sh404SEF

297 reviews

Get sh404SEF (v4.24.7)

Introduction

Site Management, SEF, SEO & Metadata, URL Redirection, Social Share

After more than 15 years of duty, sh404SEF won't be ported to Joomla 4. To move to Joomla 4, please consider our newer extensions, released over the last couple years, including 4SEF to maintain your site SEF URLs (see Related extensions on this page or visit our website) and 4SEO for metadata.
sh404SEF is discontinued from August 17, 2023 - same as Joomla 3 end of support. Please update to 4SEF and 4SEO to maintain your URLs and metadata.

Joomla 4 notice

We created sh404SEF® for Joomla with SEO in mind. sh404sef helps you improve your search engine rankings and get more traffic to your website. Satisfy many of the Google recommendations for search engine optimization with just a few clicks.
sh404sef also includes many security features.

sh404SEF® is the most popular and longest developed Joomla seo extension. We are dedicated, full-time Joomla professionals who work each and every day to bring you the very best extensions and prompt support. Our staff have over 20 years of combined experience with Joomla (and Mambo) and we maintain some of the longest, continually developed Joomla add-ons available.

Brand new documentation set, including "Getting started" as well as other specialized short videos.

Features:
* 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 but it does in a way that prevent Joomla standard SEF duplicate content issues.

Important: from version 4.17, we automatically add robots meta tag required for full visibility in Google search results.
NEW: Support for Google Analytics version 4
NEW: Full Turkish translation
NEW: insert a QRCode anywhere, on any page
NEW: Redesigned Google Analytics reports, can now also display on frontend without having to log-in
NEW: block requests based on simple rules
NEW: Redirect mutiple URLs together, no more using .htaccess
NEW: Add canonical tags to mutiple URLs in one go
NEW: URL shortener can now shorten any URL, not just of current site
NEW: extended Structured data support: social profiles, corporate contacts, logos
Connector with wbAMP, our Accelerated Mobile Pages for Joomla plugin
Automatic redirect of 404s errors to most similar page
Google Sitename, Google breadcrumb and Google sitelinks search JSON+LD markup
Using oAuth2 for Analytics authorization
Twitter Cards support
Google Analytics Universal support
Google Tags manager support
all output through JLayout, easily override in template
Create and insert Open Graph data: quickly and easily add social media buttons to your entire site to allow sharing on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Linkedin and Pinterest.
Integrated Google Analytics reports display
Automatically generate tiny URLs (shURLs) for your content
Full urls and bulk meta data management
Multi-lingual support
Easily redirect 404s to suggested SEF URLS
Instantly add global support for canonical URLs (add rel="canonical" HTTP headers)
Removes automatically duplicate URLs, a common problem with Joomla websites
Create human ear and search engine friendly (SEF) URLs
Control URL re-write mode on a per-application basis
Support for Google News URL format
Easily customize the page title and page description with bulk updater
Create customized error pages (i.e. 404) with relevant links, suggest best match pages
Harden against cross-site scripting attacks (XSS)
Harden against malicious page requests
Limit flooding attacks
Protect input forms such as the contact page from spam (using Project Honey Pot)
Control site access from suspicious domains (using IP address whitelisting and blacklisting)

We Support many third-party SEF plugins via the standard Joomla installer.
Components we support natively include: VirtueMart, K2, FlexiContent, Kunena, Jomsocial, Community Builder and more.

Write a review

good component - very good support

Vlado Repic (3).
Posted on 04 April 2013

I can recommend to use this component. It does exactly what its supposed to do.

Please note that you have to spend some time to read the manual and FAQ. If you have something special like a multilingual site you have to spend even more time in learning how you can configure it.

For me the most important thing for a commercial component is the support. The support here is very very customer-oriented and helpful. Additionally you get very fast answers.

Have come to rely on this Extension

Nancy Smyth (1).
Posted on 12 March 2013

I've used sh404SEF since 2009/2010 and have come to rely heavily on it.

Recently, when launching a new site (had to start from scratch) I had a couple of issues with things not working the way they had in the older version of Joomla - all resolved quickly via their support forum!

