Astus installs like any Joomla extension. But installing is not enough: Joomla does install the modules, and displays none of them until you ask.
This is not an Astus defect, it is how Joomla behaves for every extension. Nobody guesses it, and many conclude the package is broken. So Astus has a screen that does the gesture for you.
What you need
Joomla 6.2 or newer. On an older Joomla the installation is refused with the message "Astus requires Joomla 6.2 or later. Please update Joomla first.". Update Joomla, then install again. No library, no companion extension, and no particular PHP version beyond what Joomla itself requires.
Installing
Extensions → Manage → Install, Upload Package File tab, drop the pkg_astus-x.y.z.zip file.
Updating works exactly the same way: reinstall the package over the top. Your settings and your measurements are kept.
The package contains six extensions:
| Extension | Role |
|---|---|
| The Astus component | The settings page and the full report |
| The System - Astus plugin | The engine: it does all the work |
| Module Astus SEO - Configuration | The chat window, and the state of your configuration |
| Module Astus SEO - Dashboard | Titles, summaries and images of your articles |
| Module Astus - Site audit | The four scores, and your figures in Google |
| Module Astus - Visitor assistant | The "I am an AI" bubble on the public site (optional) |
The component and the plugin are active as soon as they are installed. The three administrator modules are not. The fourth, the visitor assistant, is a public site module: it stays off until you publish it yourself, because every visitor question uses tokens. It has its own chapter: The visitor assistant.
The gesture nobody guesses
Open Components → Astus → Your extensions.
The screen lists the plugin and the three administrator modules with, for each, its state written out in words rather than shown by colour alone: Enabled, Installed, but not shown yet, Shown in position "cpanel", Missing.
Next to every module that is not yet visible sits a button: Show on my dashboard. Click it for all three.
Astus then creates the module instance, publishes it, and places it in the cpanel position, the administrator Control Panel, that is, the home page of your administration. Reload that page: all three modules are there.
Once everything is in place the screen says Everything is in place and the buttons disappear.
Why a button rather than automatic installation? Because publishing a module on somebody's dashboard without asking is not right. You see what is about to happen, and you trigger it.
Doing it by hand, if you prefer
Nothing forces you through that button. System → Modules → Administrator Modules, New, pick the Astus module you want, set its position to cpanel and publish it.
That is also the route to take if you want a module somewhere other than the dashboard, or several instances of the same module: two SEO dashboards, for example, one for articles and one for menu items.
The plugin is disabled?
If the System - Astus plugin shows as Disabled, an Enable button appears on the same screen. Without it nothing works: it is the engine.
Checking that it works
On the Joomla Control Panel you should now see:
- The Configuration module, with the list of checks on your Joomla and an overall score. It works immediately, with no key at all.
- The SEO module, with the green / amber / red count of your articles. Click Analyse all: it fills in without consuming any credit.
- The Site audit module, with four grey rings. They are grey because no measurement has been taken yet: that is normal.
To get your first scores, open Components → Astus → Site audit and click Measure my pages. Allow about a minute: Astus measures your home page, a list page and an article, one page at a time.
What not to do
Do not edit the extension's files. An update will overwrite them.
Do not uninstall the plugin while keeping the modules: they will display the message "The System - Astus plugin must be installed and enabled", which is exactly what is happening.
Do not measure a closed site. Google measures from its own servers: a local, staging or password-protected site cannot be. The rest of Astus still works.
And then
The settings shared by all of Astus, that is the keys, live in Components → Astus, Options button. That is where things continue: see Google keys, and declaring your property.