sh404SEF 
NEW: built in caching database layer, can speed up sh404SEF and Joomla database operation. Backed by memcache, APC, etc
NEW: Pinterest support. Including tracking in Google Analytics of Pinterest actions!
NEW: full support for Google rel="prev" and rel="next" header tags, to improve SEO of paginated content
New: sh404SEF goes social!
- Create and insert Open Graph data
- Insert Facebook, Tweeter, Pintrest, G+ and G+ pages icons
- track all likes, shares, tweets, pinnings, pluses clicks in Analytics dashboard in your site backend.
And still with:
- Built-in Google Analytics support, including reporting right in your site backend
- your own tiny urls: shUrls
- Full urls and meta data management
- QR codes
- canonical headers for pdf, etc
Multi-lingual support
Easily redirect 404s to suggested SEF URLS
Use Joomsef or AceSEF extensions for increased compatibility
sh404SEF rewrites Joomla URL to user-friendly format (SEF URL or URL rewriting): mysite.com/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=69&id=34... becomes mysite.com/en/sh404SEF-and-url-rewriting/list-of-available-plugins.html).
It is also a security component. Page title and meta tags manager for every page. With or without .htaccess file. Joomfish compatible. Caching system for high speed and very small DB queries overhead.
Support many components natively: VirtueMart, K2, FlexiContent, Kunena, Jomsocial, Community Builder, mosetsTree, Sobi2, myBlog and more. SSL switch, automatic 301 redirection from non-sef to sef, insert Google news style numerical ID,.. Many backend parameters to control URL construction behavior.
Since 2.1: mobile visitor detection and template switcher
Advantages: user-friendly interface, excellent SEF capabilities, protection against attacks on the site, SEO friendly features, a lot of statistical data, shURL, tune of 404 page, SEO for social networking (supporting Open Graph), the ability to customize displaying a specific template for mobile devices, lots of plug-ins to work with third-party extensions and much, much more ...
Disadvantages: building links based not on the menu of the site as a standard Joomla SEF, but based on the categories. Because of this, does not always make the URL address when you delete the last part of which the user navigates to the previous level.
Support - at a high level. Promptly and accurately.
Before sh404SEF I used the built-in Joomla SEF, but I did not like the ID of articles and categories in the URL address. Now they're gone. Before buying sh404SEF I compared it with two other popular SEF extensions. Decided that sh404SEF better. Loved the output function similar addresses on page 404. Also on page 404 in the browser address bar displays the address that is entered by the user, not the address of the page 404. That is good. This is a good extension that combines SEF, SEO and security.
Engaged in web technologies since March 2007. Use Joomla since December 2009.
The import and export urls works very well too. Thanks
I have to say that initially the support request was not handled well, but the effort to get on top of the problem via my escalation was extremely customer-centred. You can learn a lot about a team not by the mistakes they make, but how they deal with them. I continue to be a happy subscriber.
SEF url management is centralized, easy and time-saving, with a wide range of customization options. You can control redirects from a 404 request list, point the duplicate urls which Joomla generates to a main SEF url, manage titles and meta tags easily, and of course there's integration of some of Google's analytic data - which comes very handy.
One of the best features is the 404 page - not only it is fully customizable but sh404SEF automatically presents the closest matches, and its estimations are very accurate. Thus visitors are assisted to stay and browse, instead of leaving when hitting a 404.
Support is also very good.
That's the one component I can't do without, a big thank you to the developers.
Hi
Thanks a lot for you support! This is very much appreciated and helps us a lot to keep being focused and motivated :)
Rgds
After a few weeks tinkering around with it I managed to get it working to a grat extent. Nothing that I couldnt have done with Joomla - it helped with titles and meta management, having everything in one place.
All of a sudden SH404SEF decided to stop working. The issue I was particularly experiencing was 'titles and meta manager' - it for some reason decided to stop mnaging page titles and displayed the basic Joomla page title.
I madecontact with support on the 23/12/12 and my query was answered within 48 hours with a very basic 'what Joomla version?'. This continued for approximately one week with one question answers which always took 48 hours to answer. At one point it was advised 'just uninstall and install it agin'.
Cutting a long story short, 'Jimie' logged into my site and basically responded:
'your website is a PAIN'. 'You have too many plugins' 'It has lots of JS errors'. 'I can no longer help. Go and fix it yourself.'
Ok. Im a commercial user. I think I paid around 40 dollars for this component.
I agree with the many other users of this component that it is 'highly sensitive' to other useful plugins that your site may be running. Its almost a lottery whether the software will run on your site in the long term. My experience is that over the initial 30 days (which covers the money back guarantee) you are less likely to run into any issues.
Secondly as others have pointed out, the support basically stinks. If you have a question it will take 48 hours for a response. When they get fed up of someone - there is a tendency (as other users have experienced here!) to say - your website is crap, go away!
If you like me are a commercial user and rely on this plugin to help your own commercial or other clients activities I would personally avoid. Long term there just isnt the human compassion to sort out your issues if it goes beyond the 'uninstall and reinstall' (which was advised)
I have a sincere mission now, extrapoloting this component from my site so that it doesnt impact my URLs or my Google rankings.
Avoid like the plague.
Hi
Sorry you feel so bad about support, but I can only ask readers to do as you say: please check other reviews about support.
