Using search engine friendly URLs

So far, we've focused on SEO techniques that you can apply when writing and formatting articles and when adding metadata. Another technique that can make search engines pick up the content of your site more easily is to make your URLs clear and readable.

You don't have to do anything to make this happen. By default, the Search Engine Friendly URLs option is set to Yes. In the SEO Settings window (found by navigating to System | Global Configuration | Site Tab), you can set the Search Engine Friendly URLs option to Yes if it is not already set. This is shown in the following screenshot:

The resulting URLs are readable and easy to understand. For example, http://www.example.com/index.php/getting-started. This is good news for site administrators, as they don't have to change any settings here. The default URLs are fine for search engines.

There's still some room for improvement. All default Joomla URLs still share the index.php file bit....