Making Joomla site SEO friendly by removing ID from URLs - JoomShaper

Making Joomla site SEO friendly by removing ID from URLs

23 June 2018
Hits 32,058
2 min read
Making Joomla site SEO friendly by removing ID from URLs

Before we begin, let's have a brief look at the URL variations of Joomla.

The evaluation of Joomla URL
The ancient one:
www.example.com/index.php/category-alias/123-article-alias

The customized one:
www.example.com/category-alias/123-article-alias

The modern one (after customization):
www.example.com/category-alias/article-alias

The difference among all those three versions of URLs is pretty visible. The first one (as I’m calling it the ancient one) is not user-friendly at all. It has an extra index.php and a random number (ID) in the middle of the URL. That makes it non-readable and people are very likely to forget them.

You’ll get the ancient one right after you install Joomla. If you want to get the customized one (removing index.php from URLs), I’d suggest you have a look at this article which explains how to do so with a very simple step by step guideline. And, today’s article will show you how to remove ID from URLs in Joomla.

Let's go through the step by step guideline

Step 1

We need to log into the Joomla admin area of our website then go to System > Global Configuration.

Making Joomla SEO friendly URL by removing ID

Step 2

Now select “Articles” from the left sidebar.

Making Joomla SEO friendly URL by removing ID

Step 3

Navigate to the “Integration” tab of Articles configuration.

Making Joomla SEO friendly URL by removing ID

Step 4

We will change the “URL Routing” option. The following screenshot shows the default settings. 

Making Joomla SEO friendly URL by removing ID

Step 5

This is the step where we’ll do the actual work. We need to change “URL Routing” from “Legacy” to “Modern”. Doing so will open up a new option “Remove IDs from URLs”, we need to set it to “Yes”.

Making Joomla SEO friendly URL by removing ID

Yes, we’re done here. You need to hit “Save” or “Save & Close” before you can see the result.

This URL Routing feature can be enabled for few other components. The above process was shown for Article component. If you want to enable URL Routing for other components like contacts, news feeds, and users you can do so as well. The process is pretty much same. But hey, if you face any difficulties just comment below. We are always here to help. Thanks for being with JoomShaper. 

Previous Step: The most crucial step to make your Joomla site SEO friendly.

Chris
Chris
5 years ago
Does this work, or can it be made to work for categories as well? I see this issue with J2Store when you use their own internal filter/category side bar, as these link to category IDs which is a bit poor for SEO.
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
5 years ago
I would recommend you to contact with [url="https://www.j2store.org/"]j2store[/url] they'll be able to answer your question properly.
- Thanks
Numair Sheikh
Numair Sheikh
5 years ago
Hey, Good information provider thank you, I think it's all about URL structure those URL has their id's and numbers also special character like "?" that all are count as not friendly URL. If we will use proper text-based URL so it's count as Google Friendly URL and it affected on Google search results. It plays a main role in website ranking.
HG
Harman Gomez
5 years ago
This is just awesome.
Great news.
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
5 years ago
Thank you :)
RD
Radar Detector
5 years ago
Nice article.Thank You
novingate
novingate
5 years ago
good luck
Emmanuel Antigha
Emmanuel Antigha
5 years ago
Good evening sir thank you for the article....These are what I experience after following the procedure to implement it on my live site www.webtarget.com.ng. All the 6 featured articles display this error while loading

"Warning: require_once(/home/webtarge/public_html/libraries/joomla/document/html/renderer/head.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/webtarge/public_html/templates/shaper_university/error.php on line 27

Fatal error: require_once(): Failed opening required '/home/webtarge/public_html/libraries/joomla/document/html/renderer/head.php' (include_path='.:/opt/php54/lib/php') in /home/webtarge/public_html/templates/shaper_university/error.php on line 27"

So i went back and undid the setting and jet no different please help me. Am so afraid right now because i have lot of visitor on the site.
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
You have template based on Helix II ?
Have you updated template Helix framework to last stable version (2.5) ? If you do not know how, please just install template: https://www.joomshaper.com/joomla-templates/helix-ii
it will update all elements. And in theory should help.
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
In general we suggest o create a new forum topic, comment section is not perfect place for support.
JS
Jordan Skerda
5 years ago
I followed these instructions, but my "Sign Up" page is still displaying the ID, even after deleting and creating a new one.

