Use Search-Engine Safe URLs

[Philo2005]

On OSCOM CE Phoenix v1.0.4.0 shops there is the option

Use Search-Engine Safe URLs

in admin section / Configuration / My Store.

What is this option doing exactly? Is it recomanded to set to false or to true?

The variable $PHP_SELF may not have the value what I expect (but Iam not shure),
the Name of the page 'create_account.php' or 'create_account.php/langugage/en' or ' create_account.php/language/en/ceid=7e0482062e51eee6ea41fb0a9d94e1e4 ?

[Hotclutch]

 

[Denzel]

This option changes the URL from i.e.

https://www.myshop.com/product_info.php?sort=4d&cPath=22&products_id=829 

to 

https://www.myshop.com/product_info.php/sort=4d/cPath=22/products_id=829 

nothing more, nothing less... It's unnessessary for actual search engines and will be 

overwritten by USU anyway, if you care about SEO...

[♥ecartz]

5 hours ago, Philo2005 said:

What is this option doing exactly? Is it recomanded to set to false or to true?

False.  Once upon a time, search engines paid attention to things that were in the domain and path but not query parameters.  So it made sense to put things like product ID in the path rather than query parameters.  But all major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) can handle query parameters now. 

It was never quite right anyway and is totally useless now.  It just makes it look like you have duplicate pages.  The only reason it's still in core is that I haven't deleted it yet.  Maybe next month. 

If you really want better URLs, then install something like Ultimate SEO URLs or similar. 

2 hours ago, Denzel said:

https://www.myshop.com/product_info.php/sort=4d/cPath=22/products_id=829

That's not quite right.  It takes the = signs out too.  https://www.myshop.com/product_info.php/sort/4d/cPath/22/products_id/829

What it should do is make it look like https://www.example.com/product_info.php/products_id/829?sort=4d&cPath=22 but it's really an inferior solution.  Better to use an SEO URLs contribution so you can get the keyword benefits.  E.g. https://www.example.com/stamps.html?sort=4d&cPath=22

Note that Amazon.com does this like https://www.example.com/1989-German-first-class-stamp/dp/[product_id]?what=ever and then just ignores the first thing after the domain.  But they only do that for new products.  For old products, they leave the https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos URLs even though Obidos has been turned off for more than ten years. 

Anyway, when I delete SEF URLs, I plan to make it easier for people to make their own URL Apps.  Ideally I'd like to upload SEF URLs as an App in the marketplace.