Last week I open up the doors to questions and got some great ones. I thought I would start with one of the questions from Angie.

WordPress or Joomla? Which is better and why?

I have actually posted about WordPress and Joomla in the past and at the time when I wrote that post I leaned towards using WordPress for blogs and Joomla for websites. The main reason was because of an issue I ran into creating a website with WordPress and how it handled pages. That problem seems to have been fixed and I have since created WordPress powered websites with large numbers of pages and not suffered any kinds of problems. Since I wrote that initial post on WordPress or Joomla, I have to admit I have been converted to using WordPress for more than just a blog and more as a complete content management system. Some might say this is like comparing apples to oranges, that they were created for different reasons. That might be true, but to webmasters and bloggers the reasons why something was created is not necessarily the most important thing. The most important thing is that it works.

• Administration

  In my experience WordPress offers webmasters and bloggers a better administration section to use and maintain their websites. The administration pages are easier to learn, and faster to respond. The Joomla administration has a steeper learning curve and is not as easy for people to learn.

• Friendly URL’s

  WordPress permalinks feature offers an easy way to set friendly URL’s for a website or blog. Joomla has a friendly URL option, but it does not compare to the WordPress ability to make friendly URL’s. You can install other extensions to improve upon Joomla’s friendly URL’s and that works as long as the extension author keeps the extension up, and that it does not break with the next upgrade. With WordPress this is built into the core. WordPress makes it much easier to make your URL’s look nice to your visitors.

• SEO Friendly URL’s

  Having friendly URL’s is great for users, but it is also great for the search engine’s. WordPress nice permalink feature puts it ahead of the Joomla for SEO.

• Duplicate Content Issues

  Both WordPress and Joomla suffer from a problem involving duplicate content. With WordPress it happens because of archives, categories, and tag pages all having duplicate content as the posts and pages. With Joomla it occurs because of menu pages. The problems exists for both, the difference is it easier to fix using WordPress. Even with out the use of plugins in WordPress it is possible to create a robots.txt file to prevent indexing of the categories, tag and archive pages leading the search engines to the one copy of your original content. With Joomla it is not as easy. Partly because of the problem with friendly URL’s.

• Extendibility

  Both WordPress and Joomla have a plugin or extension system that allows you to add in other features that are not native to the software. This is mostly a personal preference, but I find the WordPress plugin system much easier to work with and more reliable. I seem to be regularly fixing problems and errors with Joomla extensions.

• Really Simple Synication (RSS)

  WordPress offers a much better RSS system than Joomla that makes more content available to readers.

• Speed

  I have not sat down and timed how long it takes to add new pages or posts into WordPress or Joomla, but I know that it certainly feels much faster to publish new content on WordPress. There is a post Playing with Wire that looks more at usability between WordPress and Joomla.

While there are reasons to choose Joomla over WordPress they are quickly becoming less. In the end it comes down to what you want to do with your website and what is the easiest, most user friendly system to do it with. More and more WordPress is the easiest, user friendly system to accomplish that task. WordPress is easier to use, faster to train non-geeks, and overall allows individuals and businesses of all sizes to create interesting websites that keep people coming back too. For the majority of people WordPress will easily meet their website and blog needs.

If you are looking for a way to demo both WordPress and Joomla without installing them. Take a look at OpenSourceCMS. There you can try both systems out. The here is the Joomla demo, and here is the WordPress demo.

What do you prefer WordPress or Joomla? What made you decide one over the other?

There are times when you just want to add in a simple piece of Javascript in Joomla. While the default site module can handle HTML it can’t handle Javascript. Seems like such a simple thing, but if you want to just copy and paste your Google Adsense code, or Entrecard widget or any number of widgets and Javascript code into your Joomla website you should install the Mod HTML module. It is one of the the default modules I add to every Joomla website I work on. It not only makes adding advertising like Google Adsense easy to do it allows you to add in your own Javascript code. If you use Joomla to run your website take a look at adding the Mod HTML module. It will make adding that Javascript into the website much easier. Because it is not specific to any one advertising or program it is more flexible for all kinds of Joomla run websites.

