CMS: Mambo, Drupal and SEO

e10

May 27th 2005, 2:05 pm

I don´t know if this is the right place to ask these questions. I didn´t find any thread related to CMS.

I have a site which was built in FP with no templates. It uses only plain html, no dbases or anything else. I really want to do something with the site - make it easier to manage, modernise it, make more money from it ... or something.

It has been suggested in another thread that I use a CMS like Mambo and I am interested in this. I´ve also found Drupal mentioned.

My site currently does very well in the search engines -esp. G - and I´d hate to jeopardise that in any wayl. I´d really like some feedback about seoíng for CMS. I suppose as my site is established and reasonably well ranked, flexibility of file names would be an issue.

I found this article (http://www.drmartinwilliams.com/DocMartin_Guides/Websites/Mambo_and_Search_Engine_Optimization_-_with_focus_on_Google/82/) which quite honestly doesn´t look too positive as far as I can see.

If you are using Mambo, Drupal or any other open source CMS and are successfully seoíng would you comment here please?

grantmoney

May 27th 2005, 2:35 pm

I went through the usual "testing every cms" stage and found that plone (http://plone.org) was by far the most flexible and did exactly what i wanted to do. The added bonus was it has very seo friendly urls (no modrewrite needed) and uses semantic code (so h1 h2 all in the right places).

Now here's the downside, it requires zope to be compiled for it to work properly (i found the debian package was very very bad), needs python (which it's all based on (so no more php!!!)), it is a little slow so you need to cache your pages using apache or squid, and it has a fairly large learning curve for the developer (if you want to build your own applications or play with templates). If you don't mind spending some time mucking around with stuff, it's def worth using as nothing i tried can touch it.

MattUK

May 27th 2005, 3:08 pm

I find Mambo pretty flexible. I use the 404 SEO component, which is just a case of installing it which takes about 30 seconds. It rewrites all of the URLS to include the page/article title and the section heading. I'm using it at www.seo-service.biz if you want to take a look.

daGenius

May 27th 2005, 3:47 pm

I recommending mambo too.
See at http://www. opensourcecms.com/ the whole cms programs with live demo, take a tour and make you self a oppinion.

Design Agent

May 27th 2005, 3:50 pm

So far I havent found anything that mambo cant do - although I have not been using it long.

Its worth installing this aswell
https://www.phil-taylor.com/Mambo-components/Mambo-Products/SEF-Advance-%11-Search-Engine-Friendly-URLS-for-Mambo/

renoir

May 27th 2005, 5:34 pm

if you use PHP i love PHPcms. Its very simple for a PHP novice to setup and use, and VERY search engine friendly

http://www.phpcms.de/index.en.html

DarrenC

May 27th 2005, 5:50 pm

daGenius

May 27th 2005, 6:54 pm

Mambo for sure! A lesson I've learnt though be VERY careful about downloading scripts, especially PHP programs because you could be using a script that is riddled with security holes.

I downloaded a PHP program script for my hobby website (not related to travel) and someone found that I was using that script and obviously knew they was an hole in it and basically hacked me.

I'm sooo not downloading programs again.. lesson learnt! :)
A script which used by most webmasters are always danger to find out a security leck! But good supported scripts are always updated.
If you programming self a phpscript it is very safe because no one know it :) but phpnuke or mambo are famous scripts... got it?

DarrenC

May 28th 2005, 1:39 am

Yup sure have dagenius, but my example wasnt referring to MAMBO or any other CRM program, and the program is not famous, but still it had a few security loops that could of cause me serious problems if I didn't back up my hobby site and my hosting company weren't on the ball.

I just feel webmasters should be weary of the potential pitfalls, because I'd not want it to happen to anyone else.

webinv

Jun 8th 2005, 7:58 am

I will also throw a vote in for Mambo. I use it on numerous sites and I can do anything with it easily. Also, there is a huge support network that is always creating new components modules and templates to help users out.

