Testing Under a subdomain

[Duke]

I've seen a little bit mentioned on this both in the FAQ as well as via search in this forum but either I'm slightly retarded (which is possible) or I'm just not looking in the right spot for my answers.

I purchased SEF Advance in a last ditch effort to actually consider using Joomla as a CMS. I'm currently using phpnuke and even though its far from SEO, I've still managed to hit page one in the SERPS for a few of my targeted keyword(s)/phrases. About 6 weeks ago, I created mirrored SEO Articles on the main news pages of a Joomla test site and a Drupal test site. After one month, this article was on page one in google for the Drupal article but there is no sign of the Joomla article even as far back as page 7. My site will rely heavily on Search Engine traffic so Drupal is the clear winner at this point even though Joomla is far more configurable (IMHO).

I'm hoping that SEF Advance helps change all that which was the reason for purchasing it. Of course I didn't do all the required reading (obviously) so I'm still unsure of whether or not I can actually test SEF Advance in a Subdomain environment. From what I've read, it appears I have to contact support and ask for the package to be re-licensed under the subdomain url, is this true?

Also, mentioned within the readme, there is reference given to "There is a free tester script available on Sakic.Net website which will determine whether you need to upload loaders to your site or your server already supports ionCube encoded files." It would be really great if this were linked to within the readme or just more obvious on this site because I've been unable to locate this tester script so far.

Thanks.

[Saka]

Hello Duke and welcome to forum.

Sure you can test your site under a subdomain. This is covered by FAQ:
http://www.sakic.net/support/faq/sef_advance/#12
Just send a mail to us: http://www.sakic.net/contact/ stating your main domain and subdomain you want added and it will be fixed in no time.

The tester script is located at the requirements page:
http://www.sakic.net/products/sef_advance/requirements/
and the direct link is:
http://www.sakic.net/content/scripting_files/sef_advance_tester.zip

Sure it can be added to readme file, any suggestion that may make life easier for customers is appreciated.

[Duke]

Thanks for the quick response sir, much appreciated!

I'll send my domain/subdomain request right away.

Great response time btw.

Ken

[Duke]

Just a quick update:

Getting my subdomain test url's and main domain url's (.net & .com) added to my license was a breeze and took so little time that I can't really comment on it because it posed no inconvenience whatsoever.

Installing SEF Advance was surprisingly simple in my case because I didn't have to worry about ionCube as my dedicated server already supports it. I love the look of the new url's as Joomla's core url's leave a lot to be desired, they simply mean nothing. SEF Advance url's are much nicer and meaningful as you can see by the following examples:

lifesupporters.com/joomla/family_friendly_news/family_matters/good_parenting_tips/

lifesupporters.com/joomla/family_friendly_news/health/understanding_depression/

lifesupporters.com/joomla/family_friendly_news/my_child/growing_to_love_your_baby/

lifesupporters.com/joomla/family_friendly_news/lighter_side/benefits_of_laughter/

I'm currently tracking two specific articles on my test site to see how they do. As of this writing, they place on page 3 and page 5 for the targeted keyword phrases. This may seem low but when you consider the fact that SEF Advance has only been installed for under 2 weeks (as of this writing) and the article publish dates are May 12 and May 13 respectively, the SERP Placement isn't all that bad so far.

One article is reasonably well written and has plenty of keyword density, the other article being a complete dog and useless from an SEO standpoint IMHO.

Here are the articles and current google.com SERP Indexing results as of May 19, 2007:

1. Benefits of Laughter: Article Published Sunday May 13, 2007 -> Page 3, Result 30 ... Results 21 - 30 of about 1,160,000 for Benefits of laughter. (0.07 seconds)

2. Good Parenting Tips: Article Published Saturday May 12, 2007 -> Page 5, Result 42 ... Results 41 - 50 of about 1,690,000 for Good parenting tips. (0.06 seconds)

Considering this is a test site and my main url has only been redirected to it for about 2.5 days now, this is not a bad result at all in this timeframe. At this time I cannot comment on additional crawler activity as monitoring subdomains and test domains is something I rarely, if ever, perform.

I'll continue to update this post as things progress but so far I have to say I'm impressed with what I've seen in such a short time period.

[Saka]

Thanks Duke, nice review.
Just have to emphasise, once again, that SEO is so much more than SEF URLs, so good position will depend on many other thinks as well.
But sure, URLs are important.

[Duke]

Oh I'm fully aware that SEO is a much larger animal than simply that of static url's and keyword density however, I'm merely stating how your product is affecting testing based off targeted articles and tracking how said articles place in the SERPS.

As I've stated in my first post, I'm not unfamiliar with placing as page 1, result 1 for my targeted keywords. All I'm trying to do here is simply test apples to apples with Joomla/SEF Advance vs phpnuke and no static url component.

I'd also like to add that both articles being monitored climbed by one result within the course of 24 hours so its quite clear that SEF Advance is not only making indexing easier but also increasing keyword density and url relavence.