Very happy and would recommend this to anyone.

Page load times take much longer

Simon Harvey (4).
Posted on 11 March 2013

It does exactly what its supposed to do. Only problem is page load time go from 1 second to 8 seconds. Which is unacceptable for my sites.

Owner's reply: Hello

As with a previous reviewer, it is unfortunate that you didn't try to contact us for support.
An extension that multiply page load time by 8 is not acceptable and would have disappeared from the Joomla! world a long time ago.
In the case of that recent reviewer, he was not using the appropriate setting for his forum sef urls. After he posted his review we had a quick discussion on our support forum, to clear the issue.
I'd only like again to invite you to do the same and I'm sure we can figure out what's happening on your site.

Rgds

Great Component

Sundar Nadimpalli (5).
Posted on 08 March 2013

I have come to use this on all the websites that I create. Great for SEO and security. Gives a lot of control with the URLs. A Must have.

Great Component

Jeff (1).
Posted on 26 February 2013

Setup was fast and easy. I asked a question in the forum and it was answered same day. I like having clean urls now without the category ids that joomla puts in. Well worth the money.

Excellent sh404

lala (1).
Posted on 26 February 2013

I was really pleased when using sh404.this is a great tool and support too, he Jimie very enthusiastic.He helped me solve a lot of problems for my website

Thanks

Shef404 fully deserves its money.

Vieru Iulian (4).
Posted on 18 February 2013

It is a good and useful component for an website. We recommend it with pleasure, especially since it has a good support from the author. Shef404 fully deserves its money.

Good extension, but use with caution!

John (3).
Posted on 13 February 2013

sh404sef does a great job in making URLs more search engine friendly. But instead of repeating what others have said regarding how good sh404sef is etc. I will cut to the chase.

sh404sef slows down your website. You can find proof all over the sh404sef forum and other places where people complained about their site becoming slower and slower due to an increase of SEF URLs in the database.

After uninstalling sh404sef, page load decreases from 7-8 seconds to 1-2 seconds are not uncommon.

The support is obviously overwhelmed by this since their typical response is to upgrade your host, turn cache on (as if people weren't turning cache on from the beginning) or other excuses. However they also offer you to get a refund if you want.

The difference between sh404sef and Loomlas own core SEF is that sh404sef builds URLs on first page visit and stores them in the database. Joomlas Core SEF doesn't store any SEF URLs in the database, but creates them on-the-fly, eliminating performance issues.

There is another SEF extension for Joomla that also creates SEF URLs on-the-fly. I have tried it and pages load as fast as with Joomla's Core SEF.

If Anything Digital, the company behind sh404sef wants to stay in business with their product, I highly recommend them to completly rewrite how sh404sef works. sh404sef could be much better with on-the-fly SEF URL creation. The best way to convince them or Yannick, the coder behind sh404sef, is to go to their forum and tell them.

Owner's reply: Hi

Thanks for your message and for your concern for SEF extensions technology.

If you had a concern about speed and your server, you could have tried. But instead you wrote this text in our pre-sales forum, then cut and pasted it here as a review - without downloading sh404SEF and thus without trying. You actually didn't even pretend trying but only gave general comment on a technology vs another one. That's not really what I call a fair review of an extension!

As usual, there are pros and cons in each case. Storing urls in database allows many things that are not possible with the on-the-fly method, and this is why all SEF extensions use it.

We're very much concerned with speed of course, as very slow sites have a real SEO penalty.
But speed isn't a problem, even with busy sites. If you need proof, our own site has a lot of urls and runs pretty fast.
That said, we are not standing by, and we introduced last year features to not only make sh404SEF itself faster, but even speed up the Joomla site it's running on, by caching Joomla and other extensions database queries.

Now a final comment: you consider on-the-fly creation faster than store-to-database: where do you think elements of on-the-fly urls (article or category titles for instance) are coming from, if not from the database?

Rgds

Simple and intuitive

Paul (2).
Posted on 11 February 2013

An easy to customize component for Joomla SEF with a clearly surface. Good Support! Thank you.

