This time we\u2019re turning our attention to Joomla. Specifically, Joomla 5 which was officially launched in October 2023.<\/p>\n
We had already tested Joomla 3 and Joomla 4 in the past. While Joomla 3 still had a few gaps in its SEO functionality, Joomla 4 pretty much closed them all. Now, with the new release of Joomla 5, we were curious to see if Joomla has improved its SEO functionality even further – maybe even making it to #1 in our overall comparison<\/a>?<\/p>\n Read on to discover:<\/p>\n Let\u2019s get started with a summary.<\/p>\n Joomla is an open-source CMS. You\u2019ve got full access to the underlying code and can also create your own plugins\/extensions to modify the system\u2019s core functionality.<\/p>\n So with some coding chops (and the luxury of time), we would wager that there\u2019s nothing you can\u2019t do to fully optimize your Joomla site.<\/p>\n But with that being said, in this series, we\u2019re focusing on the out-of-the-box SEO functionality of the major CMS systems. Give or take a few plugins\/extensions, we want to keep our hands (and website) reasonably clean.<\/p>\n Earlier in 2021, we tested Joomla 3. And while we liked it overall, there were definitely a few gaps in the CMS\u2019s SEO functionality. Later, we also tested Joomla 4, and it already plugged most of the holes we ran into by then.<\/p>\n The good news?<\/p>\n Joomla 5 is even better!<\/p>\n Everything we like to control for on-page SEO can be configured in Joomla\u2019s admin area. And we were also impressed with Joomla 5\u2019s out-the-box speed \u2014 with only minimal tweaks required to get an impressive score on Google\u2019s PageSpeed Insights.<\/p>\n Like WordPress, it\u2019s difficult to test Joomla in isolation as much of its SEO performance will be down to individual configurations (i.e. host\/server) and choices (templates\/extensions).<\/p>\n But as with our previous tests, we tried to keep extensions\/plugins to a minimum, configuration to as close to \u201cout the box\u201d as possible, and opted for popular templates.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what we did:<\/p>\n While testing both Joomla 4 and Joomla 5, we road-tested three SEO extensions:<\/p>\n So which do we recommend?<\/p>\n Firecoders Route66<\/p>\n It\u2019s as close as you\u2019ll get to a WordPress SEO plugin like YOAST for Joomla, while also being free to use. You\u2019ll get snippet previews and full control over all the key on-page SEO fundamentals.<\/p>\n Quite simply, Joomla 5 and Route66 go together like peas and carrots.<\/p>\n Any downsides?<\/p>\n Not really.<\/p>\n In actual fact, Joomla 5 covers most, if not all important SEO functionality straight out of the box. So, even though we chose to use Route66 for a couple of extra nifty features, it\u2019s not required for most on-page tinkering.<\/p>\n Before reviewing Joomla\u2019s control of on-page SEO factors, let\u2019s run through some of the SEO highlights (and lowlights) of the platform.<\/p>\n Joomla 4 was already super fast and this remains the case for Joomla 5.<\/p>\n Without installing any third-party extensions, our test site (when running on Cassiopeia) scored 93\/100 on PageSpeed Insights mobile.<\/p>\n What did we do to optimize the site\u2019s speed?<\/p>\n Absolutely nothing.<\/p>\n Note<\/strong>: Joomla 5 is super fast out of the box. But poorly optimized templates, or sub-optimal server configurations could still slow it down. So check out our page speed optimization guide<\/a> for a ton of tips.<\/p>\n Although this series focuses mainly on SEO basics, there may come a time when you need to add some custom code or stray away from the basic configuration settings offered out of the box.<\/p>\n Now, we must admit that we are nitpicking a little bit here\u2026<\/p>\n This is something we haven\u2019t mentioned for other CMSs which do have the same issue. However, when compared to a CMS like WordPress, there are fewer beginner-friendly resources out there for more advanced changes.<\/p>\n This definitely shouldn\u2019t be a dealbreaker though. Most things are very easy in Joomla and, when you include plugins, custom changes are few and far between.<\/p>\n It can be- easy to miss basic SEO settings due to the way Joomla\u2019s standard control panel is organized.<\/p>\n For example, on an article, the SEO title is buried right at the bottom of the options tab\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026while the meta description is located under the publishing tab.<\/p>\n Wouldn\u2019t it make more sense to have these in the same place?<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s turn our attention to control of some of the fundamental on-page SEO factors.<\/p>\n Does Joomla cover them all?<\/p>\n Pretty much. We\u2019d have liked to have seen better control of templating for titles and meta descriptions. But other than that, Joomla 5 with the Route66 extension installed has you covered.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s our summary again.