I just posted this on the Joomla.org forums. Thought I would post here for some feedback:
I am a true end user/administrator as far as websites go. I can get Joomla sites up and running with no problems and can even get creative and have even resorted to manually editing things in the database when needed. However, I know one thing about code - and that's that I know nothing! This is why I don't want to use SEF URL's. I have problems troubleshooting issues if/when they arise to broken links. I find it safer to stick with standard urls.
My new Joomla site has just debuted last week in Google at number 3 for a search on our two main keywords which is great. Ironically, our page rank is 0. Yahoo, NineMSN and Altavista (Australia) rank us at #1. I will note that NineMSN didn't rank us so high until Google did. I have noticed this before.
I have some questions:
It seems Google has not spidered our entire site, just the front page. Is this normal for a first crawl? Is there a way of checking this for sure?
How does Google treat the <prev - next> links in an article. If I have a content item that is 5 pages long, does Google rank the 5th page lower than the 1st page because it is 'deeper' in the site?
If I write good copy will this outweigh the SEF URL's issue?
Should I rename my templates slices to include keywords?
Despite the reading and all the suggested techniques, I still come up trumps on so many issues, it seems SEO is quite subjective. This isn't really a surprise as most search engine algorithms are a trade secret. I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that, as time is money, paying for sponsored links in Google for major keywords would be a far more sensible option.
Kind regards,
Mame du Bois
"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint." Mark Twain