I still have not had a chance to install the new Joomla 1.5 to try it out. Thankfully I was just at OpenSourceCMS and discovered that they have the demo of Joomla 1.5 available. So if you would like to give it a try without installing it yourself take a look. Looks very nice so far. I like some of the new features. Best of all it looks like you can upload new images from the page editor so you can manage images and files where you are editing. Thank goodness! That was something that always drove me nuts working with Joomla.

Thanks for the demo guys. Really appreciate it. You saved me a lot of time.

If you run your website on Joomla you should go and take a look at the Joomla website for information about the release of Joomla 1.0.14. Looks like the release is mostly a security release to prevent cross site scripting attacks. More information can be found at the Joomla blog.

Don’t forget to backup your current Joomla site before upgrading, in case something goes wrong. On that note you might want to take a look at JoomlaPack. It is a backup component that will create a full backup of your site in a zip file. I have installed it on a Joomla test site and have been pleased with it so far. I am hoping to move it onto a production site later this week to try it out. It makes the backup process simple and easy to do.

I talked a little last week about Joomla. I have been doing more work this week on various Joomla sites for clients and myself and thought I would let you know about my favourite Joomla directory component SOBI 2. Sigsiu Online Business Index 2 (SOBI 2) is an addon to Joomla that makes it possible to run and manage a directory in your Joomla website. The core Joomla system offers a link component it is limited. SOBI 2 on the other hand has many features that makes it stand out from other directory components. You can use it strictly as a web directory or as a directory to physical locations, like golf courses. It has built in integration with Google Maps (API key from Google is required) and it has addition plugins available just for SOBI 2.

Some of the plugins to SOBI 2 include a rating and review and gallery plugin. They make it possible for you to create and run a complete rating and review directory where people can submit listings, submit reviews and upload photos. Even if you don’t run the community builder component SOBI 2 can allow people to build entire web pages about their listing.

You also have the option of making certain features of the listing paid for or free. You could make listings free but charge for links to the websites. You have the option to decide all of this when you setup and manage the component.

The biggest downsides I have found with the SOBI 2 component is there is no way to import an existing database. I have managed to import a directory onto SOBI 2 but then managing the imported entries can be difficult. Doing it one by one when they are submitted is much easier.

Overall SOBI 2 is my favourite Joomla directory component. If you are thinking of adding in a directory to your Joomla website take a look at SOBI 2. It might be just what you are looking for.

I thought I would continue talking about Joomla since they have now released version 1.5. Joomla is a great system and offers a great framework to build a website on. If you want to create a community based website where people can message each other, Joomla can do that. If you want to create a basic website that you can add the occasional page or poll then Joomla can do that too. If you want to blog then use WordPress, if you want a website with a lot of power use Joomla. Joomla does have one flaw though. It’s urls suck.

I have not had a chance to try out the new version yet. Time just ran out yesterday, but I do know that to help Joomla 1.0.3 urls be a little more user friendly you can add an extension to help solve the problem. The Joomla extensions directory lists several extensions for creating.

My favourite is nuSEF. It used to be called OpenSEF but unfortuneately was dropped by its developers. Thank goodness the project was picked up. Of all the search engine friendly url extensions I have tried for Joomla it is by far the easiest to install and use.

If you use Joomla and want to make your urls more friendly for both search engines and your visitors take a look at adding an extension to Joomla to make them a little more friendly.

I was doing some work on a clients Joomla site this morning and went to check up on the Joomla project and discovered that they have released version 1.5 today! Congratulations to the Joomla team for the great work they have done on the Joomla CMS. Joomla is one of my favourite content management systems and offers webmasters a great product to build their websites with.

I won’t list all of the changes in Joomla 1.5 but I encourage you to go and check it out if you are building a new website or if you are already using Joomla. I will be downloading and trying out the new version later today, I hope!