SEO/Search Engine Friendly URLs

Friendly URLs attempt to mask the fact that your content is being served up by an application by rewriting the URL that Visitors see in their URL bar. For example, a page with the URL "http://example.com/some-friendly-page" is more friendly than a page with the URL "http://example.com/index.php?cID=some-unfriendly-id".

Friendly URLs are not only more likely to be indexed by a search engine, they are more likely to be remembered by a human.

Friendly URLs in Zenario

With Zenario you can set an alphanumeric alias for every page on your site, for example:

http://example.com/index.php?cID=my_page

If you use friendly URLs, this could be written with a .html suffix:

http://example.com/my_page.html

or with no suffix:

http://example.com/my_page

Enabling mod_rewrite Functionality

Friendly URLs require mod_rewrite functionality.

The CMS will install and run without friendly URLs mod_rewrite, but if your server supports mod_rewrite then we recommend using it.

To enable mod_rewrite features, you should first check that mod_rewrite is enabled in your Apache web server installation. You can then enable friendly URLs as follows:

1. Create a .htaccess file

In the download, you should find a file named .htaccess. Provided Apache is configured to read directives from .htaccess files in your web directory, you can just use it as it is.

If you are running the CMS on shared hosting and the URL to your site contains a tilde (~), you will need slightly different rules. You should edit the htaccess_for_tildes_in_home_dir.txt file, replace "yourname" with your directory name, then save this file as .htaccess.

(If you are using a Windows server you may not be able to rename the file using Windows Explorer. However you can work around this limitation by opening it with a text-editor and saving it with a different name.)

2. Enable Friendly URLs in Site Settings

To enable the friendly URLs you will also need to enable them in the CMS by changing the mod_rewrite_enabled and mod_rewrite_suffix site settings.

To do this go to Organizer > Configuration > Site settings > URLs and click "Properties"

An admin box will open where you can choose to use mod_rewrite as well as choose the suffix that goes onto the end of the URL (.htm or .html).

Click "Save" to save the settings you have just chosen.

Enabling .htaccess files in your Apache config (advanced)

There is a setting in Apache that controls whether the .htaccess files are enabled. That is usually done in either a global apache.conf file, or in a virtual host file. For example:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName yoursite.tribalsystems.uk
    ServerAdmin you@yourdomain.com
    
    DocumentRoot /var/www/clients/yoursite/public_html
    <Directory /var/www/clients/yoursite/public_html/>
        AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        allow from all
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Note that the line AllowOverride All is important. If it is set to "None", Apachewill not read your .htaccess files.