Using URL Rules for SEO
You can increase site traffic by optimizing your site URLs for external search engines, such as Google or Yahoo. 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.
The maximum length of a storefront URL is 1800 characters. URLs that exceed this are shortened, but will still be valid and unique. In particular, product and content URLs will still contain the product or content ID.
Several settings apply across all URL types. These include localization, capitalization, and space encoding in URLs.
Optimize your site URLs in the following ways:
- URLs shouldn't contain a page type indicator or a proprietary extension “sc.html”
- URLs should be short and meaningful
- URLs shouldn't contain demandware
Configuration in Business Manager
When you have enabled SEO URLs, you can configure them by selecting for:
You will also need to resolve conflicts and configure general settings, and you can review the archive.
Permissions
The URL Rules module has a modular permission that must be set for the module to be visible in Business Manager. See Configuring Storefront URL Preferences.
Import/Export
URL rules are imported/exported as part of the Site import/export module Site URLs item. If you want to export the rules from the SEO Support module, these are still exported from the Site import/export module site preferences item.
The URL file must be exported as part of the existing Site URLs unit.
Replication
| Configuration | Replication Task |
|---|---|
| Category URLs | Site > Category URLs |
| Folder URLs | Site > Folder URLs |
| Pipeline URLs | Site > Pipeline URLs |
| URL rules | Site > Site URL Rules (or part of existing URL replication group) |