4SEO - All-in-on SEO Joomla extension 6.1.0

Version 6.1.0​

newAll types of rules can now execute based on the domain used to access a page: redirect, metadata, inject content, analytics, error pages, content replacement,...
newAll types of rules can now execute based on visitor user groups, as well as IP addresses: redirects, inject content, analytics, error pages, content replacement,...
chgEasier to use confirmation popups, do not change page scroll position when opening or closing
chgPrevent deprecation notices being logged to file by Joomla on Joomla 5+ (getInput)
chgAllow J2Store native views to be analyzed
chgWhen auto-linking a keyword with a replacer rule, the created link now has a CSS class added, that includes the rule number, for debugging purpose
chgAdded 24 new AI robots user agent strings to the list of crawlers to be blocked in robots.txt with the feature
chgPerformance: result of dimensions check for externally hosted .svg images are now also cached. SVG don't have dimensions so there's no need to try again and again.
chgPerformance: dimensions of local images are now cached, to avoid repeated work (only remote images dimensions were cached previously)
chgNow removing the query string from an image URL before trying to identify .svg images (in case parameters are added for images CDN for instance)
chgAllow any type of Joomla custom fields to be used throughout 4SEO. Added checks in cases user selects fields lacking require information for their purpose, to avoid PHP warnings
chgWhen using a custom field for a date value in a structured data rule, enforce the Show Time custom field parameter usage
chgWhen no time is provided for a date in a structured data property, truncate the output to only show year-month-date instead of using 00:00:00
chgAdded Performinggroup as an option to Event structured data Performer type property
chgRemove Performer field in Event structured data if in custom mode and no performer was provided in rule configuration
chgAdded a separate Address input field to Event structured data record, to better distinguish between online, in-person and mixed event attendance modes location
chgNow stripping all HTML content from custom fields when using them in structured data properties
bugDisconnection from and by Google Search Console are not correctly identified and displayed on the Integrations configuration page
bugAccessibility: alternate table view of Google Search Console data chart on 4SEO dashboard can't be focused and therefore scrolled with keyboard
bugAdding aliases to very long URLs does not work, the alias redirect to an invalid target
bugAvoid low-contrast colors combination when displaying an error message in some circumstances
bugRules triggered for URLs containing a %20 string (coding for a space) are not executed

2024-01-30 - Version 5.3.0​

chg 4SEO frontend icon may not be visible on some YooTheme template, added some styles
chg Built-in shortcodes are now also replaced in all structured data text fields
chg Protect against SEF plugin having option custom domain option filled-in, may cause pages to be considered non-canonical
chg Avoid encoding & signs found in invalid URLs when adding them to sitemaps
bug Posisble PHP deprecation warning on recent PHP versions when viewing the sitemap (creation of dynamic property)
bug Content replacement does not happen if Hn titles protection option is enabled and there are multiple identical Hn titles on the page
bug When redirecting a non-SEF URL to its SEF equivalent, if the target is also a non-SEF for some reason, 4SEO should not redirect at all
bug Meta description is encoded once too many, causing & sign to be output as &
bug Don't try to submit just generated sitemap to Google if not connected to Search Console

4SEO changelog​

2023-12-05 Version 5.2.0​

newSitemaps are now submitted to Google using the Search Console connection, if present. Manual submission also possible from within the Sitemaps page.
newRedesigned Sitemaps page. When connected to Google Search console, now shows details of sitemaps registered with Google, including pages and images submitted
newAdded content replacer rule option to prevent replacement to happen in title tags content (H1, H2, H3, etc)
newAdded new type of redirect rule, to redirect one or more non-SEF URLs to their SEF version
newAdded support for upcoming `INP` Google Core Web Vitals metric to Performance measurement
chgAdded help text to Aliases page, that they are created using the Aliases tab of any page
chgRemoved some logging instructions that may cause sometimes memory errors
chgEnforce links protection in replacer rules if replacement is set to Metadata
chgAdded ability to extract images that are lazy-loaded with javascript, reading the image URL by default from the data-src attribute. Also added a filter to add more attributes as needed
chgFor all rules, if `When to run` URL starts with `/index.php?`, the `Disregard query string` is now automatically disabled
chgWhen analyzing external pages, do not send the 4SEO security key. If the other site also runs 4SEO, it will respond with a 404 even if the page actually works, because the security cron keys don't match
bugNotification icon misses a title
bugKeywords list on Dashboard Google Search Console display is not keyboard-accessible
bugText color for red background warnings lacks contrast on small text
bugWhen rendering error page on Joomla 4 and 5, some events may not be triggered
bugAdd/refresh page dialog is not full height

