This episode I go over a few tips to debug why a search engine might not be crawling your website and what to do go get it crawled again.
I also have an interview with David Hurley, the community development manager for Joomla. He talks about how he got involved with Joomla and his new role as a part of the core Joomla team.
Show Notes
Check out speakpipe.com/joomlabeat - you can leave me a voice message, ask me a question and I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible and hopefully include it in the show.
One message I received was from a listener in regards to his website not appearing on Google or any other search engines anymore. I have compiled a checklist for troubleshooting this fairly common issue.
Check Google Webmaster tools to make sure Google is able to crawl the website or not I highly recommend connecting your site with Google Webmaster Tools, I have developed a plugin called Asynchronous Google Analytics for Joomla . Use the plugin to insert a verification key to hook up Google Webmaster Tools with your website. Check the robot.txt file, this is found in the root level of your Joomla website. You will need to be able to access the control panel of your website. if you have no modified this before then you most likely do not need to check this. On a lot of websites you will find that a certain line of code has been placed in this file. This tells search engines to not index this website, which is most commonly used while in still in the development mode. Look in the .htaccess file. You may find a line of text which is blocking traffic or search engines from coming to your website. Take the file out or replace it with the default Joomla one. Turn off any geo locational blocking that is occurring on the website. This is a security block wall that you can put up onto your website. this gives you the option to block certain IP addresses. This might be blocking a search engine IP address, so therefore it may think your website does not exist anymore. Check back to Google Webmaster Tools to see if changing any of these settings in your websites changes the status of your website. Take a look at security tools you are using on your website. some of these components might be blocking the search engines. Disable all of them and check again. Finally, you might need to do a server level check. You may have some additional software installed which are designed to automatically block certain IP addresses. Similar to geolocational blocking, but slightly different. It picks up on certain IP addresses hacking behaviors. You will need to disable these pieces of software, then use the cPanel and login to see what IP addresses have been blocked. Talk to your hosting provider if you are experiencing difficulties.
Interview with David Hurley
Community Development Manager for Joomla
We welcome David as he has a break from travelling the globe and frequenting the various Joomla Days around the world.
How he got started:
David began developing HTML websites on the side in College. As he began to create more and more sites, he needed a content management system to work with. That is when he got involved with Joomla, which was when it was still in the Mambo days. His business grew through word of mouth growth.
How he got involved in the role of Joomla Community Development Manager:
As his business grew, he felt like he could give back something to the community. Then he saw the post for the role, based on his experience and skill set, it looked like something he would be suited for and interested in.
What does David do?
The role has grown and changed as things have gone along as it is a relatively new idea and concept. This is really a fantastic example of forward thinking from the Joomla leadership team at the time, which was to make sure communication channels were kept open and keeping things transparent between developers, users and the community at large. Helping to get code created, organising structure within Joomla as an organisation and working closely with the community leadership team, production leadership team and open sources managers board.
Mainly he focuses on the positive change within Joomla, helping to encourage positive growth and open communication between the Joomla community. We are all working towards the same goal, of a better Joomla and a better CMS and framework. Keeping that in mind always helps in heated discussions. It is good to have someone like David who can direct the conversation in a positive direction.
David started the year in India and has since travelled to Guatemala, Bosnia, France, New England, Boston, North Carolina, Netherlands and will be going to Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and Denmark.
How are you focusing on getting people involved:
Meeting people at Joomla Days
Working with Joomla Community Magazine - including working on a series on extensions.
Talking with people and answering their questions.
Working with Google Summer of Code as a floating mentor - offering advice and insights and providing direction on all of the projects.
Extra info
What is the Joomla Framework? The concept behind it is that you can use these core set of library classes, functions and methods in which you can use to create other applications on them. This provides the base level of classes to build upon.
Check out the Joomla framework documentation to get your hands dirty.
David's Goals for the year:
To get more people involved
Recognising those who contribute for their hard work
Keeping communication open
Project goals
App store
Better multi language support
Certification system and documentation
Project Leadership Team goals
Check out developer.joomla.org there is a roadmap that outlines 12 points that are goals for the near future
Community Leadership Team goals
Updating all the sites
Resources directory and templates directory.
Getting more user groups involved and started.
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