17 SEO Modules in Drupal 7 for SEO Success
Not wanting to get on the bleeding edge of technology with Drupal 8? We don't blame you there are a lot of costs associated with pioneering a new version of a software. So we thought we would help Drupal 7 users dust off there existing installation and get it ready to rank in search results.
Our goal was to curate a list for the Drupal community and prospective Drupal users with some of the great SEO Drupal modules and segment them based on whether they are:
- Core
- Contributed
- Custom
Quick vocabulary refresher for those evaluating Drupal:
- A Core module is a module that comes built in to every Drupal installation.
- Contributed modules do not come standard with your new Drupal site and these modules are created and maintained by the Drupal community.
- Custom modules also do not come standard in your Drupal site. These modules are different because they are used and maintained by one Drupal user or unique to a specific agency.
Our list features 4 Core SEO Modules, 11 Contributed SEO Modules, 1 Custom SEO Module and 1 Experimental SEO Module
Good SEO isn't just satisfying the search engines. Proper SEO is being considerate. Considering the Search Engines and Users who are both trying to understand what your website's content is about. As marketers its our job to focus on both of these key visitors and better indicate our relevance.
Here is a short round up of some of the modules that will help you have a more considerate Drupal site and a well tuned SEO machine.
Core Drupal SEO Modules
Blog
This is a key module for content publishing. Google and users love fresh insights from experts and your blog will be a crucial place where current or prospective clients find your thought pieces.
Config
This is an important module and required in order to use the Google Analytics module which will come up later in our list.
Path
Allows site owners to name or rename URL's.
Ping
Alerts other sites when your site has been updated.
Contributed Drupal SEO Modules
Below is a list of actively maintained SEO modules for Drupal.
Google Analytics (GA)
Google Analytics (GA) is free software from Google that is one of the most valuable starting points for understanding and improving your SEO efforts to bring in traffic. It can tell you where your visitors are coming from (organic, direct, referral sites, social media, email...etc. and which of those traffic types convert the best so you can invest more in the channels that work). It can tell you if your site is throwing 404 errors.
If you don't have a Google Analytics account or you don't own your current account - The first thing you need to do is set up a free Google Analytics account. It takes two minutes and your life going forward will be a lot less stressful. The GA Module also has some nice customizations you can set to make sure your data tracking is that much more accurate.
- Downloads
- 4,566,985
- Installs
- 395,237
- Author
- Mike Carter
Metatag
Allows you to automatically provide structured data regarding the topic/services you specialize in. Specifically the ability to update the Meta Title and your Meta Description.
Customizing those and better indicating your relevance will increase your likelihood to rank in search results when someone searches for your products or services. It also allows you to customize Open Graph Protocol so you can control how the content appears when shared on social networks.
- Downloads
- 2,292,632
- Installs
- 355,120
- Author
- Dave Reid
Taxonomy Title
While we're on the topic of meta data. Any Drupal user knows that you have limited control over the meta data of Taxonomy Terms.
This module was designed to update the heading tag at the top of the taxonomy term page. The contents of this H1 (or sometimes H2) tag are *extremely* important for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
- Downloads
- 23,912
- Installs
- 5,255
- Author
- jenlampton
XML Sitemap
This module creates a sitemap that conforms to the sitemaps.org specification.
Having a map of the pages and structure of your site helps search engines to more intelligently understand and index the contents of a website and update their index when we make changes to our sites. The sitemap created by the module can be automatically submitted to all the major search engines.
- Downloads
- 1,671,952
- Installs
- 296,145
- Author
- Dave Reid
Redirect
This is a collaboration between these two modules:
- Downloads
- 1,156,200
- Installs
- 199,459
- Author
- Dave Reid
Site Verification
This module assists with website/domain ownership verification for search engines. There are two types of verification methods supported. Usually a search engine will send you a meta tag to add to your site, or ask you to upload a specific file.
When provided with a file to upload, this module makes it easy because you can upload the file in the module's interface and the proper filename and file contents will be saved and used in the authentication process.
- Downloads
- 376,476
- Installs
- 59,837
- Author
- Dave Reid
Search 404
Rather than showing a standard "404 Page not found", the Search 404 module performs a search on the keywords in the URL.
So that if a user goes to www.pagenolongerexists.com/what-do-i-do-now, this module will run a search for "does not exist" and shows the result of the search instead of the 404 page.
Even though Google has stated that they don't penalize websites for broken links this module might improve the users experience and ideally reduce the rate at which users bounce off your website when they come in from an old URL.
- Downloads
- 311,663
- Installs
- 41,292
- Author
- Zyxware Technologies
Link Checker
Periodically tries to detect broken links by checking the remote sites and evaluating the HTTP response codes.. It shows all broken links in the reports/logs section and on the content edit page, if a link check has been failed.
While Google has said it won't penalize people for 404 pages - broken links create a bad user experience and if you truly care about the user (and you should if for no other reason than Google cares about them) correcting broken links should be at the top of your list to make sure is running smooth.
- Downloads
- 433,193
- Installs
- 31,857
- Author
- hass
Drupal SEO Checklist
This module uses best practices combined with a standardized checklist to make sure you're properly optimizing your Drupal site for search engines consistently.
Since its actively maintained this module is updated regularly with the latest techniques and makes on-site Drupal SEO a snap. While there is no module that will tell you your keyword strategy this one is good to ensure consistency.
- Downloads
- 306,000
- Installs
- 31,520
- Author
- Ben Finklea
Path Redirect Import
This module allows us to include path redirects in a simple way by bulk importing redirects using a CSV file. All redirections can be done at the same time. Very useful module for changing your website from your URL path structure to one that's more user and search engine friendly.
- Downloads
- 33,234
- Installs
- 11,212
- Author
- gabrielu
Content Optimizer
Helps you better indicate your relevance to search engines by enabling a quick SEO analyzer that provides instant analysis of any site content as a quick and easy guide to assure SEO best practices are consistently followed.
- Downloads
- 84,079
- Installs
- 8,862
- Author
- Tom McCracken
Custom Drupal SEO Modules
EDUCO's Custom Bulk Metadata Administration
Allows you to edit or rewrite Meta Titles, Meta Descriptions and Image Alt Text in Bulk. Better indicating your relevance and increasing your likelihood that you'll come up in relevant search results.
Experimental Drupal SEO Pack Module
Here is one SEO Module that is not fully ready for the contributed module market and is recommended for developer use only:
Have a Favorite Drupal SEO Module Not Mentioned?
If you have any core, contributed or custom modules that you'd like us to consider including in our list or if you'd like a demo of our custom module we'd love to talk and share it with the Drupal community.
Or if you're hungry for more we also have a nice walkthrough we've developed to Improve Your Drupal Site's SEO in 7 Steps.