Version 5.1.0​

chg Accept more than one URL in sitemaps for the same content id. Allows use manual override to include several pages for the same canonical content
chg Do not URL-encode URL reserved characters when adding them to sitemaps, as they are sometimes used as is in URLs
chg Default value for Disregard case when creating any type of rule is now Yes
chg Now defaulting to not checking Joomla com_redirect before triggering a 404 on Joomla 3, as this prevents error pages to operate. Can use corresponding filter to enable back if needed.
chg Added forseo_collect_zero_status_urls filter to avoid storing as errors pages where the crawler cannot load the page but does not have a clear reason as to what happened
chg Aliases now also operates in Debug mode or if the site is offline.
chg Better cleanup of com_tags non-sef URLs when creating a page content id for canonical identification
chg Ensure CDN cache bypass variable is always removed from redirect targets when crawling. They otherwise may appear in the Errors | Redirects list
chg Background cron trigger pixel image URL changed to avoid collisions with actual words that may trigger security systems
bug status selector does not work on Recorded Errors page
bug Aliases and redirects are not executed on Joomla 5 when they concern non-existing URLs
bug 4SEO does not allow selecting Structured data images when location of the images media folder has been changed from the default

2023-10-17 Version 5.0.0​

chg Accomodate pages where some custom javascript code has been added that includes invalid html tags in text strings, thus breaking cron or performance measurements pixels injection
chg Removed use of int(nn) in SQL tables declaration or update
chg Suppress button press highlighting by some browser on mobile devices
chg Updated ESBuild config to use actual file content hashes (esbuild hashes are not content hashes)
chg Added CCBot to , to prevent the CommonCrawl crawler to use your site data to train their model. After the update, you must re-apply the feature for the Common Crawl bots to be added to your robots.txt exclusions
chg Added Google-Extended to , to prevent Google Bard and VertexAI bots to use your site data to train their model. After the update, you must re-apply the feature for the Google AI bots to be added to your robots.txt
chg Minor tweaks for Joomla 5 compatibility
chg Added ability to add translation for new languages, or override existing translations, by dropping a json file in a subdirectory of /libraries/weeblr
chg If Joomla Debug system is enabled, 4SEO won't display user-configured error pages anymore
bug When customizing a URL in 4SEF, if the custom URL is an existing one, the metadata in 4SEO was lost
bug Possible fatal error when using a custom field to configure a structured data date (publication, modification, etc) and a custom date format is in use through modifying DATE_FORMAT_LC* Joomla language strings
bug Multipages articles are not properly canonicalized, based on whether the Show All option is enabled or not
bug Possible fatal error when using a date custom field for structured data or otherwise, when the output format is personalized in certain ways.
bug Inserting a local image into an error page through the editor does not show either in the admin or on the frontend
bug Several language files have incorrect translation for button title
bug Canonical pages that have been excluded from sitemap by a rule or otherwise can sometimes be put back in the sitemap
bug Matomo noscript tag gets a double-slash

Version 4.9.2​

bug Recently added new languages translation files are not packaged with the extension

2023-08-10 - Version 4.9.0​

new Added feature and alert to optionally block IA robots such as those from ChatGPT to crawl the website
new Added ability to create aliases: another type of redirect which is easier to create, faster to execute but limited in trigger conditions and target URLs
new Added option to override Joomla full page cache plugin when applying redirects rules
new Added full translation to Arabic, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Romanian, Swedish and Chinese
chg When conservative or progressive caching is enabled in Joomla global configuration, 4SEO can now detect and use for social networks sharing the 'Intro' and 'Full' com_content articles images, as soon as the page is analyzed. Before, it would fall back to using the largest image on the page.
chg Removed calls for translators from admin app footer
chg Added workaround for Joomla 4 issue adding layout=blog to pages, may result in incorrect canonical link
chg Now escaping title and meta description before output else invalid characters may break the page output
chg Now including site host hash and current version in subscribers update authorization request
chg Now using official schema.org notation for dayOfWeek instead of community shortcuts
chg Workaround for Joomla 4 turning spaces in images file names into %20 for local images when used as article images, breaking local image size detection
bug On frontend editing, IndexNow panel spills over footer
bug There should not be a custom field selector input field on the Default person tab of structured data settings

Version 4.8.1​

bug Some redirects are not executed after adding view selection rules parameters in last release

Version 4.4.1​

chg Better CSS at low width for Joomla 4
chg Accept HTML in Google updates detailed description