How To Configure Joomla Global Settings

The Global Configuration allows you to configure the Joomla site with settings that apply to the whole site. This is the first thing you need to configure after you install Joomla.

Site Settings

Site Name: Main name of your website - it can be your brand name, company name or just website URL. You can include this site name in title tag of all the pages.

Site Offline: While developing your website or upgrading it, you can take your website offline. Any visitor to the website will see a log in box and a message (like website under maintenance). However, you can see the development of your website by logging in.

Default Editor: TinyMCE editor is a good choice, though you can also install some other Joomla content editors.

Default Captcha: You can use captcha on your site to prevent spam registrations. You need to enter required information for your captcha plugin in the Plugin Manager.

Default Access Level: Select the default access level for new content, menu items, and other items created on your site. Generally, it is set to Public. You need to change in case you need to restrict viewing of your complete website.

Default List Limit: This option sets the default length of lists in the control panel for all users.

Default Feed Limit: This option sets the number of content items to show in the feeds.

Feed email: The RSS and Atom newsfeeds include the author's email address. Select Author Email to use each author's email (from the User Manager) in the news feed. Select Site Email to include the site 'Mail from' email address for each article.

Metadata Settings

Site Meta Description: Here, you can enter a description of the overall web site that is to be used by search engines. Generally, a maximum of 20 words is optimal. If you leave this empty, search engines automatically build meta descriptions.

Site Meta Keywords: Here, you can enter the keywords and phrases that best describe your web site. Separate keywords and phrases with a comma.

Robots: Select Index, Follow if you want your website to be visible in search engines. In most cases, you want to.

Content Rights: Here, you can describe what rights others have to use this content. If unsure, you can leave this empty.

Show Author Meta Tag: Select Yes to show the author meta tag when viewing articles.

Show Joomla! Version: Show the Joomla! version number in the generator meta tag.

SEO Settings

Search Engine Friendly URLs: Select whether or not the URLs are optimised for Search Engines. For SEO powered website, you should select Yes.

Use URL rewriting: Select to use a server's rewrite engine to catch URLs that meet specific conditions and rewrite them as directed. This is available for IIS 7 and Apache. For Apache users, you need to rename htaccess.txt to .htaccess before activating. For IIS 7 users, you need to rename web.config.txt to web.config and install IIS URL Rewrite Module before activating.

Adds Suffix to URL: If yes, the system will add a suffix to the URL based on the document type.

Unicode Aliases: Choose between transliteration and unicode aliases. Transliteration is default.

Include Site Name in Page Titles: Begin or end all page titles with the site name.

System Settings

Path to Log Folder: It gives a path to store the logs by Joomla. This path is automatically set up on Joomla installation and should not be changed.

Help Server: It provides help information when the button is clicked. It uses appropriate language for the help service. It uses Joomla main help site by default.

Debug Settings

Debug System: It is a debugging system of Joomla which provides debug information by setting it to "Yes". It provides various forms such as diagnostic information, language translations and SQL errors. The default setting is "No".

Debug Language: It provides debug language translations for Joomla site by setting it to "Yes".

Cache Settings

Cache: It specifies whether the cache is enabled or not. It reduces the load used by the websites to a web server. The default is "OFF - Caching disabled".

Cache Handler: It provides file-based caching mechanism for cache handling.

Cache Time: It specifies the maximum time for a cache file before it is refreshed. The default cache time is 15 minutes.

Session Settings

Session Lifetime: It defines the session time for users who remain signed in. The default session is 15 minutes.

Session Handler: It provides session handler which informs how the session should be handled after a user logs into the site. The default setting is "Database".

Shared Sessions: It provides a user's session to be shared between the frontend and administrator sections of the site.