Removing ID numbers from Prestashop URLs - Pretty URL Module

Prestashop is a database driven system. Whenever you view any page it exracts the relevant information from the database and displays it. To do so it uses the parameters passed trough the page URL to identfiy the page type and the specific category or product. You can see these parameters when the friendly URL setting is disabled.

When the friendly URL is enabled, some of this information is passed by the URL structure, but it still needs an identifier for the specific product, category or the page content you are viewing. This information is passed as the number preceeding the friendly URL you enter. Prestashop extracts this number and searches the database for the relevant information.

Such numbers and digits in the URL does not cause any significant disadvantages in search engine optimization. Search engines can still index the page, and relevant keywords within the URL are still taken into account. By itself, removing such numbers from a single URL does not help much. But there is more to search engine optimization and a user friendly site than how a single page is perceived.

This brings us to the structure of the URLs. The id numbers break the URL structure in such a way that category and product links are not related to each other. The product URLs do not contain the URL of the category they are in. Let's check a sample URL to see this. A typical product URL in Prestashop looks like this:

www.example.com/category-link/1-product-link.html

Just looking at this URL, there is no way to go the category page without first going into the product page and following the link there. When you remove the product section from the URL you end up with:

www.example.com/category-link/

This will redirect to a 404 page not found page, as it does not have the category id. This has a negative impact on your ranking, as well as the usability of your site. As the URLs are not intuitive, it is harder to browse the site. With the pretty URL module you can remove all the id numbers from all your URLs, and have this structure. You can check the details of the module here:

http://www.bvkyazilim.com/cart/prestashop-modules/prestashop-pretty-url.html

One additional benefit of this structure is that your visitors will have an easier time browsing your site. When you type a category URL into the address bar of your web browser, it will immediately list all the products from the same category you visited, since all thos URLs now contain the category URL within them. Ctageories and products will now have direct parent-child relationship in their URLs. You can just remove the last section of the URL to go to the category of the product you are viewing, or the parent category of the category you are viewing.

Our Pretty URL module is a time tested, robust module that has been installed on hundreds of shops. Being developed and maintained over several years on many different shops, it is easy to install with little to no issues. It now supports Prestahsop version 1.6 (and the earlier 1.5 and 1.4). Buy one now and you will get access to updates for one year.