This software is not worth installing. It does a good job, apparently, but all trouble it brings with it makes it not worth it.

If you're looking for something to boost your Google ranking stay away from this.

At first I was happy, thinking that my visits at Google Analytics were going down just because of the change. Than I decided to buy and install Joomla Tags with it. Well, for the tags to work it was necessary to disable the JoomSEF. Joomla Tags is also another terrible software with an even more terrible support, and worse: you have to pay for the software.

Then I looked up for support at Artio's page and voilá: nobody answers.

In the support forum I found a way to remove the spam, a tip another user. However, spam is really bad for your SEO, it comes in the tags. It's something the Google bot sees and you can only see it in the code (see source code of you page in the browser and you will find links to a hotel in Prague!).

Then I noticed how many duplicates of the same page Joomsef generates. It's a disaster, because visits go to different URLs for the same page, so you'll naver know the real number. It also scrambled my static links to the inside pages, awful!!!!!!

Don't use this, find another software.

Bad support (I'd say actually NO SUPPORT AT ALL), and if you are putting this to improve your ranking at Google than just stay away because it does exactly the opposite.

Owner's reply:
Hello, I think you got that a bit wrong.



As regards duplicates, you can eliminate them quite easily with correct settings and a resonable way to create a content of your site. You can find more information about that in documentation.



As regards the so-called "spam links", those are just generated in meta tag "generator" so that does not really affect Google as you say.



I think your rating dropped just because you did not set the configuration right.



As regards support, did you pay for it Or do you expect to get just all for free? The component plus support? If so, then we are really sorry, but we have to make our living out of something, so we primarily support paying customers.

Hi guys,

Thanks for a great component. At first we struggled with the component, but after thoroughly working with the documentation we had it running within minutes.

We have quite a large website and a huge Business Directory, using Mosets Mtree and I believe that if it was good enough for our large website, then many Joomla users won't have an issue.

I must say that some URL's are not accurate enough, as it sometimes uses numbers (0-9) in the url (.../4.html), but after some manual editing it is ready to go live.

Thanks to the developer(s) of ArtioSEF for a truly great component.

I decided to pay the 30+ euro as i didnt wanted to advertise their so called sponsors.
It does pisses me off that your not notified of this and that without knowing your serving their ads.

I did however expected some support but i didnt received absolutely no reply on my mail.

I can remember long ago when i started using artio the author was available on the forums to help but sometimes complained that all was still free.
I said at that time if we would receive proper support and a good working sef i would pay 25 euro for it..
And damn....thats what he did as it seems.
One minor detail,he killed the support.

Has hidden spam links that cannot be removed. What happens is Google recognizes these as spam and penalizes your site. For a product that is supposed to help with SEO, it actually destroys any SEO you have done.
You are better of not doing anything to your url'S then adding this, as the spam far outweighs the delivery from a Google viewpoint. Had a site go from #2 in a Google search to the third page two weeks after installing this. Took a lot of work to get it back to even the 1st page. Avoid at all costs!

Just a note for french users, some versions of Artio Joomsef and also the free adaptations don't have all the non ascii character replacements needed, so here is what you need to add to the configuration.


Á|A, À|A, Â|A, Ä|A, É|E, È|E, Ê|E, Ë|E, Í|I, Ì|I, Î|I, Ï|I, Ó|O, Ò|O, Ô|O, Ö|O, Ú|U, Ù|U, Û|U, Ü|U, á|a, à|a, â|a, ä|a, é|e, è|e, ê|e, ë|e, í|i, ì|i, î|i, ï|i, ó|o, ò|o, ô|o, ö|o, ú|u, ù|u, û|u, ü|u

Wonderful product. All my urls have been re-written. Those long lines of jargon are gone. I recommend this product. Thanks guys.

Hey Guys,

I have been using JoomSEF for almost 1 year. Here are some things I like and some things that I think are not cool at all...

Pros:
-Free Version and Pro Version
-Easy install
-Easy setup/config
-Good Documentation

Cons:
-SPAM/Advertisements are hidden in the FREE version without letting end users know. I feel this is wrong on so many levels. At least give us a banner warning before downloading or installing onto our sites.
-Support is terrible

Those are just a few of many more. Should this be allowed by Joomla standards (the SPAM)?

