---
title: "343: How to alter the format of SEF URLs in PrestaShop 1.5"
description: "When using SEF URLS in your PretaShop 1.5 store, you may not like the default format. For example, the format for a product is as follows: category/id-rewrite-text-ean13.html. This URL comes from..."
url: https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/edu/prestashop/343-alter-sef-url-format/
date: 2013-02-20
modified: 2021-08-16
author: "Scott Mitchell"
categories: ["Prestashop"]
type: post
lang: en
---

# 343: How to alter the format of SEF URLs in PrestaShop 1.5

When using SEF URLS in your PretaShop 1.5 store, you may not like the default format. For example, the format for a product is as follows: category/id–rewrite-text–ean13.html. This URL comes from different variables strung together to give you a more human-readable format. There are four parts to the URL as shown by the color differences in the text. Below is a table displaying the separate sections:

| Keyword | Sample Code | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| category | music-ipods | The category under which the product is listed. |
| id | 1 | The unique product ID number in the database. |
| rewrite text | ipod-nano | Thsi comes from the friendly URL field under the SEO tab of the Product Edit page. |
| ean13 | 123 | This comes from the ean13 or JAN field from the Information tab of the Product Edit page. |

**Why change the format?**
The friendly URL for an ipod nano using the sample code for each section above will be *https://prestashop.inmotiontesting.com/en/music-ipods/1-ipod-nano-123.html*. This URL may not suit your tastes and you may want to arrange it differently for your customers. Perhaps you want to remove the ean13 number, or move the product ID to the back, or make it appear as its own category separated by slashes. Unfortunately, you cannot remove the id entirely from the URL as it is required by PrestaShop’s core coding.

**Formatting Syntax**
The default URL format is *{category:/}{id}-{rewrite}{-:ean13}.html*. The syntax is fairly straight forward, each keyword is enclosed in a set of curly braces like *{}*. You can add a slash (/) or a dash (-) in between keywords (outside the curly braces) to add them to the URL. For example: *{category}/{id}-{rewrite}* will result in *category/id-rewrite*. You may also notice the use of the colon (:) character. This is used within a keyword when adding a slash or a dash. *{category :/}* results in *category/*. You can use either method to add dashes or slashes. Below we will change the default URL format for our ipod nano to be more visitor friendly.

## Modifying your SEF URL format in PrestaShop 1.5

1. [Log into your PrestaShop admin dashboard](/support/edu/prestashop/login-to-dashboard/).
2. Using the toolbar across the top of the page, hover over the *Preferences* tab and then click on the **SEO & URLs** option from the popup menu.
3. Once on the *SEO & URLs* page, scroll down until you get to the section labeled **Schema of URLs**. Although there are many fields to work with, we will work with the first one, **Route to products**. In our example, we will remove the *ean13* number from the URL by removing the keyword tag *{-:ean13}*. We also will add a slash instead of a dash between the product *ID* and the *rewrite* text. To do this we enter the code in the field as *{category:/}{id}/{rewrite}.html[![new url format coding](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/edu_prestashop1.5_how-to_change-sef-url-format_change-url.png)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/edu_prestashop1.5_how-to_change-sef-url-format_change-url.png) *
4. Once you have your desired format in place, click the green **Save** button in the upper right corner to save the changes. Below you can see the before and after shots for the URL formatting change. Before After format: *{category:/}{id}-{rewrite}{-:ean13}.html* format: *{category:/}{id}/{rewrite}.html* [![before url formatting change](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/edu_prestashop1.5_how-to_change-sef-url-format_before.png)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/edu_prestashop1.5_how-to_change-sef-url-format_before.png) [![after SEF URL format changes](https://www.inmotionhosting.com/support/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/edu_prestashop1.5_how-to_change-sef-url-format_after.png)](/support/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/edu_prestashop1.5_how-to_change-sef-url-format_after.png)