Hi,

Thank you for bringing this to our attention, and I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this behavior is causing on your site.

The expanding URL structure happens because the dynamic routing system builds each referenced item’s URL based on the current page context. When navigating back and forth between multi-reference items, the router continues appending slugs instead of resetting to a single base path. This is the default logic implemented for handling relational content, which unfortunately results in the long, repetitive URL pattern you’re seeing.

I have already discussed this with our development team. They are exploring whether there’s an alternative way to handle these dynamic references to avoid the URL stacking issue. However, due to the way the routing framework is currently structured, the chances of introducing a completely different behavior in the short term are quite low.

We truly appreciate your feedback, and we’ll keep you updated if any improvements become possible. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

Hi,

Thank you again for the clear explanation — it really helps us understand the situation from your side.

To explain it a bit more: this behavior is connected to how dynamic content handles relationships. Multi-reference fields can be nested without any limit — A → B → C → A → B → C — and so on. Because the system allows unlimited nesting, the router assumes each navigation step is a deeper level and keeps appending the slug to the URL. This is why the URL becomes long and repetitive when moving back and forth between related items.

In Joomla, this type of issue is less visible, but it actually works on a similar principle. Joomla typically allows only 2–3 levels of nesting for categories and menu items, so the URL depth is naturally limited. Also, Joomla uses the URL itself to track the hierarchy and relationships. If someone creates a very long, deeply nested menu structure in Joomla, the URLs will grow in the same way — because Joomla simply maps the structure into the URL.

The main difference is that in Joomla this rarely happens because people don’t usually create extremely deep nested structures. In dynamic content, however, relationships can be unlimited and circular, which makes the repetitive URL behavior more noticeable.

I’ve already discussed this with the development team. They fully understand the SEO concerns and are exploring whether a fixed base URL or canonical handling could be implemented. However, the chances of changing this behavior are very low, mainly because this is also how Joomla itself handles relations — through nested URLs — and altering that logic would require a major rewrite of the routing system.

We truly appreciate your feedback.

Just to show example...

When i open a mall page such https://bisnisportal.com/mall/central-park.html

Then i click on a tenant/brand, it goes like this https://bisnisportal.com/brand/central-park/higeorge.html

It can recognize "higeorge" as "brand", it can skip the "mall" on url, but it still include the "central-park" on the url (maybe because as reference)

If only it can just goes like bisnisportal.com/brand/higeorge.html instead...

Maybe can ignore the reference on the url... Since on backend clearly "higeorge" is part of "brand", and "central-park" is part of "mall".

Just to let you know, Google search result suggest such url below ("selma" is part of "brand") https://www.bisnisportal.com/mall/selma/central-park.html I recognize this problem, thats why i dont use multi-reference on brand detail page, but it still somehow crawl the brand first before the mall, i dont do this on frontend. Somehow the url crawled and prioritize by Google is uncontrolable.

instead the common sense or proper direct url https://www.bisnisportal.com/mall/central-park.html

I just want to say, this is bad SEO practice.

Hi,

Thank you for the examples — it clearly shows the SEO issue.

The behavior happens because Joomla’s routing builds URLs based on item hierarchy and relationships. When a brand like “higeorge” is referenced from a mall like “central-park,” Joomla generates the URL /brand/central-park/higeorge.html to reflect that relationship, even though “higeorge” belongs to the brand collection.

This is standard Joomla behavior — deeply nested or referenced items naturally appear in the URL. It’s not caused by a custom routing system. Because Joomla handles references and menu hierarchy this way, the chances of changing this behavior are very low.