Works as well as it should

Kari Sinkko (10).
Posted on 10 February 2013

Works a treat. As soon as you get your head around by how it creates sef url's, then your set. Should be apart of the default Joomla components, it's that good.

Display #

Paid download

4SEO

By Yannick Gaultier

SEO & Metadata

4SEO is our latest SEO extension. We've been working on it for nearly a year but it's the direct result of 15 years of experience working with Joomla SEO. It uses the latest technology, new in the Joomla world, to provide a best-in-class and fastest user experience but combines it with our SEO experience to let you achieve the best possible SEO results. Our goal: automate every bit of SEO work t...

Paid download

4Podcast

By Yannick Gaultier

Content Construction

4Podcast is a modern, integrated solution to add a podcast to your Joomla 3,4, 5 or 6 website. You write a blog but few of your customers are actually reading it? Your newsletter is perfectly crafted but readership is low? Well, people don't read anymore! Right, but in fact they do listen to podcasts. We were faced with the same issue here at weeblr.com, and found no solution to start our pod...

Free

wbReactiv

By Yannick Gaultier

Site Access

wbReactiv is a simple plugin that display a "Resend activation email" button in the Joomla! users list, next to users who have not activated their account yet....

Paid download

4SEF

By Yannick Gaultier

SEF

4SEF offers customizable SEF URLs for Joomla 3 to 6 4SEF URLs are fixed, predictable and independent from the Joomla menu structure. Finally change your menu and navigation without all links being broken. SEF URLs are generated automatically but any single of them can be manually customized to exactly what you want and need. SEF URLS are based on content titles and categories, not menu items C...

Free

4Video

By Yannick Gaultier

Multimedia

4Video lets you embed on your Joomla sites Youtube and Vimeo videos with ease. Includes VideoObject structured data. Contrary to common video embed methods, it scores perfectly on Google Core Web Vitals speed specification. New: Now inserts VideoObject structured data, including hasPart/Clip details if you created chapters in the module settings. This ensures the best possible Google video disc...

Paid download

4AI

By Yannick Gaultier

Authoring & Content

4AI is a state-of-the art Joomla extension that gives you an always-on AI-powered assistant to create and revise the content of your website. Powered by the API behind the well-known ChatGPT system, it's always available, backend or frontend, at the click of an icon or through a convenient keyboard shortcut. New Now supporting Google Gemini models: faster and essentially free Newest OpenAI mod...

Paid download

4Analytics

By Yannick Gaultier

Analytics

4Analytics ** is a state-of-the art Joomla extension that provides you with **fully private analytics out of the box. It replaces services such as Google Analytics, Matomo, Plausible, Fathom Analytics, Umami or Simple Analytics. New in 4.0 Automatic AI-based analysis of weekly, monthly and yearly reports, including those sent by email. Included in 4Analytics subscriptions, pro or standard. No...

Free

4LOGS

By Yannick Gaultier

File Management

4LOGS is a simple plugin that lets you manage all log files on your site.You can view, download or delete all log files produced by Joomla or extensions you are using. View all available log files, sorted by folder, date and time View their content with a single click Download any log file to your computer Delete any one of them Delete entire log folders in one click Improve your site operations...

Paid download

4Command

By Yannick Gaultier

Site management tools

4Command brings to Joomla 3, 4, 5 and 6 a different approach to a modern CMS administrator experience. It complements Joomla's classical menu-based navigation system with a command palette and keyboard shortcuts. the command palette lets you search and run things fast and without knowing where they are instant search for articles and categories, open items for edition from palette instant sear...

sh404SEF

Version:: 4.24.7
Developer:: Yannick Gaultier
Last updated:: Jul 26 2023
2 years ago
Date added:: May 27 2007
License:: GPLv2 or later
Type:: Paid download
Related extension :: 4SEF
Includes:: c p
Compatibility:: J3

Download

Uses Joomla! Update System

Demo Support Documentation

Score:

Functionality:

Ease of use:

Support:

Documentation:

Value for money:

Write a review