Home > Tech > Internet & Computers > Joolma + Godaddy = Success

Joolma + Godaddy = Success

In case you’re not familiar with Joomla, it’s a PHP/MySQL based content management system (CMS) that you can use to create entire websites with.  I already had a godaddy.com account for another website so I decided to try to set up the new website using Joomla.

Everything seemed to work okay, except for the SEF.  SEF stands for “search engine friendly URLs,” which means that your pages are made to look like they are in directories instead of long commands to the CMS.  For example, without SEF, you’d have a URL like:
http://host.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=3&Itemid=41

With SEF:
http://host.com/content/section/3/33/

As you can see, the SEF is preferred not only by search engines, but normal people as well.  I already had SEF working with WordPress for cochinoman.com, so I knew that it should work.  If you’ve had the same problem, here’s how to make it work.

First, setup your Joomla global configuration under the SEO tab as follows:

It took me a while to figure it out but the following article in the joomla forum told me everything I needed to know.  First, you must rename the “htaccess.txt” file to “.htacess”  Now, edit it as follows:
## Can be commented out if causes errors, see notes above.
Options +FollowSymLinks

# Uncomment following line if your webserver's URL
# is not directly related to physical file paths.
# Update Your Joomla!/MamboDirectory (just / for root)
RewriteBase /

The trick here is that when you do this the very first time, you must wait 1 hour for it to take effect.  This is where a lot of people give up and think their hosting account on godaddy isn’t working.  So did I.  Because of this initial delay, I suggest you do this first, then work on uploading and editing other parts of your website.

Once your server realizes you have created your .htaccess file, there will no longer be the cached delay and any changes you make will be immediate.

Everything works fine now with Joomla + SEF + Godaddy.com = success!

One comment

  1. Thanks for the resource on Search Engine Friendly URLs and Joomla. We are working to provide more documentation to our customers in effort to assist them with this particular matter.

    Alicia R.
    Go Daddy Hosting