Joomla 1.6 has nested categories, we start seeing very lengthy urls, where the article title is at the end, where it loose any effect.

Hope I have addressed some of your concerns. Two sources of information on the matter I found interesting are the Google webmaster central blog, and the SEOMOZ.org site, in particular their ranking factors pages.

Best regards

Great component

fcrs (2).
Posted on 23 June 2011

Hi everyone, excellent component for joomla website SEO optimisation and for creating user friendly urls. I use this component for about 3 months and I am happy with excellent support for this component.

Excellent product, better support

Palma Demis (8).
Posted on 20 June 2011

I'm the developer of another extension and I asked support for integration with sh404sef.

Even if my extension is far less important, they supported me more than I expected.

After installation, sh404sef seems to be a complete and well written software.

I strongly recommend it to everybody interested in SEO.

I use this on all of my clients' sites

nate covington (13).
Posted on 14 June 2011

I'm a site builder and I use this extension on all of my sites.

Great extension!

Henry Peeters (1).
Posted on 13 May 2011

Great extension works very well! Support is good and updates of the component on regular basis!

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sh404SEF

Version:: 4.24.7
Developer:: Yannick Gaultier
Last updated:: Jul 26 2023
1 year ago
Date added:: May 27 2007
License:: GPLv2 or later
Type:: Paid download
Related extension :: 4SEF
Includes:: c p
Compatibility:: J3

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Uses Joomla! Update System

Demo Support Documentation

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