You can always check the following to try them out:

http://opensourcecms.com/

-Jon

Arnica

Jun 8th 2005, 1:53 pm

I found this article (http://www.drmartinwilliams.com/DocMartin_Guides/Websites/Mambo_and_Search_Engine_Optimization_-_with_focus_on_Google/82/) which quite honestly doesn´t look too positive as far as I can see.The page gives a 404 at present.

I have to say I built my own CMS because none of the php contenders did everything I wanted (at the time) and I like to play around with things. If you've got the time I would recommend building your own CMS to suit your needs. I certainly don't have any problems with SEO or rankings on the sites using it.

evancesolutions

Jun 8th 2005, 2:34 pm

I have used mambo and pretty much every other CMS out there, but one of the easiest to use and pretty bare bone CMS's I found was at:

cmsmadesimple .org

Im starting to use it to manage most of our sites. Its easy to use, simple and search engine friendly. It may not have all the fancy features of the others but if you are just looking for something to easily manage the site with out all the bells and whistles , I recommend this one.

Regards
Hal

wendydettmer

Jun 12th 2005, 7:27 am

I'm trying mambo out now for a new site, and i have to say it's driving me nuts. i'm having problems figuring out how to link from sections to categories to content, and how to format it the way i want. i can't find a simple tutorial either.

ugh.

jazar

Aug 12th 2005, 10:29 am

A good SEO friendly CMS is not just providing url rewritning features. You should get other features such as being able to produce a code clean, with titles, subtitles, etc using H1, H2, etc .. and control the structure of your design to optimise be able to control where the content is actually put in the html code.

Emmanuel
http://www.jazar.co.uk, bespoke SEO friendly CMS (http://www.jazar.co.uk)

Tommo

Aug 12th 2005, 11:17 am

I just installed mambo for the first time today, it was the first time for any CMS as well....It's finally installed and I am just sat here completly confused as to what to do next...looks like a steep learning curve after dreamweaver.

I tried installing it via fantastico and it needed the public_html folder deleting then it couldn't create it with the right permissions

I tried a manual install and none of the installation folder was in the download hence it failed to show me the set up page.

The Install instructions fail to mention any permission changes

I eventually got it installed via Fantastico in a new subdirectory once again not mentioned in any documentation

I tried to do a 301 redirect to the mambo front page and got errors,

Really wondering if I've made the right choice.

Willy

Aug 13th 2005, 10:56 am

I just installed mambo for the first time today, it was the first time for any CMS as well....It's finally installed and I am just sat here completly confused as to what to do next...looks like a steep learning curve after dreamweaver.

Really wondering if I've made the right choice.

Give Drupal a shot. It's like a breath of fresh air after Mambo. Mambo looks pretty on the surface, but is in reality a mess that just happens to have excellent marketing (speaking as a coder with intimate knowledge of its internals). Sort of like Microsoft's products ;)

Also, might not be a bad idea to try out and play with Drupal, Mambo or other CMS systems on your desktop first, before messing around on a server which arguably has a steeper learning curve (as you need to take into account things like Cpanel quirks, MySQL access, permissions, mod_rewrite, Apache settings, etc etc). Just install some of the pre-packaged WAMP (Apache, MySQL, PHP for Windows; assuming you're on Windows) packages available on the net, after which you can install Mambo or Drupal. Should be easy enough.

sarahk

Aug 13th 2005, 11:40 am

looks like a steep learning curve after dreamweaver.I don't use Dreamweaver but I wouldn't have thought you could compare the two as they do totally different jobs don't they?

Anyway, ardent Mambo (http://www.mamboserver.com) fan here. It continually surprises me in what it can do out of the box. I've written custom stuff for it because there have been times I've needed something that meets specific requirements for a specific business. As a development framework it's excellent.

However I threw up a site for my kids bmx club (http://www.waitakere-bmx.com/) using mambo and free templates and handed it over to another club member to manage with 0 instructions and he's away laughing! In the space of a few hours they got a great site.