<\/p>\n Note<\/strong>: having control of an SEO ranking factor is not equal to its optimization. SEO audit tools like Seobility<\/a> offer advice on how to properly optimize each element and find errors in optimization that may be holding back your site. See our SEO audit guide<\/a> for more information on how to fully optimize your website.<\/p>\n Control in Joomla<\/strong>: yes<\/p>\n A page\u2019s title continues to be one of the most important on-page ranking factors. And a well-written meta description can help you get more click-throughs (although Google won\u2019t always use it).<\/p>\n The good news is, you can set page titles and descriptions in an out-of-the-box Joomla 5 installation. But you\u2019ll need to know where to look.<\/p>\n The SEO title (which Joomla calls \u201cBrowser Page Title\u201d) is tucked away at the (VERY) bottom of the options panel\u2026<\/p>\n Edit Article > Options > Browser Page Title<\/em><\/p>\n \u2026while the meta description setting is bundled under the \u201cPublishing\u201d tab.<\/p>\n Edit Article > Publishing > Metadata > Meta Description<\/em><\/p>\n We think it would make more sense to keep these together. But no biggie.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re using Route66, you get an extra SEO tab where you can set a target keyword and view a preview of how your post will look in the SERPs.<\/p>\n This will also give you an SEO score, much like Yoast does for WordPress.<\/p>\n Sweet.<\/p>\n When it comes to templating titles, unfortunately, there\u2019s no easy way to do it.<\/p>\n You can choose to include your site name in your titles as a prefix or suffix in your site\u2019s global configuration.<\/p>\n System > Global Configuration > SEO<\/em><\/p>\n And of course, if you want to write some custom code, you\u2019re free to create a custom title (or meta description) format in your template (instructions here<\/a>).<\/p>\n Control in Joomla:<\/b> yes<\/p>\n We recommend creating short, descriptive, 2-3 word slugs, including the primary keyword (or phrase) for each page. Use hyphens to separate words.<\/p>\n Previous versions of Joomla did<\/em> support search engine friendly URLs. But the process was a little fiddly and you would probably have wanted to use an extension to manage them.<\/p>\n Fortunately, Joomla 4 has made the process of enabling (and managing) search engine friendly URLs much more straightforward which is still the case for Joomla 5.<\/p>\n Your first step is to enable \u201cSearch Engine Friendly URLs\u201d and \u201cUse URL Rewriting\u201d in the SEO panel of global config.<\/p>\n System > Global Configuration > SEO<\/em><\/p>\n Once enabled, you\u2019ll need to rename htaccess.txt<\/em> (found in your site\u2019s root directory) to .htaccess<\/em> if you haven\u2019t done so already.<\/p>\n And then you can use the \u201cAlias\u201d field to set a search engine friendly slug for an individual article.<\/p>\n Control in Joomla:<\/b> yes<\/p>\n On smaller sites, you probably won\u2019t need to worry about this.<\/p>\n But if you have a series of similar pages on your site \u2014 i.e. targeting the same keywords, or with very small variations in content \u2014 there may be times when you\u2019ll want to set a canonical (master) URL.<\/p>\n This helps to avoid duplicate content issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n Route66 automatically handles matching URLs, adding a canonical pointing to the main page. This covers most causes of duplicate content.<\/p>\n However, if you want more granular control, you\u2019re going to need another plugin. A number of Joomla plugins for canonicalization<\/a> are available.<\/p>\n Control in Joomla<\/b>: yes<\/p>\n The robots meta tag instructs Google to either index (1), or not to index (2) a page:<\/p>\n You don\u2019t actually need the first one as (assuming your page meets their quality standards) indexing is Google\u2019s default action. But it doesn\u2019t do any harm to have it in place.<\/p>\n Joomla 5 lets you set this in the \u201cPublishing\u201d tab of an article\u2019s edit screen.<\/p>\n Edit Article > Publishing > Metadata > Robots<\/em><\/p>\n I switched to the Route66 plugin because it’s free – using a paid plugin isn’t a fair comparison. It doesn’t offer canonicalization in the free plan, but there are free plugins out there.<\/p>\n We can potentially change this to “partially” if you prefer, although it technically is possible with a free plugin.<\/p>\n Control in Joomla<\/b>: yes<\/p>\n Heading tags (h1, h2, h3, etc) help Google understand the structure and topic(s) of your page.<\/p>\n They should be properly nested.<\/p>\n For example, an h1 tag would generally be the main topic (level 1), an h2 a subtopic (level 2), and an h3 a sub-sub topic (level 3), and so on.<\/p>\n Joomla supports a full range of heading tags from H1-H6.<\/p>\n As it should!