Even if hosting Joomla on GoDaddy can be challenging, and anybody ever built a site on their servers will tell you to turn to some better Joomla host, many people still choose them because of the excellent price/offering ratio. Here are a few tips that will help you get Joomla running on GoDaddy with minimum fuss.
During install
- Think twice before using the Value Added Application (VAA) installer -- If you use the Joomla version that installs under the VAA menu, it won't install at your root folder (often referenced as SITEROOT or WEBROOT), but instead in the directory \joomla. That means when a visitor types in your direct URL, they won't be taken directly to the Joomla site. Also, by downloading and installing Joomla manually, you can choose the exact Joomla version you want to use.
- Edit the htaccess.txt file -- For Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs, you will need to edit the htaccess.txt file to turn on the RewriteBase option. In the file, you will find a line that reads #RewriteBase / that you need to change to RewriteBase / -- remove the pound (#) sign. For other possible problems check this link
- Rename htaccess.txt -- You need to rename the htaccess.txt to .htaccess which you can do from your FTP program.
To configure Joomla once installed:
- Turn on Search Engine Friendly (SEF) in the Global Configuration -- To make sure you have the best search engine page ranking, turn on both the SEF and the mod_rewrite options on the GC screen.
- Turn on caching in the Global Configuration -- The slowest aspect of GoDaddy Joomla hosting is the shared access to MySQL. By turning on caching, a page will be stored as a standard HTML when accessed (the home page, for example). If the next time the page is referenced the cached version hasn't expired, it will simply send the stored file instead of reconstructing the page from the MySQL database.
These tips should help you configure and run Joomla on GoDaddy for best performance and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