I'm not completely one eyed though and the people who lurve Xoops (http://www.xoops.org/), Drupal (http://www.drupal.org/) and Typo3 (http://typo3.org/) are equally passionate about the choices they've made. So check out Open Source CMS (http://www.opensourcecms.com/) (a mambo site) and have a play with their demos.

Sarah

arnoldcr

Aug 14th 2005, 4:18 pm

http://news.com.com/Firefox+marketing+site+hacked/2100-7349_3-5790030.html

what about security issues, wich one is more secure? Drupal or Mambo? i used phpnuke long time ago ,very bad, bunch of security holes

sarahk

Aug 14th 2005, 7:49 pm

Mambo seems pretty good and they have patches made available.

kawebspy

Aug 15th 2005, 4:06 am

Based on my experience in SEOing content served by a CMS, Mambo (with static page address) and PHP-nuke (with Googletapping) are the best ones.

jazar

Aug 17th 2005, 1:43 am

PHP-Nuke is definitely not SEO friendly - regarding drupal, features available are too basic.

Example: Drupal Forum
a forum is a great SEO tool - but it must be rich in features, and easy to maintain to be able to make the best of it. Drupal offers a very basic forum, with security issues (such as overflow), and very limited moderation functionalities.

Emmanuel
_____________________
Jazar, bespoke content management solutions (http://www.jazar.co.uk/products.html)

Lever

Aug 17th 2005, 2:46 am

I have to say I built my own CMS because none of the php contenders did everything I wanted (at the time) and I like to play around with things. If you've got the time I would recommend building your own CMS to suit your needs. I certainly don't have any problems with SEO or rankings on the sites using it.I've been looking at systems for months now in my spare time but must choose a path pretty soon. The main issue is that an existing site needs to be changed over to run on CMS so there's a lot of demands on the spec and most of the "off-the-shelf stuff" CMS looks like it will need a serious amount of tweaking :S

You got any tips/pointers on building a CMS? How long did it take? Where did you start? What level of programming skills are needed in order to produce a solid solution? :)

charless

Aug 17th 2005, 6:06 am

I suggest Mambo with 404 SEF. Goes from regular SEF blah/blah/blah/blah to /title. Really simple conversion and fast installation/implementation.

802networks

Aug 18th 2005, 4:53 pm

I suggest Mambo with 404 SEF. Goes from regular SEF blah/blah/blah/blah to /title. Really simple conversion and fast installation/implementation.

I second the Mambo. Although I don't use 404SEF (yes I'm cheap), I do use the built in Mambo SEF blah/blah/ and every single page has been indexed by the search engines without problem. I try to keep my content 1 menu away which I also thing helps.

sarahk

Aug 18th 2005, 5:00 pm

Although I don't use 404SEF (yes I'm cheap), It's free!

802networks

Aug 18th 2005, 5:52 pm

It's free!

Ohhh oops. I was thinking about the other component. SEF ADVANCE
I think that's what they use on like devhardware and toms hardware guide.

sarahk

Aug 18th 2005, 5:58 pm

802networks

Aug 18th 2005, 6:00 pm

SEF 404 (http://mamboforge.net/projects/sef404/) at Mamboforge.net. I'm very impressed at how easy it was to install here (http://www.rainchx.com/mambo/). Overwrites the standard content component so you can't have any mods in there.

The one question I do have... what will happen with the old links (using the built in SEF component)?

I have about 250 pages indexed from Mambo in most of the search engines. Won't that cause a bunch of 404's which will then automatically redirect to the Mambo index.php file which will then cause the SE's to think it's duplicate content?

That is the only thing holding me back from doing it.

sarahk

Aug 18th 2005, 6:16 pm

Case Study

My Mambo test site has a page for Auckland Blogs (http://www.rainchx.com/mambo/news-feeds/auckland-blogs.html)

The Out-of-the-Box sef link is http://www.rainchx.com/mambo/component/option,com_newsfeeds/catid,69/Itemid,50/

But the SEF 404 link is http://www.rainchx.com/mambo/news-feeds/auckland-blogs.html

Click on them, they both work.

