How to turn on the Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URL on your site?

I have to assume that your site is a cms website (Joomla). This is because it is a very powerful cms website and to turn on SEF URL is such an easy task. Joomla itself has come with the basic built-in SEF URL feature where you can activate it with a few clicks. Besides that, there are many third-party components which help in SEF URL on Joomla website, such as Artio SEF, JPromoter, Open SEF, Remosef, SEF Advance, sh404SEF and many more! Personally I recommend sh404SEF because it is so simple to use and yet it is so powerful.

How to turn on the built-in SEF URL on Joomla site?

Here are steps of how you should do it:

• Ensure your website is a Joomla website. If not, create a website here for FREE!
• Find the file “htaccess.txt” located at /root/public_html/ directory and back up the file. Then rename the file to “.htaccess”.
• Go to “Global Configuration” in the Joomla Admin area.
• In the box of “SEO Settings” , there are 3 options that are “Search Engine Friendly URLs”, “Use Apache mod_rewrite”, “Add suffix to URLs”.
• Change to radio button of “Yes” for “Search Engine Friendly URLs”, “Use Apache mod_rewrite”.
• Save the settings.
• That’s it, folks! Your site is now SEF!!

How to turn on the sh404SEF on Joomla site?

Here are steps of how you should do it:

• Ensure your website is a Joomla website. If not, create a website here for FREE!
• Download sh404SEF component from http://extensions.joomla.org/component/option,com_mtree/task,viewlink/link_id,2380/Itemid,35/
• Install sh404SEF component via Joomla Admin area.
• Find the file “htaccess.txt” located at /root/public_html/ directory and back up the file. Then rename the file to “.htaccess”.
• Go to “sh404SEF” in the Joomla Admin area.
• Click the words “Click here to switch to extended display (with all available parameters).”  To change to extended display.
• Click the “sh404SEF Configuration”.
• In “Main” tab, select “Yes” for “Enabled”.
• In “Advance” tab, select “with .htaccess (mod_rewrite)” for “Rewriting mode”.
• Save the settings.
• That’s it, folks! Your site is now SEF!!