Need help to make our site more search engine friendly. We do have a good few regular members but getting a good number out on the weekend is like pulling teeth!

According to the Google webmaster tools the site isn’t being indexed properly and we think this is because there is a redirect on the main url to another page and also all the urls are like:

http://www.ridethelakes.co.uk/cms/index.php?option=com_contact&Itemid=3

Instead of:

http://www.ridethelakes.co.uk/contactus

So we’re looking for a Joomla guy who can move the server over to the .com without the /cms and to also install a patch to help rewrite the URL’s. Incidentally it is a Joomla content management system with a simplemachines forum.

Long shot I know but any mtbers have the skills and desparate for cash?

Might be a few other jobs as well once this is sorted.

Ta.

My riding buddy does this kind of thing, not sure of the specifics, but it might be worth dropping him an email?

His website is hereDDME, email paul(dot)waddington(at)ddme(dot)co(dot)uk

I’d be surprised if the form of the URL, or the place it is put is the reason. There’s probably something else wrong with the site meaning it isn’t indexed. My site uses funny urls, and is in a subdirectory, but it still comes up #1 on google for my name, and all gets indexed.

One thing I’d fix, is the front page, make it so that it is a server redirect (assuming you’re using apache, in the /.htaccess file put :
Redirect 301 /index.html http://www.ridethelakes.co.uk/cms/
) rather than a javascript redirect. Then resubmit the url to google for indexing and see if it finds the cms stuff after a bit. It may be that it isn’t finding the main page because it doesn’t follow the link from your front page.

Also, it’s probably worth putting your meta tags into joomla, rather than on the non-existent front page.

Joe

Also, have you submitted a sitemap to google, with at least the front page in it?

What does the google report say? are there any ‘urls not followed’ or ‘urls restricted by robots.txt’?

Joe

Woody – thanks for that will try emailing your mate.

Joe – thanks for the suggestions and looking into it. I’ll try the redirect, sounds like it could be helpful but still would rather a more permanent solution.

Mmm meta tags, not quite sure how to do that but will look into it.

I do use the webmaster tools but figured I should hang on until the changes are made before submitting a sitemap. Maybe I should just go ahead and do it in the meantime? The .co.uk does appear in webmaster tools and all is ok apart from the sitemap but the .com isn’t indexed at all.

As you can see I’m more of a mtber than a techy (-: