SEF Urls for Virtuemart

Once SEF software has been installed on virtuemart all of the urls being used are in fact SEF. However, they are not necessarily much more human friendly. This describes how to change these urls to be friendly to humans and search engines alike.

The bottom line is that to create Friendly urls you have to have a menu navigation structure that goes to each of the pages (urls) you'd like to control. The most practicle way to do this is to simply create a menu for each url.

1. Access admin side of site
2. Create Categories Menu
3. Create Menu Item for each Category in Virtuemart
4. Create Menu Item for each Product in Virtuemart
5. Save

For ease of use its probably best to open two windows or tabs to the sites admin side. In one you will be creating new menu items and in the other you will be referencing the virtuemart categories and product listings.

If you don't already have a categories menu for virtuemart you'll need to go to menus > menu manager in the top menu to create one. If you can already see a categories menu in the menus drop down then skip this step.

Open up your second admin tab and navigate to components > virtuemart. On the left hand side go to products > list categories (depending on your security/virtuemart install you may have to reauthenticate and log in again). Here you will see the full category tree for virtuemart.

Within your first admin tab - Go to your newly created categories menu from  menus > CatgoriesMenu to view its current menu items. Use the top right navigaion to create a new menu item. Click New, select type as virtuemart. Type in the name of the category in the name field and then in the parameters to the right select the component tab and enter in the category id - finally save. Repeat this for each of your level one categories.

A similar process is repeated for the level two. Use the top right navigaion to create a new menu item. Click New, select type as virtuemart. Type in the name of the category in the name field and select the parent category from the list below. Then in the parameters to the right select the component tab and enter in the category id and save. I suggest starting with the subcatgories of the last level1 category in your list - it makes for less scrolling when selecting the parent.

Once all of the categories are created move on to the products. Navigate to list products within your virtuemart admin page to view all of the products. Use the filter tool above the product list to limit yourself to the products within a single category (if your products are cross-referenced in multiple categories you'll need to chose a system for avoiding repeat menu item entries).

Create a new menu item within your categories menu. Fill in the name, parent category for the product, and then in the right hand parameters select component and enter the correct product id. Save. This must be repeated for each product that you want a friendly url for.

Note: any links you have to virtuemart categories and products elsewhere on the site should be menulinks
 to these menu items or should be created in the same manner - any direct urls (pre-sef) will create 404s.