SE AI SEO — User Guide

What Is SE AI SEO?

SE AI SEO is an AI-powered SEO engine for Joomla. It analyses your entire website, generates and improves metadata, creates structured data schemas, builds XML sitemaps, and notifies search engines — all from within your Joomla admin panel. Every change made by the component is logged with full undo support, so you can experiment with confidence.

The component works with Joomla's built-in content system and also supports third-party extensions including SP Page Builder, HikaShop, VirtueMart, and SubSeller.

Dashboard

The Dashboard is your at-a-glance overview of your site's SEO health. Navigate to Components → SE AI SEO to access it.

KPI Cards

Four summary cards are displayed at the top of the page. Average SEO Score shows the mean score across all analysed articles, out of 100. Total Articles is the number of published articles on your site. Meta Coverage shows the percentage of articles that have a meta description. Issues Found reports the total number of SEO problems identified by the most recent audit.

Lowest-Scoring Articles

A table on the left shows articles with the weakest SEO scores. Click Analyse next to any article to jump directly to a full analysis. This is the fastest way to identify and fix your most underperforming content.

Recent Analyses

A table on the right shows articles that have been analysed recently, along with their scores and dates. This helps you track your progress over time.

Missing Meta Descriptions

If any articles are missing meta descriptions entirely, a warning banner appears at the bottom of the dashboard with a direct link to fix them.

Detected Extensions

If the component detects supported third-party extensions (SP Page Builder, HikaShop, VirtueMart, SubSeller), they appear in a card at the bottom. Each extension shows how many items it contains. Click Audit All Extensions to run an SEO check across all of them at once.

Licensing

A status bar at the top of the dashboard shows your license state — active, expired, or not yet activated. You can check or activate your license directly from this bar.

Article Analysis

Navigate to Components → SE AI SEO → Article Analysis to analyse individual articles.

Selecting an Article

Use the dropdown at the top of the page to pick an article. The list shows every published article along with its category, and its existing SEO score if one has already been calculated.

Running an Analysis

Select an article and click Analyse. The component performs a local SEO analysis that checks for common issues including missing or poor-quality meta titles and descriptions, content length and keyword density, heading structure, image alt text, internal and external links, and readability.

The results appear as a detailed report with a numerical score out of 100. Issues are categorised by severity — critical, important, and minor — with specific descriptions and recommendations for each.

AI Actions

Click the AI Actions button to access AI-powered features for the selected article. These use your configured AI provider (Anthropic Claude, OpenAI GPT, or Google Gemini) to generate or improve content. Available AI actions include generating meta titles and descriptions, rewriting content for better SEO, expanding thin content with additional substantive sections, and generating alt text for images.

When AI generates suggestions, you can preview them before applying. Nothing is changed until you explicitly confirm.

Quick Meta

In the articles table at the bottom of the page, each article has a Meta button that generates a meta description using local analysis (no AI required). This is a fast way to fill in missing metadata across your site.

SP Page Builder Pages

If SP Page Builder is installed, a separate selector appears below the article selector. You can analyse SPPB pages and generate AI metadata for them using the same workflow.

SubSeller Products

If SubSeller is installed, a dedicated section lets you select products and generate AI meta descriptions and keywords for them. You can apply generated metadata individually or in bulk with the Apply All button.

All Articles Overview

The table at the bottom of the page lists every published article with its title, category, SEO score, meta description status, and last analysed date. You can filter by title using the search box. Each row has buttons for Analyse, Meta, and AI actions.

Site Audit

Navigate to Components → SE AI SEO → Site Audit to run a full-site SEO audit.

Running an Audit

Click Run Audit Now to scan your entire website. The audit analyses all published articles, categories, and site-wide configuration to produce a comprehensive SEO health report. A progress bar shows while the scan is running.

Audit Report

The report is divided into several sections.

Summary shows the total number of articles and categories scanned, the overall score, and counts of critical issues, warnings, and opportunities.

