0

I'm a complete newbie to Joomla here (been working with it for a few days only) and wanted to ask what is probably a silly question. For clarification I'm not using any SEF extensions/plugins - only Google Structured Data.

How do I change a page URL from something like: sitename.com/component/newsfeed/component/newsfeed/login to simply sitename.com/login ? I've enabled SEF friendly URLs and URL rewriting in the global settings, and this has fixed all of the pages accessible via the top menu, however any page that has another page as its parent rather than the top menu itself has an unbelievably convoluted link which is unfriendly to search engines. Is there any way that I can fix this manually? I've tried changing the "alias" parameter on each menu page but it doesn't do anything.

Many thanks for any help. Apologies if I'm missing something obvious.

Improve this question
2
  • Is it a public website that you can provide a link to so people can see how the site is set up and maybe able to help you. The example of the SEF URL you have provided doesn't look like something you would normally see with elements being duplicated therefore I think there is something else at play beside a normal Joomla configuration.
    – Irata ♦
    Commented Sep 18, 2023 at 10:44
  • Hi - thanks for the response! Unfortunately the website owner does not want me to post the URL in public. He has said that I can PM the link, if you want. Thanks
    – dkdk96
    Commented Sep 20, 2023 at 8:23

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

Generally if you have 'component' as one of the segments in your URL it means that the Joomla router can't find a menuitem which matches the component it's been asked to route to - ie 'newsfeed' in your case.

This is usually an undesirable situation, as it means that Joomla will base the URL on top of the home page, and so it will get all the modules, formatting etc that is associated with the home page, which is sometimes not what you want.

(Sorry, I realise that's a lot of Joomla jargon!).

The solution that often works is to set up a hidden menuitem which matches the component. In your case you could set up a menuitem to a Menu Item Type of News Feeds / Single News Feed. You set it hidden on the Link Type tab, by setting Display in Menu to No. This means that it won't be visible on any menu, but can still be used by the router to generate URLs.

Or similarly you could set up a hidden menuitem with a Menu Item Type of Users / Login Form.

Improve this answer
8
  • Thank you for the informative comment! That's interesting - the "login" menu page links to the above URL, and when I changed it to the newsfeed->login component it just links to the news feed page - this fixes the URL, which is great; however it doesn't actually load any content in. I then tried making a hidden menuitem and linking the original to the new one via a URL (was this what you intended? sorry if I misunderstood) and it resulted in a 404 erorr page. I'm losing my mind here, I'd appreciate any help!
    – dkdk96
    Commented Sep 20, 2023 at 8:26
  • Hmm, there's obviously some misunderstanding. Could you explain what you mean by the "newsfeed->login component" by describing how you go about setting that up? The standard way of allowing people to login to a joomla site is by displaying the Site Module called Login Form (and defining in its Menu Assignment tab which pages it should be shown on) and/or displaying the com_users login page by defining a menuitem which points to a Menu Item Type of Users / Login Form. Do you have something else? Are you using vanilla Joomla or do you have a third party extension installed?
    – Robbie Jackson
    Commented Sep 20, 2023 at 15:21
  • Hi, apologies for any bad explanation that I may have given. Thanks for responding. The 'login' menu's parent menu is a 'newsfeed' menu - the login "menu item type" is a URL, and it just links to the current page with a very long URL like the one I posted above. I tried to change this by altering the menuitem to "newsfeed -> login", since that's the only place I could find a login form there. Btw: I didn't make this website, the owner hired a third party to do it and he's now being ghosted. I have not installed anything, but there are 226 extensions listed under the 'manage extensions' tab.
    – dkdk96
    Commented Sep 20, 2023 at 16:13
  • Doing the above is what caused the URL to be fixed on the menu, but for the login page to disappear entirely, resulting in a 404 error. I'm not sure if I have done something wrong, or merely misunderstood what you wrote (sorry, if so). I'm not a web developer, my background is in digital marketing and as I'm more tech-savvy than my friend who owns the website (and is a self-proclaimed technophobe) I said I would look for him. But tbh, I can't make any sense of this. Would greatly appreciate any help you're able to give :)
    – dkdk96
    Commented Sep 20, 2023 at 16:14
  • ok, would be worth checking in Manage Extensions for ones which don't have Author as Joomla Project, especially any with "news" in the title. If you wanted to link to the site login page then you can just replace your menuitem which has the URL with a menuitem pointing to the Users / Login Form. However, if it's a third party extension it may have it's own login form which is doing something beyond what vanilla joomla does, and you may find it doesn't work. Also if you have access to the file system, check if there's an extension called com_newsfeed. The joomla one is com_newsfeeds (with an s)
    – Robbie Jackson
    Commented Sep 20, 2023 at 16:39

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.