5 weeks now and no search engine listing, it seems the Habitat3 template is not search engine friendly? Has anyone else had this problem?

I also checked the template and I got 23 Errors found while validating as XHTML 1.0 Transitional!

I also checked the links and I got 11 messages similar to the following;

Hi Majdi,

Thanks for your post.

Im sure you know that search engine rankings is complex and there is certainly a role that the template will play.

To answer your points first:

1. The validation errors will be as a result of 3rd party extensions you might be using. You can check the validation of the habitat template here: validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fshowcase.joomlabamboo.com%2Fhabitat3%2F&charset=(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&ss=1&group=0&verbose=1&user-agent=W3C_Validator%2F1.591

2. The message about the mootools script is a J1.5 related issue and your robots.txt file. That file determines what should be indexed and what shouldnt be so you will need to check on that but that is related to your Joomla installation and is separate from the template.

Other factors to consider:
- Do you have a site map?
- Have you submitted it to google?
- Does your site take a long time to load? I did notice that one of the source files has been included in the template by mistake. You can download a revised version here:
showcase.joomlabamboo.com/habitat3/templates/december/images/white_overlay.png

- What other extensions are you using? are they SEO freindly?
- Have you got SEF enabled using SH404 or a similar addon?
- Do you have good keyword rich page titles?
- What field are you competing in? Is there a lot of competition?

I havent had much experience with using J1.5 on client sites and in fact develop in J1.0 still because I have proven and known results for SEO with that version of Joomla. I don know that there are some issues with SEO in Joomla 1.5 and that you need to work a little harder to get results.

I agree that having no ranking after 5 weeks is not at all desirable and that I cant provide an existing site that uses Habitat3 to compare it so its hard to argue what role the template is playing.

Can you post a link to your site in question - either here or via a support ticket?

Thanks Anthony

That us a great answer Anthony. Many factors play a role in search enigine listings. You can submit your site or site link map to google for sinclusion on the search engines. Though usually if your link is added on say 3 or 4 relavent sites linking back to your google will pick up your website and list it automatically.

I just had a look is this your website?

www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=http%3A//www.maxxgrafx.com/&spell=1

Hi Anthony,

Thank you for your feedback. I took some time to make sure its not something I did to cause this. The site is still not listed.

I have the default template installed with Search Engine friendly URLs enabled in joomla, I have no other extensions installed.

I suspect google dose not like the default slider mod, but I'm not sure what is causing this. I submitted a ticked with a link to the site. Can you please have a look and let me know what you think.

Thanks again.

Hi Madji,

Have you signed up for any of the google webmaster tools? I cant find any links to your site either.

I dont think the slider can be to blame since it just outputs as html and thats essentially the make up of the code as well. So essentially its just sliding some divs as opposed to the javascript generating the code on the fly.

Thanks Anthony