Critical Issues are high-impact problems that are likely hurting your rankings — for example, articles with no meta description, duplicate titles, or very thin content.

Important Issues are medium-impact problems worth addressing, such as short meta descriptions, missing alt text on images, or poor heading hierarchy.

Minor Issues are low-impact suggestions for further optimisation.

Content Opportunities highlights areas where new or expanded content could improve your site's coverage.

Schema Opportunities identifies pages that would benefit from structured data markup.

Recommended Fixes presents a prioritised action list ranked by impact, so you know exactly what to tackle first.

AI Recommendations

Click the AI button next to any audit in the history table to get AI-powered recommendations. Your configured AI provider will analyse the audit results and provide specific, actionable suggestions tailored to your site.

Audit History

Every audit is saved in a history table showing the score, critical count, warning count, and date. You can view any past audit by clicking View next to it.

Schema Generator

Navigate to Components → SE AI SEO → Schema Generator to create structured data (JSON-LD) for your pages.

What Is Schema?

Schema markup is structured data that helps search engines understand your content. It can enable rich results in search — such as star ratings, product prices, FAQ accordions, and breadcrumb trails. SE AI SEO generates valid JSON-LD that follows Google's structured data guidelines.

Generating from Products

If e-commerce extensions are detected (HikaShop, VirtueMart, SubSeller), a section at the top lets you auto-generate Product schemas for all your products in one click. Click Generate All Schemas next to the extension name, review the output, and then save them to the database. You can also copy the raw JSON-LD to your clipboard.

Manual Schema Creation

Below the product section, you can create schemas manually. Select a schema type from the dropdown — options include Article, FAQ, LocalBusiness, Product, HowTo, SoftwareApplication, and BreadcrumbList. Each type presents a form with the relevant fields.

Fill in the fields, select a target (global, or a specific article/page), and click Generate Schema. The JSON-LD output appears in a preview panel where you can review it, copy it, or save it to the database.

HowTo Steps

The HowTo schema form includes a step builder. Click Add Step to add as many steps as needed, each with a name and description text. Steps can be removed individually.

Breadcrumb Builder

The BreadcrumbList schema form lets you add breadcrumb items with a page name and URL for each level.

Saved Schemas

All saved schemas appear in a table at the bottom of the page showing the title, type, target, and creation date. Click View to see the full JSON-LD for any saved schema.

XML Sitemap

Navigate to Components → SE AI SEO → XML Sitemap to generate, deploy, and manage your sitemap.

Status Cards

Four cards at the top provide a quick health check. Sitemap File shows whether sitemap.xml is deployed, its size, and last update. robots.txt checks for a Sitemap reference — if missing, a Fix This button adds it in one click. Auto-Update Status shows the current automatic regeneration method. Search Engines shows whether IndexNow is configured and provides the notification button.

Generating a Sitemap

Under Generate XML Sitemap, choose which content types to include — Articles, Categories, Menus, and Extensions — using the checkboxes. Set the change frequency and priority values for each type. Click Generate Now and a progress bar appears while the component scans your site. The results show a breakdown of how many URLs were found by type.

Deploying

Generated sitemaps are stored in the database. To make one live, find it in the Sitemap History table and click the green Deploy button. This writes the file to your site root as sitemap.xml.

Notifying Search Engines

Click Notify Search Engines after deploying. This performs three actions. First, it ensures your robots.txt contains a Sitemap: reference, which is how Google discovers sitemaps. Second, it reports that Google's ping endpoint is no longer available and recommends submitting via Google Search Console. Third, if IndexNow is configured, it extracts every URL from your deployed sitemap and submits them to Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, and all other participating search engines in a single request.

Setting Up IndexNow

Go to Settings, scroll to the IndexNow section, click Generate Key, and save. The component creates a verification file in your site root automatically. After saving, a status indicator confirms the key file is deployed. Back on the Sitemap page, the Search Engines card will show "IndexNow configured" and the Notify button will submit to all participating engines.

