Custom Features

Some of Drupal's primary standardised features are explained below.

Content Management:

Theme templates allow you to control the general aesthetic appearance of your website by separating presentation from content. Drupal is not a system segregated into back-end and front-end; all users including administrators access the website and edit its content through the same interface. Content creation is as simple as entering text, images or whatever and clicking submit – the page is immediately stored in the database and a link automatically added to the navigation menu.

Menu and category management is unconstrained and intuitive. The data can be organised in separate navigation blocks, and each category can have individual access restrictions applied to it.

Forum and comment sections can be excellent features for a website but also require a flexible array of tools for content moderation. Drupal has detailed options for dealing with these issues, with modules available to moderate all sizes of sites and content requirements.

User management:

Drupal operates a role-based permission system to obviate the inconvenience of setting up individual permission settings for each user. Instead, each level of permission is assigned to a 'role', into which similar users are then grouped. Users register either locally or through an external authentification source such as OpenID or Facebook Connect.

Drupal produces comprehensive tracking statistics and analysis of your website's users, including referrals and the breakdown of traffic according to content.

Drupal websites may be operated entirely using a web browser, meaning it can be controlled and monitored from anywhere on the globe without any additional software requirements.

Security features:

Totally flexible access restrictions, which can be finely specified for different levels of users, ensure a precise division between personal and public.

Drupal websites use email address verification when registering new users, and also employs Captcha secured user registration (that box of almost illegible words).

Drupal has advanced spam and troll protection to root out irritants, and a word filter to keep things clean (if desired).

Because Drupal is open-source and has a developer community in the tens of thousands, there are MANY eyes pouring over the source code of Drupal looking for vulnerabilities. Good coding practices keep the vulnerabilities to a minimum, but when they are found, they are found rapidly and patches are released through the Drupal security network.

Search Engine Optimisation:

Improve the quantity and quality of traffic to your website by specifying custom file path names and keywords. This assists search engines in identifying your site and directing internet users towards it.

Using Apache's mod_rewrite, Drupal improves SEO and general functionality by enabling customisable URLs that are both user and search engine friendly (eg. www.example.com/drupal rather than www.example.com/node/1156).

By default Drupal outputs well optimised, XHTML Strict compliant markup, meaning search engines are able to read your website's source code effectively and cleanly, which contributes greatly to your search engine ranking.

More than the sum of its parts:

Drupal offers its users an unparallelled combination of high-end power and performance with flexibility and scalability. DogHouse recommends it to many clients searching for a content management system because once we have guided our customers up a fairly steep learning curve, the freedom and depth it offers to them is absolutely second to none. With no ongoing licensing or operating fees, and because Drupal runs on a freely available source code, once your website is up and running its expansion and development are entirely yours to determine.