<\/p>\n Control in Joomla<\/b>: yes<\/p>\n Structured data (also known as schema) can help Google understand:<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not familiar with structured data and its impact on SEO, we recommend reading our rich snippets guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve got several options for including custom schema on your Joomla website and pages.<\/p>\n First up, there are several specialized extensions, such as this one from tassos.gr<\/a> (free and paid versions available). They make it easy to add schema and some will even do the entire thing for you.<\/p>\n But you can also manage schema directly in Joomla 5!<\/p>\n Navigate to Edit Article > Schema<\/em> and click the link to get set up:<\/p>\n You can then add your organization schema and click on the save button. After doing that, navigate back to your post and click on the schema tag again.<\/p>\n Now, you should be able to add Schema.org schema to your pages and articles.<\/p>\n After filling it in, click save and you\u2019re good to go!<\/p>\n Control in Joomla<\/b>: yes<\/p>\n The three most important elements of image SEO are:<\/p>\n Joomla 5\u2019s standard image editor supports alt text, allows you to change the image title, and set width and height attributes\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026and they won\u2019t mess with your filenames. So as long as you use a descriptive filename when saving before uploading to Joomla, that\u2019s what you\u2019ll get.<\/p>\n With regards to optimizing image file sizes, you\u2019ll have to handle that in a different way.<\/p>\n Your options are to either:<\/p>\n If you go for option b, then the Image Recycle extension<\/a> should do the trick.<\/p>\n Do Joomla sites run over HTTPS?<\/b> yes<\/p>\n HTTPS has been a confirmed Google ranking signal since 2014.<\/p>\n And these days, there\u2019s really no excuse for any site to still be running over HTTP. Notwithstanding any SEO benefits, it\u2019s unsecure.<\/p>\n Making sure your Joomla site runs over HTTPS is your (or your hosts) responsibility.<\/p>\n That being said, nearly all managed hosts will automatically sort you out with a TLS certificate and ensure it\u2019s configured correctly.<\/p>\n Control in Joomla<\/b>: yes<\/p>\n A robots.txt file allows you to stop search engine bots from accessing certain areas of your site.<\/p>\n For example, you might have a section with user-generated content that you don\u2019t want crawled or indexed by Google.<\/p>\n Since Joomla is self-hosted, you can use FTP or your file manager to directly edit your robots.txt file. Thre\u2019s a page dedicated to the robots.txt file<\/a> in the official Joomla docs.<\/p>\n There are also a number of free and paid plugins<\/a> available to help you achieve this.<\/p>\n Generated by Joomla<\/b>: yes<\/p>\n An XML sitemap helps Google find (and index) all the pages on your site.<\/p>\n And the good news is, Route66 will automatically create an XML sitemap for your Joomla site. All you have to do is choose your desired configurations and it will do the rest!<\/p>\n Components > Route66<\/span> > Sitemaps<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n As you can see, it also lets you exclude specific pages, images, and allows you to set various other configurations.<\/p>\n One word answer<\/b>: yes<\/p>\n When designing your Joomla site there\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ll be focusing on how it looks on desktop.<\/p>\n But mobile traffic overtook desktop traffic way back in 2017. And Google now prioritizes the mobile version of your site for crawling and indexing.<\/p>\n Most Joomla templates are mobile-friendly. And if yours is not\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026then it\u2019s time to find a new one!<\/p>\n It\u2019s as simple as that!<\/p>\n Joomla has been around for a long time and has a relatively large community.<\/p>\n So it\u2019s no real surprise that there will be a solution (be that with an extension or some code tinkering) for most technical SEO tasks that you want to complete.<\/p>\n When we previously reviewed Joomla 3, we were critical of the tired admin interface and gaps in SEO functionality. And we felt that all things considered, WordPress was probably a better choice for SEO, and generally as a CMS.<\/p>\n Joomla 4 already filled the SEO gaps, and the slick new admin interface made it much more appealing to new users.<\/p>\n Joomla 5 is even better, with great performance and many SEO features built in.<\/p>\n On top of that, it\u2019s super<\/span><\/i> fast.<\/p>\n Quite frankly, after spending the last few years in a slumber \u2014 allowing the competition to march ahead \u2014 Joomla feels like a project that\u2019s alive again.<\/p>\n And with the right knowledge and a solid SEO strategy, there\u2019s no reason your Joomla site can\u2019t rank highly in Google.<\/p>\n So if you\u2019re running a Joomla site, here\u2019s what we recommend:<\/p>\n Note: This CMS review has originally been written in 2021 by David McSweeney and has been updated for 2024 by Bram Vergouwen. Bram is a SEO specialist with more than 6 years of experience working with companies across different countries and industries, providing customized SEO solutions and strategies that increase online visibility.<\/em><\/p>\n In the other parts of this series, we reviewed the on-page SEO of Wix<\/a>, Squarespace<\/a>, GoDaddy<\/a> and WordPress<\/a>. And we\u2019ve compared the SEO pros and cons of each CMS in a roundup post<\/a>, where we also revealed the best CMS for SEO.<\/em><\/p>\n\n