Generation Options

Include images in sitemap adds <image:image> entries for article images using the Google Image Sitemap extension. Exclude pages marked as noindex automatically skips articles and categories that have a noindex robots directive. Both options are configured in Settings.

Sitemap History

Every generated sitemap is saved with its URL count, status (generated or deployed), and date. You can view the raw XML, redeploy an older version, or delete records.

Nuclear Option

Navigate to Components → SE AI SEO → Nuclear Option for bulk AI-powered SEO improvements across your entire site.

What It Does

The Nuclear Option lets you select multiple SEO actions and run them across all qualifying content at once. It uses your configured AI provider to generate metadata, expand content, create schemas, and fix categories — then applies everything with full logging.

Site Snapshot

At the top, summary cards show how many articles are missing meta descriptions, have short meta descriptions, have thin content, lack schema markup, how many categories have weak or missing descriptions, and how many third-party extensions were detected.

Selecting Actions

A checklist lets you pick which actions to run. Options include generating missing meta descriptions, improving short meta descriptions, expanding thin content (articles under roughly 300 words), generating Article schemas for pages without structured data, generating category descriptions, and generating meta for extension products (if SubSeller or similar is detected). Each option shows the number of items that will be affected.

Preview and Apply

Click Preview Changes to see what AI will generate for each item without making any changes. The results appear in a table showing the target, action type, generated content, and whether it came from AI or local analysis.

Once you've reviewed the preview, click Apply All Changes to write everything to your database. A confirmation prompt appears first. A progress bar tracks the operation, and every individual change is logged to the Action Log with the before and after states.

Safety

Every change the Nuclear Option makes is recorded with its original content. You can undo any individual change from the Action Log. The component always recommends backing up your site before running bulk operations.

Action Log

Navigate to Components → SE AI SEO → Action Log to see a full history of every change the component has made.

What Gets Logged

Every SEO change is recorded — meta title updates, meta description changes, content rewrites, content expansions, schema saves and deletions, and alt text changes. Each entry records the date and time, which user made the change, whether it was local analysis or AI-generated (and which AI provider), the target article or content item, a description of what changed, and the current status (active or undone).

Filtering

Use the dropdown filters at the top to narrow the log by source (Local or AI) and by action type (Meta Title, Meta Description, Content Rewrite, Content Expand, Schema, etc.).

Viewing Details

Click the eye icon next to any log entry to see a side-by-side comparison of the before and after states. This shows exactly what was changed — the old meta description versus the new one, the original content versus the expanded version, and so on.

Undoing Changes

Click the Undo button next to any active log entry to restore the original content. A confirmation prompt appears first. Once undone, the entry is marked with an "Undone" badge and the original content is restored to the database. Undo is available for all action types — metadata, content, schemas, and alt text.

Settings

Navigate to Components → SE AI SEO → Settings to configure the component.

AI Configuration

Select your active AI provider from the dropdown — Anthropic (Claude), OpenAI (GPT), Google Gemini, or None (local analysis only). You can configure API keys and model selections for all three providers and switch between them at any time. Use Test Connection to verify your API key and model are working.

Sitemap Settings

Automatic Sitemap Updates offers three modes. Off means manual only — you generate and deploy from the Sitemap page. Pseudo-Cron regenerates automatically when someone loads an admin page after the chosen interval has elapsed; this works on any hosting but only runs when the backend is accessed. Server Cron is the most reliable option, running on a fixed schedule independent of admin activity; example cron commands are provided for cPanel and Plesk.

Update Interval controls how often automatic regeneration occurs — every 6, 12, 24, or 48 hours, or weekly.

Include images in sitemap and Exclude pages marked as noindex are global options that apply to all sitemap generations.

IndexNow

The IndexNow section lets you configure the API key used to notify Bing, Yandex, DuckDuckGo, and other search engines. Click Generate Key to create a random key, then save. The key verification file is deployed to your site root automatically. A status indicator confirms whether the file is in place.