A quick note: this modification will only work if your site is on a LINUX/UNIX server running Apache. It will not work on a Windows server. To determine what server your site is on, contact your ISP or your company IT people.

This article assumes that you have a current version of Joomla installed and understand how to access the administration area of your Joomla installation and are familiar with it. You should also have a basic understanding of how to use File Transfer Protocol (FTP) and have a good FTP program on your computer.

First, you will have to access your site via FTP. After you have logged on to the root directory of your site, locate the htaccess.txt file that should have been originally installed in your Joomla set up. Assuming that you can can change the name of files directly on the server, rename the file to:.htaccess (note the period in the beginning, this is required as is the removal of.txt).

Next, log on to the administration area and go to "Global Configuration", make sure to click on "Site". Then, check "Yes" for both "Search Engine Friendly URLs" and "Use Apache mod_rewrite" and click save. Now if you go through your site, you should note more search engine friendly URLs.

I would like to point out that this is a quick "fix" and may not work with all of the components installed on your site. You may wish to go to Joomla.org and check out some search engine friendly extensions that can be configured to work with most of the popular components currently available. I recommend reading the reviews on each and check out the ratings given to them by other users. Some of these extensions are very powerful and can be used for many things other than creating SEO friendly URLs, so take your time in reviewing all of their capabilities.

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