In Summary: Is Joomla good for SEO?<\/h3>\n
![\"Joomla](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/joomla4.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"joomla](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/joomla-seo-2024.png\")
<\/p>\nHow we tested the SEO capabilities of Joomla<\/h2>\n
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Which Joomla SEO extensions did we try?<\/h3>\n
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![\"4SEO\"](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/4SEO.png\")
<\/p>\nJoomla SEO: The good, the bad, and the ugly<\/h2>\n
Good: Joomla 5 is lightning-fast out-of-the-box<\/h3>\n
![\"joomla](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/joomla-4-pagespeed.png\")
<\/p>\nThe bad: Fewer resources available if you want to make custom changes compared to some other CMSs<\/h3>\n
The ugly: Out-of-the-box many basic SEO settings are buried<\/h3>\n
![\"browser](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/browser-page-title.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"meta](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/meta-description.png\")
<\/p>\nOn-Page SEO Fundamentals: How does Joomla measure up?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nSEO Titles and Meta Descriptions<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"4seo](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/4seo-metadata.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"joomla](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/joomla-4-site-name.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about SEO Titles and Meta Descriptions<\/h4>\n
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Page slug \/ URL<\/h3>\n
![\"search](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/search-engine-friendly-urls.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"htaccess\"](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/htaccess.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about URL slugs\/permalinks<\/h4>\n
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Canonical URLs<\/h3>\n
Index control (robots meta tag)<\/h3>\n
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![\"canonical](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/canonical-url.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about index control<\/h4>\n
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Heading Tags (h1, h2, h3 etc)<\/h3>\n
<h1>Pets<\/h1> (topic of the page)<\/em>
\n<h2>Goldfish<\/h2> (subtopic)<\/em>
\n<h3>Caring for your goldfish<\/h3> (subtopic of goldfish)<\/em>
\n<h4>Clean your fish\u2019s tan<\/em>k regularly<\/h4> (subtopic of caring for your goldfish)<\/em>
\n<h2>Cats<\/h2> (subtopic)<\/em>
\n<h3>Caring for your cat<\/h3> (subtopic of cats)<\/em><\/code><\/p>\n![\"heading](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/heading-tags.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about heading tags<\/h4>\n
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Schema Markup<\/h3>\n
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![\"Schema\"](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Schema.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Schema](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Schema-org.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about structured data and rich snippets<\/h4>\n
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Image SEO<\/h3>\n
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![\"joomla](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/joomla-4-alt-text.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"image](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/image-recycle.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about image SEO<\/h4>\n
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HTTPS<\/h3>\n
Learn more about HTTPS<\/h4>\n
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Robots.txt file<\/h3>\n
Learn more about Robots.txt<\/h4>\n
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XML Sitemaps<\/h3>\n
![\"joomla](\"https:\/\/www.seobility.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/joomla-4-robots.png\")
<\/p>\nLearn more about XML Sitemaps<\/h4>\n
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Are Joomla sites mobile-friendly?<\/b><\/h3>\n
In conclusion: when combined with the Route66 SEO extension, Joomla is a great choice for SEO<\/h2>\n
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