---
title: "Using Search Engine Friendly URLs in Joomla 3.1"
description: "In the Global Configuration settings of Joomla 3.0 is a set of SEO Settings that you can adjust. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and configuring these parameters will allow you to change..."
url: https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/using-sef-urls/
date: 2012-07-25
modified: 2022-03-11
author: "Brad Markle"
categories: ["Joomla", "Joomla 3", "Search Engine Optimization"]
tags: ["Joomla v3"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# Using Search Engine Friendly URLs in Joomla 3.1

![seo-settings-search-engine-friendly-urls](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/edu_joomla-3_global-configuration_seo-settings-search-engine-friendly-urls.gif)

In the **Global Configuration** settings of Joomla 3.0 is a set of **SEO Settings** that you can adjust. SEO stands for *Search Engine Optimization*, and configuring these parameters will allow you to change various settings about your site that some search engines may look at when crawling your site.

In this tutorial, we’ll look specifically at the **Search Engine Friendly URLs** setting.

 

**To adjust your Joomla 3.0 SEF URL setting:**

1. [Log into your Joomla 3.0 admin dashboard](/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/how-to-log-in-to-administrative-dashboard/)
2. In the left menu under the **SYSTEM** heading, click **Global Configuration**
3. There are several tabs at the top: Site, System, Server, Permissions, Text Filters. Ensure you are on the **Site** tab by clicking on it.
4. On the right side of the page under the **SEO Settings** heading, find the **Search Engine Friendly URLs** setting. Select either Yes / No to adjust the value.
5. In the top left menu, click **Save** to save these changes. In our testing, [we wrote an article](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/joomla/joomla-3/create-new-article/) named *This is my first test article* and assigned it to the *Uncategorized* category. Below shows what the URL to this article looks like when we have the Search Engine Friendly URLs setting toggled to Yes / No: Search Engine Friendly URLs – YES https://domain.com/index.php/2-uncategorised/1-this-is-my-first-test-article Search Engine Friendly URLs – NO https://domain.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1:this-is-my-first-test-article&catid=2&Itemid=101