"Paraty Black" is one of the e107 themes I did with Search engines in mind. It is not graphically the best, I know. It is old fashioned, I know. It does its own tricks! It rewrites the news titles for google and co, so I get nice .html files Works by e107 theme and mod rewrite, so no core hacking is done. This way it is more "blog" like. For a private site I think the better choice over furl, which does better results if you got your main content in the e107 forum.
For some time now I follow the discussions on e107 dot org. Every once in a while someone is whining e107 is not search engine friendly. Most users have never took a look into the code and how things are handled. But they beg, they command, everything.
"This have to be implemented or I will change cms"
Who holds them back? No one! They can leave! e107 is open source, it is secure, well indexed by the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Life search.
Why I am writing this today? I had a look at this endless discussion again. No one takes what is already there. Its so easy to get a e107 site search engine friendly.
But some always like to blaim it on the hard working developement team. Thats really not their job, e107 is modular, most things are realized as plugins to the core, by now unfortunately not the news system, thats the only thing arround the core that have to be done by the e107 team.
Everything else is a plugin, forum, content management, sitemap, what ever a site from a simple blog to a big community uses are plugins. Has ever one of the whiners asked a plugin developer why do you not implement search engine friendly urls? No they take for free, like they do with e107.
No one takes the road and reads and improves the code, not even realizes that it is GPL, which means IMHO not only the right but also the duty to build on it.
e107 has always in the last 5 years served almost all my needs, I love it! And all sites I realized with e107 have been well indexed, when I thought I needed "better" filenames for users and Google i had a look at it and within a day i had it running in an acceptable way.
But always, content has been king, if you are running a site that has no original content will will never make it to the top. It is not enough to run some sites about, lets say DJ and trance, when you only have a forum with next to none content and 1 to 3 news on the frontpage which are not on topic, like begging for donations. It does not improve your or your friends site if you post 3 links to his site in every signature, one with the right keyword is enough!
If you want to have succes there is more than setting up a site and install something that fakes "nice" urls, it is the continous production of keyword rich content, link building and all that basic SEO stuff. Then, and only then you might think of urls as a last brick in the wall. It will then give you a boost over your competitor that has done his homework and createt content. If you do not have that content you will fail, with or without search engine friendly urls.
Works by e107 theme and mod rewrite, so no core hacking is done. This way it is more "blog" like. For a private site I think the better choice over furl, which does better results if you got your main content in the e107 forum.
