I've searched this every where (Google, Joomla and here). and I don't find an answer that solves my issue.
How you guys deal with the "&'s" (ampersands) that don't validate when they come from URL's created by Joomla components that you can't edit? I tried turning the friendly URL's on but that messed up some of the pages, so that doesn't work for me.
As simple as the Joomla "contact" one. The page with the category list doesn't validate. You can see it here: jmaduro.com/web123/index.php?option=com_contact&view=category&catid=12&Itemid=148. So I'm not even talking about complicated components, I'm talking about the basic Joomla components.
Wow! That's really surprising. It looks like the default behavior for Joomla (even version 1.6) is to write URLs without replacing the & with & I'll ask about this on the Joomla developer's forum, and let you know if I find anything out. I would imagine one potential fix for this would be to use a plugin that rewrites URLs, but I haven't found one in the Joomla extensions directory.
In what way does turning on SEF URLs mess up your site?