lauramba!

I recently received a question from a professional in Long Beach California who asks "Can I use a CMS like Joomla or Drupla to make a site searchable and easily updatable? Any suggestions?"

My answer is YES! Drupal and Joomla are clearly great programs that make a site easy to update and search. Here are some thoughts.

1) Joomla is easy to update and with the help of RocketTheme Template Club (and other clubs) it is easy to create an attractive site.

2) Drupal is just as easy to update and with the growing number of template clubs is easy to create an attractive site.

3) The issue of "searchable" is one that requires a bit more information and explanation. First, let's consider what and how you wish to search. I suspect the site owner would like to have the ability to create and run queries. Queries (in this example) are information retrievals from a Web database. So really, we need to understand which CMS program database is best at creating and generating queries.

Joomla vs Drupal:

When a site owner creates a site with Joomla they add content in the form of "Articles". The articles are categorized by Sections and Categories. These sections and categories make it easy to generate queries. The "Articles" have a title, a body, sections, categories, and keywords.

Drupal on the other hand has far more options for organizing information and creating queries. When site owners add content they select a content type. This is the first distinction. There can be unlimited content types AND these content types can have unlimited fields. The ability to create fields is the second distinction. There is a fabulous module called CCK (Content Construction Kit) that allows the site owner to create custom fields to hold information that is easy to query, easy to organize, and easy to style (examples below). Additionally, Drupal uses FLEXIBLE taxonomy to categorize information.

Here is an example, in my Trainer Site I use 15 content types (see image attached) to organize my information. In the content type "training" I have over 20 fields, which are grouped in five "field groups". I then use "Views" to build powerful queries that make it easy to search and display information.

If I were using Joomla, I would have one content type (articles), two fields, and zero field groups. Ouch! When I was at Joomla Day in SF (Sept 2008) I asked one of the speakers if there was an extension that allowed me to create content types and add fields. The speaker blinked and asked me what I meant! In all fairness, I believe there is an extension that I could purchase that would give me some of the functionality I get from Drupal (for free), but why would I go that route? My site depends on this functionality and if one of the "experts" is unfamiliar with this functionality, I can assume this for-fee extension is not well supported by the Joomla community.

So my long answer to this simple question is that I would build a site with Drupal and I would use the fabulous CCK and Views modules. Am I biased? Yes and No. I personally build an equal number of Joomla sites as I do Drupal sites. I am biased in that I build sites that rely upon the strengths of the program.

If you want to see how I use five CMS programs at one site check out CMS Personal Trainer.

Thanks RJ for the question.