A change to the default robots.txt files was made in Joomla 3.3 to allow Google to access templates and media files by default to improve SEO.

This change is not applied automatically on upgrades and Joomla users are recommended to review the changes in the robots.txt.dist file. This file is located in the root folder of your site after upgrading to 3.3 or later versions.

Last week, Alan Langford wrote a blog post called When Should You Upgrade Your Joomla 1.5 Site? In my opinion, the post was spot on. It addressed some of the reasons people post-pone upgrading their Joomla sites. He also highlighted the important reasons for upgrading to a newer version of Joomla.

Why are you still reading this, by the way? Go upgrade your Joomla 1.5 sites now. As Alan said: Seriously!

In this post, I'll go through some aspects of upgrading a site from 1.5 to a later Joomla version.

Every month, each of the major Joomla template clubs release a new template. In this post, I take another look at the premium business Joomla templates released. This time for the month of February 2013.

There are templates from Yootheme, RocketTheme, Joomla Bamboo, JoomlArt, JoomlaShack, JoomlaXTC and Shape5 on display this month. Enjoy!

During the last few weeks, readers have emailed me to ask what type of advertising extension I use on this blog. Actually, I'm not using a Joomla extension for it at all. Rather, this blog's ads are served using the buysellads.com service.

Buysellads.com is an ad network and service that helps you sell ads on your site. By setting up properties on your Joomla site, you can use the buysellads system to administer everything. That is, the sales page for the ads, how many ads are sold, receiving payments and more. After setting up an account, you can also buy ads through the network.

Every month, each of the major Joomla template clubs release a new template. In this post, I take another look at the premium business Joomla templates released. This time for the month of October 2012.

There are templates from Yootheme, RocketTheme, Joomla Bamboo, JoomlArt, JoomlaShack, JoomlaXTC and Shape5 on display this month. Enjoy!

Quite a while ago, the EU Cookie Law was passed. I'm not talking about a law concerning how much milk you should drink with your cookies, or the size and shape of cookies. No, this law was passed to protect the interest of web users in the EU. That was the intention, anyway. The EU Cookie Law, or the EU e-Privacy Directive, was set to come into action on 26th May 2012. This directive forces web site owners to get explicit concent to store cookies containing information about visitors to their web site. In short, the legislators want every single user of a web site to click "Accept" on the site to say they actively and conciously accept that third-party cookies will be stored.

Every month, each of the major Joomla template clubs release a new template.

In this post, I take another look at the premium business Joomla templates released. This time for the month of August 2012.

There are templates from Yootheme, RocketTheme, Joomla Bamboo, JoomlArt, JoomlaShack, JoomlaXTC and Shape5 on display this month. Enjoy!

The speed at which your site loads is very important. Firstly, a fast loading site will have your readers stick around longer. If they are served content fast, it is more tempting to click on another link to read more. Nobody wants to wait for a slow site.

Secondly, speed has become a major issue when it comes to SEO. Search engines, and particularly Google, now take the loading speed of a page into consideration when ranking the page for result pages. In particular, slow loading sites will be pushed down in the search results. The reason is that Google wants to serve its users with the most relevant content available, and in the shortest time possible. Giving people links to slow sites is not a good idea, so fast-loading sites will now appear higher in the search engine result pages.

There are several things you can do to optimize your site for speed. One way is to limit the use of installed extensions. In this post, you’ll learn some more ways to improve the loading speed of your blog.

As you know, one of the strengths of Joomla lies in its extensibility. There are an incredible number of extensions and templates out there for you to chose from. You can find something for almost any purpose, and the number of extensions and solutions for Joomla increases every day.

From all of these, there are things you can add to the blog that will add value for your readers. Commenting, social media integration and RSS feeds are some of the things you can make use of. In the following chapter, I will discuss how you can find useful, value-adding features for your blog.

Every month, each of the major Joomla template clubs release a new template.

In this post, I take another look at the premium business Joomla templates released. This time for the month of March 2012.

There are templates from Yootheme, RocketTheme, Joomla Bamboo, JoomlArt, JoomlaShack, JoomlaXTC and Shape5 on display this month. Enjoy!

The recent upgrade of Joomla to version 2.5 has made me think about the extensions and template providers I use. Whenever I choose a new type of extension for my clients, I take a look at the company's trackrecord. I ask myself some questions to determine if this is a developer I would like to bet my client's money on.

How long have they been around? What does users write online about their products? What do my friends in the Joomla community think about the product? How do they respond to support requests? What is their release cycle? How quickly are they supporting new, major versions of Joomla?

Every month, each of the major Joomla template clubs release a new template.

In this post, I take another look at the premium business Joomla templates released. This time for the month of February 2012.

There are templates from Youtheme, RocketTheme, Joomla Bamboo, JoomlArt, JoomlaShack, JoomlaXTC and Shape5 on display this month. Enjoy!