(Tutorial) Basic Drupal SEO: On-site Optimization

Basic Drupal SEO: On-site Optimization

Drupal is a great open source GPL content management system. With a few modifications it can be configured for excellent on-site search engine optimization. This tutorial only covers the very basics of on-site optimization. It will make sure that search engines are able to spider your site, and prevent some common Drupal SEO errors.

This is just a basic introduction to configuring a Drupal site for good search engine rankings. Other tutorials will go into more depth.

Summary

Enable Clean URLs
Enable Path Module and install and enable Pathauto, Global Redirect and Token Modules.
Configure the Pathauto Module
Install and enable the Meta Tags Module.
Install enable the Page Title Module
Do NOT install the Drupal Sitemap Module.
Fix .htaccess to redirect to "www" or remove the "www" subdomain.
Fix your theme's HTML headers if they aren't right
Recommended: create a custom front page
Modify your robots.txt file.