When I start to use this component I thought it's grate and now I been using it almost 5 month and I say it's more then "Very poor" mainly because I have on my site 786 posts and I have 5580 created joomSEF urls, SO DON'T USE THIS COMPONENT

Last week I installed the last version (free) and the Hot Property extension, after few adjustments for my particular needs, excellent made by the ARTIO team, the product is running perfectly and visit just increased of about 200; I'm not a php man, but with that product is so easy to set-up and use, today, in less of a week, I moved to the paid version. Well done, great component, great support and great peoples there. THANKS!!

Downloaded and installed on 1.0.8. Followed the instructions on install and activating the product but have had many problems since. This component seems to work sometimes and can cause site slow downs.

The backend design is nice and I like that you can have many customized URL's but support on their forums seems lacking and I'm rarely impressed with developers who stick ads in their products. It as a pain to strip out all the tagging. I read some of the prior negative comments, but should have been paying more attention.

I'd recommend new users or visitors here try Open SEF before putting your money here.

It's a good start of an effort though.

This component looks promising, and the prior reviews seem good, but after installing I received a fatal error that brought my site to a standstill. I'm running 1.0.13 on a fresh install

I had contacted them through their support ticket system to let them know there may be a bug and provided access to the backend to show them. They could offer no help, which seemed odd as this was a brand new Joomla! install, and also requested that I order a one hour support install.

The addition of this product including advertising should be another reason users think twice before installing. There are many open source functional projects that can provide Search Engine Friendly URLs.

Owner's reply:
Hello,



sorry, but we cannot support just everyone who is not able to read the documentation and install the component.



We have tens of thousands! of users, for who this works without any problem.

Good component, rewrites well, has alot of good features but caused a mass of unneeded urls. I deleted or renamed as needed, but they continue to come back. I believe it is because I have menus appear only in certain sections, and that throws it off, so I have to try something different.

My site isn't too big, and doens't have tons of URLs, so, at least so far, it seems to be working really well. It's also the first one that has worked. I've tried several others that were on here and they just wouldn't work. This one works with my regular site, iJoomla magazine, and also with virtuemart. All seems good.

The only issue I had was that after I installed it my main domain wouldn't forward to iJoomla anymore when prior it had. I finally fixed that issue though, here is how (in case you have the same issue):


I had the JOOMLA front page on my main menu and my top menu. In both I had put the iJoomla as the first item. But, I don't even use the main menu. I only use the top menu on my site.

I had moved the iJoomla up to the number 1 postion on both those menus anyhow, and made it my homepage in the iJoomla configuration.

But, still, if I typed in www.homepageexample.com/home then iJoomla came up, and if I typed in www.homepageexample.com/ then the regular JOOMLA frontpage came up...I couldn't figure out why, and then I did...

I had unpublished the regular JOOMLA front-page from my top menu, as I use that menu on my webpage. And, then, on that menu only the iJoomla was published.

But...I hadn't done that on my main menu, as I don't even use the main menu on my website. I didn't know it would matter since I don't use that menu at all anywhere. I only use the top menu. So while the regular front page was unpublished on my top menu (which I use) it was still published to my main menu (which I don't use).

So, I just went in and saw that on the main menu the regular JOOMLA front-page was still published (though it was #3 down the list, and iJoomla was the first item on that list...but both were published on that list).

So, I unpublished it, and voila! No problem anymore.

I hadn't realized that would cause an issue, particularly considering I don't even use the main menu. I only use my top menu. I guess one just has to check all their menus, whether they're using them or not, and 'unpublish' the front-page option, and to move the iJoomla into the first postion...even if they're not using that menu...

Support is awesome!

David from Artio has helped me a lot and very quickly. I was amazed because he didn't care if I had bought his extension or downloaded for free. The support was efficient and replied quickly...

I used to install OpenSEF in my sites, however it has three issues:
1 - OpenSEF + MTree issue: All Brazilian Portuguese special chars didn't get the equivalent English char, so in the url "ç" becomes "%e7", NOT sef at all :(. JoomSEF works with the special chars out of the box... Now with JoomSEF "ç" becomes "c"... AWESOME!!!
2 - Writing the sex_ext.php: That was so annoying! In my opinion it is much easier to write the com_component.php files in the JoomSEF style!
3 - Every time I installed a new extension I had to configure openSef in order to start making the URLs SEF. JoomSEF is automatic.


Thanks Artio.

Done with the ununderstandable URLs on your site.