Enabling SEO URLs in the OpenCart admin
- Login to your OpenCart admin panel.
- Navigate to System > Settings and click the "Edit" link.
- On the "Server" tab, set "Use SEO URL’s" to "Yes" and save the changes.
- Connect to your server via FTP using any FTP client (e.g. FileZilla)
- In your main OpenCart directory, there should be a file called
.htaccess.txt
. Rename it to.htaccess
. If you already have an.htaccess
file, add this code at the end of the file:
# SEO URL Settings
RewriteEngine On
# If your opencart installation does not run on the main web folder make sure you folder it does run in ie. / becomes /shop/
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^sitemap.xml$ index.php?route=feed/google_sitemap [L]
RewriteRule ^googlebase.xml$ index.php?route=feed/google_base [L]
RewriteRule ^download/(.*) /index.php?route=error/not_found [L]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !.*\.(ico|gif|jpg|jpeg|png|js|css)
RewriteRule ^([^?]*) index.php?_route_=$1 [L,QSA]
6.* If your store is in a separate directory (e.g. "shop"), open the .htaccess
file in a text editor and look for this line:
RewriteBase /
If your shop is installed in a directory called “shop
“, for example, change the above line in the .htaccess
file to:
RewriteBase /shop/
Remember to put the slash (/
) at the end. Otherwise the SEO URLs will not work with OpenCart.
Adding SEO keywords for your products and categories
Note: The default OpenCart SEO URL functionality doesn't work with multi language multi shops. You'll need to install an extension for that.
Note 2: Do not use spaces in your keywords. Use only unique SEO keywords. You cannot use the same keyword for a product and a category.
To add SEO keywords for your products:
- Go to Catalog > Products
- Click "Edit" for a product
- On the "Data" tab fill in the SEO keyword field
- Go to Catalog > Categories and repeat the process for your categories
If SEO URLs don't work
- Contact your hosting account provider and ask them if
mod_rewrite
is enabled on your hosting account. - Download the default OpenCart
.htaccess
file here
and upload it to the main directory of your store. If your store is installed in a separate directory (e.g.shop
) make sure to open this.htaccess
file first and change this lineRewriteBase /
toRewriteBase /shop/
or whatever the name of your OpenCart directory is.
Dear Gergana,
I have done the above exactly the way you describe. Anyway, after changing htaccess.txt to htaccess I can not longer access my backend. Do you think this has something to do with the fact that I use a multi store?
Hopefully you can help me out!?
Kind regards,
Annemiek
Hi Annemiek,
Can I have your website URL to have a look?
Hi,
That´s an awesome post. I am starting working with OC and just installed the latest version yesterday. And I believe there is a lot of things to come.
Regards,
Fabiano Viana