Now the penalties for duplicate content may apply but it's the page that will be penalised and eventually Google will drop the page with no internal links and use the new version (which may have been penalised initially). I would not expect your whole site to be penalised.

If you continue to add new content it will see fresh, unduplicated pages and you'll be off laughing.

Sarah

802networks

Aug 18th 2005, 6:37 pm

Case Study

If you continue to add new content it will see fresh, unduplicated pages and you'll be off laughing.

Sarah

Wow. That does look pretty good. I went through your site and I do like the way those url's come up. I think i'll give it a shot. The good thing is that my site is still relatively new, so if I'm going to muck around with URLs, now is the time to do it. While the traffic is still low.

jazar

Aug 21st 2005, 2:02 am

You got any tips/pointers on building a CMS? How long did it take? Where did you start? What level of programming skills are needed in order to produce a solid solution?

Hi Lever,

It really depends on what you want to do with it - it took us 6 years to come up with a decent content management system, and the architecture was right from the start! If you don't spend enough time thinking about the actual architecture of the code, and the way your platform will work, you may waste 2 years building your stuff, and then realising that others have build something 100 times better, and meeting all your needs.

So, in any case, I would advise you to test them all out. Then, if you identify a hole, and things that none of them can address, and will be able to address in a soon future, then go ahead, and build your own stuff.

Emmanuel

________________________
Jazar, SEO friendy CMS (http://www.jazar.co.uk)

Lever

Aug 26th 2005, 3:24 am

Hi Lever,

It really depends on what you want to do with it - it took us 6 years to come up with a decent content management system, and the architecture was right from the start! If you don't spend enough time thinking about the actual architecture of the code, and the way your platform will work, you may waste 2 years building your stuff, and then realising that others have build something 100 times better, and meeting all your needs.

So, in any case, I would advise you to test them all out. Then, if you identify a hole, and things that none of them can address, and will be able to address in a soon future, then go ahead, and build your own stuff.

EmmanuelHi Emmanuel, thank you. Nice to hear your input :) I'm testing about half a dozen CMS so far and the results so far have varied from "far too basic, no scope" to "OMG, the interface needs a degree in ancient languages and what, by then, if it doesn't do what I need it to do?" So I feel it will occupy a middle ground, fulfilling basic needs plus a few more, yet not needing to be a corporate, "industrial strength" enterprise level system... just yet! ;)

I have 6 months rather than 6 years and will need to port across & improve an existing site with the scope to add features/modules. Plus there are no plans to market/sell the CMS when it's finished. If the architecture is pretty solid from day 1 then there *should* be no problem in expanding it later, right?

jazar

Oct 17th 2005, 1:05 am

We will release our platform under open source licence in a very soon future - if you want to test it, and see if it meets your requirements, I am more than happy to send you a copy.

The main benefit is that it is both SEO & developper centric - you can build your own system on the top of the core layer, without having to go through the hassle of building a solid architecture first. We have done it all for you.

Let me know.

Emmanuel

saintdw

Oct 17th 2005, 3:41 am

Mambo is very easy to seo.

As is drupal, the only problem with drupal is that you have to write your own rewrite code to make it look like good mambo seoed urls.

Other then that I have no problem ranking with either, I find Drupal better then mambo as it is easier to publish and gives more leevay for website customization.

a3196

Oct 17th 2005, 4:00 am

I like mambo....Drupal is clean but too slim(??) and not much features...

I have about 8 powered by mambo sites...

This is one of them...http://www.logodesignlogodesign.com

I guess it take some time to learn how to handle cms.. I'm not just talking about mambo, I'm talking about all cms.. and mambo was one of the hardest one to learn cuz it has so many features...and component....

You will learn if you try enough,,

saintdw

Oct 17th 2005, 4:46 am

cmeinck

Oct 17th 2005, 11:54 am

Mambo is very easy to seo.
How do you handle the Global Meta Description/keywords?

I'm using SEF advanced, which does create nice URL's. My concern is that my RSS feed is showing the "non" SEF Advanced URL. Am I setting myself up for a duplicate content penalty?

-Chris