I usually do not enter that sort of discussion, but your words are too harsh to let go. Here is the actual time line:
1rst post Dec. 23 at 11:25PM (almost midnight)
Answer: Dec 24. 7:46AM (first thing in the morning)
Next post by you: 7:57AM (10 minutes later)
Answer: dec. 25 5:25pm : YES,24hrs later. Sorry, this was Christmas day!
and so on. I have checked the whole support thread and I have not found any reply after 12hrs, except for the one mentioned above that was done on the Christmas day. And even 12hrs is when you posted late at night, and we answered the next day.
I have also read the other reviews again and could not find people saying "administrative display element seemed to break up and on occasion refused to save changes".
Now let me say that we tried to help you. This was very strange, because sh404SEF had been working for more than a year on that site, and all of a sudden no more page titles?
We made several proposals, then finally we asked for site admin credentials, searched, tested, checked and our support found the problem: you are now using a caching system that prevents the page title to be modified by Joomla extensions.
And yes, we cannot do anything about it. If the page is served from a cache, we cannot change it. No other Joomla extension can. That's a technical fact and there's no way around it.
Our suggestion to fix your site at this stage would simply be to use the Joomla! cache, which is very fine and efficient and of course works fine with other Joomla! extensions such as sh404SEF.
Rgds
Had an issue today, and it was solved via the support forum in very short time ...
Thanks a lot for a great extension and a superb support.
This extension is to make life more simple, not the other way around. To go into further detail, the security features are lacking. To stay secure year round prepare to pay year round even for large security vulnerabilities.
The thing that gets me are all of the cheaper/free extensions that are equivalent to this one don't have anywhere near as many problems.
I spent a lot of time and effort with this extension, in the end I was able to get everything working and have to say I not only feel as if I completely wasted my time but also feel a lot more appreciation towards some of the other extensions offered here.
It's important to state that the people I spoke with were very professional.
Hi
As you don't really point at any particular issue you had, I cannot really provide any specific answer. There are still a few comments I can make though:
First, a technical one: having a problem which appears when sh404SEF is on, and disappear when sh404SEF is off does NOT mean in any way that sh404SEF is causing the issue. Only that the fault, wherever it happens, only appears when SEF urls are on, and that's pretty different.
Again, you did not provide details, but if you had things like disappearing images or templates, javascript that doesn't work anymore or Itemids confusion, I can already tell you that sh404SEF is not causing this, despite the fact this problems go away when you switch it off.
Best advice is to contact support, which can usually work things out but sometimes the faulty extensions cannot be fixed, or this is too complicated.
Second, the extension is not simply here "to make life more simple". It is here to achieve higher SEO performance and do more things in the simplest possible way, that's a little bit different.
I'm glad you were able to have your site running in the end, and that you appreciated the support professionalism.
Hopefully next time the ride will be smoother. sh404SEF has been around for more than 6 years now, but still has just been voted as part of the Top 10 extensions by Joomla! community magazine. I hope this shows we're still working hard on it on a day to day basis!
Rgds
I bought this extension to kill duplicates in Google indexing.
It is resulted in:
1) increased site loading speed
2) increased number of duplicates
3) No custom 404 page as promised
Just check their support forum before to buy. You I have found dozens of users with the same problems but without any support to solve it.
I actually was so shocked that nowadays the products like sh404sef can survive.
I lost my time, my money and Google positions.
Hi pryanick,
Sorry you have such bitter feelings. I think you should have tried contacting support before giving up less than 2 days after getting sh404SEF!
We could have answered your concerns:
- as with any SEF extension, there is a performance hit, on default install. Now with sh404SEF, you can enable not only a URL cache but also a global database cache that will actually speed up your site (user reports up to 10%)
- it is technically impossible for sh404SEF to create duplicate content. That's because sh404SEF does NOT create any url. It only "translates" them from non-sef to sef. Every URL you see on your site has been created by Joomla (and installed extensions), not by sh404SEF
However, sh404SEF does PROTECT you against this Joomla habit. I think you might have been mistaken by the fact that sh404SEF shows you a list of duplicated urls it has found in Joomla, and maybe you thought sh404SEF created them?
In any case, all those duplicate urls are grouped together by sh404SEF into one unique URL visible to search engines and visitors. That's one of its primary feature.
- the custom 404 page works fine. Again, you might have needed to talk to us in case something went wrong on your particular site, but that's also one of the founding block of sh404SEF. It's not only customizable, per language, but also includes a similar url feature, to help users go to the page they were probably looking for.
Hope this helps, do not hesitate to contact us back in case you want to have a second look.
Rgds
Not only is this a highly recommended solution, we've been extremely impressed at the support provided.
Wholeheartedly recommended.
The reason because i am writing a review now is the support:
I got some problems because of migrating my sites now. and here i realized that also the support of sh404sef is really really great!
I had an issue after upgrading from Joomla 1.5 to 2.5 with some urls in the main menu not going to right articles and not displaying properly. I posted my problem on the Forum and Jimie from their support team was very quick to respond. He found the solution and fixed the issue for me in the admin area of my web site. That saved me a lot of headache and I am very grateful for that. So, 2 thumbs up for the customer support!
btw, the solution to the problem is simple: just re-save the article in question and the link(s) pointing to it will work just fine.
Tonight I'll sleep a little better:)
