The developers of Joomla are aware of the importance of good Web site ranking. They have provided a number of options for a Joomla site to make itself as SEF as possible. By spending a little time with configuration settings and a little due diligence when posting new content, you can use the Joomla features to increase the opportunities of your site and to obtain high placement on the search sites.

With the adjustment of only a few global options, Joomla implements the changes for all the rendered con- tent pages. As usual, implementing these features in Joomla requires only a few clicks in the Administrator interface.

By default, all Joomla URLs reference the same Web page (index.php) and use query string parameters to specify individual menus or articles to retrieve. For example, the URL to a standard Joomla article might look something like this:

http://www.example.com/index.php?Itemid=27&option=com_content

To a search engine, this URL is confusing. A search engine spider (the program that indexes a Web site) isn’t very good at discerning that the query string holds the ID reference to the article. In general, a query string is just as likely to hold site visitor parameters as references to particular content. Here is the URL with query string for a common Web site that includes a query string ID:

Affiliate programs are likely the most popular way to make money from a Web site. The Web master of a site signs up with a company such as Google or Amazon to allow advertisements to appear on the host site. Each time the user clicks on an ad or purchases something by following a link to the vendor ’s site, the Web master earns a fee. These programs can be so lucrative that large sites can earn literally thousands of dollars a month strictly from affiliate income.

Joomla can host most of the popular affiliate programs through extensions that encapsulate the code (HTML and often JavaScript) necessary to display the advertisements on the site. To activate most affiliate technology, you need only install the associated extension, set the parameters to match your service, and specify the location where the affiliate content will appear on your site.

Google AdSense Affiliate Program
One of the most popular affiliate programs on the Web is Google’s AdSense. AdSense provides code that displays Google ads on a Web site that are relevant to the site visitors. Each time a user clicks on an ad, the owner of the Web site is paid a fee. These fees can results in large sums if the site is very popular, or if the content of the site targets a market where the advertisements for that sector are very expensive.

Joomla has made administration generally very easy. However, as a site expands, managing the existing content, user authentication, and keeping the system clear of dead or outdated data can become a real chore. There are methods for handling all of these problems, largely thanks to Joomla’s embrace of open standards and compatibility with a large number of technologies.

 For infrastructure-wide user authentication, Joomla is compatible with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) servers that can also be used to manage users on other server types. For handling old content, menus, and users, you can either use the Joomla Administrator interface or directly query the Joomla database tables using MySQL tools. Most of the Joomla maintenance on even a larger system can be accomplished without having to resort to expensive or complex system tools.

LDAP Authentication
LDAP is an implementation standard that provides ways to centralize access authorization. Instead of requiring a separate login for each of numerous systems a client might use, a single authorization con- tained in an LDAP directory can provide authorization to all of those systems. For example, an LDAP server could contain all the user authentication information for a Web server, FTP server, CMS, mail server, and so on. That means that only a single user account would have to be administered on the LDAP server, instead of individual records at all other servers.

One of the most interesting interactive technologies (and perhaps the fastest growing) is the wiki system. Under a wiki system, users post contributions, and then subsequent visitors can edit or augment this content. The most famous example is Wikipedia, which is a user-generated encyclopedia. Any user can post a new entry, and then the system will track changes made by the users.

Although Joomla operates as a CMS and can readily accept new content from contributors, it was not designed to allow a large number of people to make minor changes or modifications to content — exactly the functionality provided by a wiki. There are several good offerings of Joomla extensions that add wiki capabilities to Joomla, including OpenWiki and WikiBot.

OpenWiki
OpenWiki provides a bridge to encapsulate the PHP application DokuWiki within the Joomla system. It features a complete ACL implementation that builds on the Joomla ACL for groups such as Super  Administrator, Administrator, Manager, Author, Registered, and Public. ACL permissions include create, edit, read, upload, and delete.