Customers repeatedly ask me about TYPO3 SEO (=search engine optimization) for websites.
Regular customers know that I provide them with at least the tools they need for optimal search engine optimization. Training courses also focus on raising awareness of the importance of optimized websites, and if you wish, I can
The following questions will be answered:
TYPO3 has always offered various options for configuring a website technically for search engine optimization. Meta tags, meta descriptions, and alt or title tags for images could already be specified by default, but since version 9, a lot has changed.
Up until version 8, in order to have meaningful speaking URLs, you had to install either the TYPO3 extension CoolURI or RealURL and, above all, configure it correctly. The numerous forum posts from desperate TYPO3 administrators give an idea of the obstacles that many developers faced here.
With version 9 of TYPO3, pages are no longer accessed in the old manner (/index.php?id=<UID of the page>) by default. They can still be accessed this way, but all links will use a “speaking URL.” Each page has a “URL segment” field that allows you to create the page address from the page title with a single click, but you can also edit it according to your own preferences.
All reputable search engines query a page's “robots.txt” file before reading any page. There, for example, it can be defined which content/directories may be read and which may not be read or indexed. A
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
would, for example, tell search engines: “You are not allowed to index anything here.”
With a “Disallow: /typo3,” search engines are only prohibited from reading the /typo3 directory.
An Allow: /Other-directory, on the other hand, includes a directory.
Furthermore, one or more sitemaps can be specified here with SITEMAP: <full URL of the sitemap>.
This information can now be entered in the page management under “static routes.” However, you should still check whether there is a physically existing robots.txt file in your root directory, as this takes precedence over the information in the page management.
Almost all search engines now display AI-generated search results. With an LLMs.txt file in the root directory of the site, you can control how your own page appears there. Whether the AI evaluates this correctly must be tested and, if necessary, corrected.
If a page no longer exists, it does not automatically disappear from the Google index. If a visitor clicks on the entry, an appropriate error message should appear. A simple “Page not found” is rather frustrating. In the page management section, you can specify a page of your choice as an error page, where you can offer the “misguided” visitor a few alternatives—e.g., with a directory of your pages. The search engines are then automatically notified with the code “404” (=Page not found) that the page no longer exists, and it is removed from the index.
The SEO extension has been available since version 9. It offers features for your website:
