Salesforce B2C Commerce 24.7 > Merchandising Your Site > Search Engine Optimization

Configure SEO URLs

Optimizing site URLs for search engines improves user experience, rankings, linking functionality, and greatly increases site traffic.

If you are creating a site, URL Rules are automatically enabled and can be configured if you have permissions to the URL Rules module. Salesforce recommends configuring and testing URL Rules on a Sandbox before exporting them to Staging and replicating them to Production.

Note: You can use the deprecated SEO support by disabling the URL rules, though Salesforce recommends that you use the URL Rules module. This URL Rules module and the (deprecated) SEO Support module can't be enabled at the same time.

The maximum length of a storefront URL is 1800 characters. URLs that exceed this limit are shortened, but will still be valid and unique. In particular, product and content URLs will still contain the product or content ID.

The maximum number of configurable enabled URL search refinements is 30. The maximum number of enabled URL search refinements for a category/folder is 5.

To provide a different order of refinements in different locales, you can enable URL search refinements for specific locales. To exclude certain URL search refinements from being crawled by search engines, you can configure a locale specific constant to be added to the URL path. This constant can be used in a robot file to prevent further crawling.

  1. Start by enabling SEO URLs via storefront URL preferences.
    The URL Rules module and the (deprecated) SEO Support module can't be enabled at the same time.
  2. Configure hostname aliases for your site.

    Otherwise, URLs will not appear correctly in your storefront. See Hostname Aliases.

    Developer documentation and reference materials are available in English only. Refer to the English-language Infocenter https://sfcclearning.com/infocenter/ to access this information.

    See Configuring Hostname Aliases.

  3. In the URL Rule module (select the General Tab at site > Merchant Tools > SEO > URL Rules), you can view status and get information that enables you to handle conflicts.
    If you see the Search Support Preferences page instead of the URL Rules page General tab, navigate to Site Preferences > Storefront URLs to enable the URL Rules module.
  4. Click the Settings tab to configure locale-mapping settings.

    Developer documentation and reference materials are available in English only. Refer to the English-language Infocenter https://sfcclearning.com/infocenter/ to access this information.

    You can configure that your locale is determined from your hostname alias, URL path, or URL parameter.

    Alternatively, you can configure your locale within your hostname aliases configuration by using the locale and if-site-path syntax.

  5. Configure how your SEO URLs are created using your catalog or library. You can define the rules on how the URL is created and how enabled search refinements are mapped into your URL path instead of to parameters. Click the respective tab to configure the following:
    • Catalog|Content URLs: for category|folders URLs, category|folder search refinement URLs, and product|content asset URLs
    • Pipeline URLs: for search-friendly URL mappings for your pipelines
  6. Configure URL character replacement settings.

    You can configure character replacements for case (lower case), white space, and custom replacements are applied to your category, folder, and enabled search refinement URL mappings.

    The part that is rule-based, created for your product and content URLs, will be cleaned. The mandatory ID part of this URL is untouched.

    See URLs: Substituting Reserved and Special Characters.

  7. Configure how you want search refinements to appear in the URL via search refinement settings.
  8. When storefront URLs are enabled on your Production instance, it is typical that some of your URL mappings change. In this case, you want a redirect from the old mapping to the new mapping to enable customers or search engines to see the expected page.
    1. The URL archive functionality is responsible for automatically redirecting outdated category, folder, and pipeline URL mappings.

      This feature is enabled on your Staging and Production instances, where it automatically saves category, folder, and pipeline URL mappings when they become outdated, and can redirect them to new mappings.

      If you have an unwanted mapping in your archive, click the URL Archive tab, which only appears on the Staging instance, to delete or view these mappings.

    2. The URL Search refinement redirects functionality is responsible for redirecting outdated search refinement URL mappings. Click the URL Search Refinements tab to create search refinement redirects.
      The snapshot tool provides information on how your mappings have changed over time, from which you can easily create redirects.
  9. You might also need to:
    • Override generated SEO URLs
    • Create Home page links
    • Upgrade from SEO Support to the URL Rules.

Infocenter Retirement: On June 30, 2023, the Infocenter was retired, and documentation currently hosted on the Infocenter will be published to Salesforce Help, Commerce Cloud Developer Center, and Salesforce B2C Commerce Developer Documentation Resources. For more information, see the release note.