Does it have to be placed inside a category first to work?
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
5 years ago
Hi Jordan,

The only reason I can see it's not working is because you probably forget to add the "Sign Up" page to the menu. Here take a look at this screenshot. http://prntscr.com/kxxcjn

Thanks
JS
Jordan Skerda
5 years ago
You are a magician as usual! Thank you
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
5 years ago
LOL. You're welcome.
H
Herb
5 years ago
one question,
If i remove the id from the url site wide. Will i have to make redirects for every single page or will seo transfer automatically.
example.com/111try
example.com/try
will i need redirect or will the seo already created for /111try automatically transfer to try?
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
5 years ago
The URL would be changed automatically.
P
pawan
5 years ago
hi.
I have change all the settings. but it does not work for me. when i change the settings it shows the urls like
www.sitename.com/?view=article&id=1:aloo-gobi&catid=8
please help me
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
5 years ago
As far I guess, the issue is related to .htaccess. Please follow this article for a detailed guideline - [url="https://www.joomshaper.com/blog/make-your-joomla-site-seo-friendly"]SOLUTION ARTICLE link[/url]. Don't forget to let us know if it worked for you.
M
Mike
4 years ago
Hi, I have this very same problem with my Joomla website. Everything is up to date and I had already modified the name of my htaccess file to remove index.php from my url. Do you have any further ideas on what I can try? I am using Dreamhost, with Helix Ultimate.
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
4 years ago
Hi Mike,

It is required to look into your website configuration in order to know what's causing this. You can reach out [url="https://www.joomshaper.com/forums"]to our forum[/url] or directly ping [url="https://www.joomshaper.com/forums/profile/53838-toufiq"]Toufiq[/url] our star support engineer.
M
Manjeet
5 years ago
I have a strange issue in my site.

I created a thank you page, but unfortunatily this isn't opening using alias, but if I use non seo friendly link - http://prntscr.com/n2kv2h

This is opening fine.

what I am missing ?

FYI Whole website is already set to SEO friendly and working fine.

anybody can help ?
Paul Frankowski
Paul Frankowski
5 years ago
Make sure that in your contact component or module, with redirection option, you used a proper link. For this kind of questions please use forum.joomla.org. We can help mostly our customers.
M
Mateusz
4 years ago
Hi

Thank you for a good solution. But there is some issue - I have done all step by step, but old URLs are not redirected. I got plenty of URLs in social media, etc. and want to keep them working. Now old URLs points to 404. Could you please advise how can I fix this issue and keep all old links working and redirecting from "xxx-urladdress" to "urladdress" automatically?

Best Greetings,
HX
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
4 years ago
Sorry for the delay Mateusz. Yes, there is a solution and it's pretty easy. There is a default Joomla Plugin for that, when enabled it redirects your old URLs to the new ones. Here's how you should solve the issue:

Step 1: Navigate to Joomla backend > Extensions > Plugins > find and enable "System - Redirect"
Step 2: Go to Joomla backend > Components > Redirect. (when this plugin is enabled it collects all the expired URL hits.)
Step 3: Now you need to list your old URLs and insert the new ones in their place. To do that click "New"
Step 4: You'll be presented with this screen https://prnt.sc/qfvc3a ; enter your expired URL along with the new link.
Step 5: Repeat this process for all the expired URLs.

This should solve your issue.

Thanks,
Saif
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
4 years ago
For better understanding the process, please refer to this [url="https://www.joomshaper.com/blog/how-to-use-joomla-url-redirect-feature"]extensive tutorial[/url].
senolsengul
senolsengul
4 years ago
Hello,
There are about five hundred links on our website

I think removing the ID numbers is it positive or negative?

I am asking this because we have a lot of links because I think it is necessary to redirect all
senolsengul
senolsengul
4 years ago
Hello,
There are about five hundred links on our website

I think removing the ID numbers is it positive or negative?

I am asking this because we have a lot of links because I think it is necessary to redirect all
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
4 years ago
Hi senolsengul,

Removing IDs from URLs is always a good thing. However, since you have a ton of URLs. The call is yours. If you remove IDs from URLs you'll need to manually redirect them to the new links. That will require a lot of resources (time). You can have a [url="https://www.joomshaper.com/blog/fix-broken-links-on-joomla"]look at this article[/url] for a proper guideline.
senolsengul
senolsengul
4 years ago
Thank you

This process is going to mess me up a bit
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
4 years ago
Hehe, good luck :-D
Hamed
Hamed
4 years ago
hi

My joomla version is: 3.9.15

This function (Integration) dont work correct.

Seo setting for mod_rewrite and rename htaccess is activated.
Saifur Rahman
Saifur Rahman
4 years ago
Hi Hamed, kindly make sure you have completed all the steps from [url="https://www.joomshaper.com/blog/make-your-joomla-site-seo-friendly"]this blog post[/url] before making changes to the functions.
D
Dima
2 years ago
Pure GOLD !!

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