magento 2 url rewrite

Magento 2 URL Rewrites: Leverage to Mass Perfect URL Tree

by Robin Tran

Upgrading your URL tree (aka Magento 2 URL rewrites) is unavoidable. As your eCommerce business expands in all dimensions, the need to perfect your URL structure becomes more and more prevalent.

But here is a problem, how can you handle the massive number of your URL components? The answer is automation!

READ MORE: Magento 2 URL Rewrite full tutorial >>

It’s truly a game-changer for your SEO effort. With Magento 2 URL rewrites, you can put everything into motion within seconds.

Let’s learn how to do that exactly. But first …

Importance of URL Tree for Magento business

We spent a lot of time on this blog section discussing the utmost vital pieces to an eCommerce website.

URL structure is undoubtedly one of them.

For SEO

Anyone working in SEO will tell you that you need an as-best-as-you-can URL tree to rank better on the SERP.

This infographic will tell you why:

for-seo

The site architect can bring you two main benefits within ranking merit: structural benefit and linkability.

If you need a helping hand with fundamental Magento 2 URL rewrites, we have a full tutorial for you:

CLICK FOR MORE: Producing URL rewrites with the default setting in Magento 2.

For sales betterment

It’s no rocket science. The better your purchasing flow is, the merrier your profit becomes.

sale-betterment

A good URL structure will become a potent sales booster as it guides your customers through the entirety of your website. You’ll create a ripple effect with an SEO-friendly URL tree: more product exposure, more sales opportunities, and more UX brownie points.

See Amazon as an example. They’ve created nearly perfect navigation through their URL structure, making them the most prominent eCommerce website.

  • Blocking and merging: They organize their products into different categories and find a way to link them together.
  • Suggesting with cross-link: They create a non-stop and smooth purchasing experience that ends up with products in the cart.
  • Remembering pattern: They re-show the previous products that customers have looked into with more recommendations.

Troubleshoot site architect problems

We’ve talked about how the URL tree is essential to your eCommerce success. Now, let’s cover all the tricky aspects of establishing such a great URL structure.

And of course, there will be solutions for each one of them.

The backbone structure – Flat or Deep

When speaking about the overall structure of a URL tree, we have two models:

url-structure

Either you go deep or you go flat, aka expand horizontally vs. vertically.

While making your site’s engineering, you have to fabricate it to the goal that clients can find what they desire without much of a stretch.

That incorporates making a pecking order of connections that follow a comparable organization to your engineering.

When fabricating that pecking order, you have to do what works best for your clients.

So for client experience, your course of action should set up a general structure and afterward stick to it.

URLs overload

Besides wiki-type websites, there is no genre of online presence that branches to such a massive degree of pages as ecommerce.

And it’s only going up from there. The number of URLs you have to organize will multiply as your business becomes bigger. And especially 90% of e-commerce business is struggling with the URL parameters.

magento-2-delete-all-url-rewrites-url-parametters

The search bar is essential to your online business, yet it creates a new URL every time a keyword is entered. These sorts of URLs will flood the record and leave out no room for your index budget.

Hence, you must let Google knows the difference between URLs in Google Search Console.

The permalink – decide what customers and web crawlers see

The permalink is the full URL that both customers and search engines bots see on your current page.

More info to sink your teeth in:

URL anatomy: Protocol - Subdomain -  Domain - Top-level Domain - Folder/Paths - Page - Anchor.

*Include and exclude these components in the final URL carefully.

Magento-2-import-export-url-rewrites-format

You want to make sure your permalink check this list down to a T:

  • SEO-friendly is a must
  • Uniformed and simple are recommended (keep it short and match with the title)
  • Human readable is prioritized (the easier to read, the better)
  • Be mindful of the focused keyword

Stay tuned; we will have a deep dive into handling the sheer volume of URLs – technical edition, later down this post!

Clear inventory – Magento 2 delete all URL rewrites

There will be a time when you wish to undo all of your URL rewrites. And by all, I mean all of them.

Picture this, you’re deleting a number of products on your site, and you want to get rid of all URL rewrites related to them. The tricky thing is, you want to keep the categories’ URL rewrites.

How can you do that? Here are your two options for Magento 2 delete all URL rewrites:

  • If you want Magento 2 to delete ALL Magento 2 URL rewrites belonging to those products, then you have to:
DELETE FROM url_rewrite WHERE entity_type='product';
  • If you want to delete ONLY auto-generated URL rewrites:
DELETE FROM url_rewrite WHERE entity_type='product' AND is_autogenerated='1';

Looping and redirection problem

When it comes to URL structuring, looping your URL rewrites is the worst crime one can commit.

avoid-looping-at-all-cost

Here is the rule of thumb:

  • Click on URL A -> Get redirect to URL B – Reasonable
  • Click on URL A -> Get to URL B -> Get to URL C – Okay but questionable
  • Click on URL A -> URL B ->… -> URL N – Troublesome

The problem arises when more than 2 hops are to get to the final URL. At that state, Google will downgrade the viability of the destination site, which means it is harder to get that page to rank.

At the same time, you’re putting a burden on customers. A longer redirect string means it takes longer to load for the site, which ultimately translates to a rising bounce rate.

Therefore, try to keep the redirect level as low as possible.

Magento 2 URL rewrite reindex

You’ve done your Magento 2 URL Rewrites. Now, what’s next?

The obvious answer is placing it into reality. But here comes a problem, how will search engines react to your new URLs?

magento-2-URL-rewrite-reindex-trouble

To be more specific, how you reload your URL into search engines’ memories – aka reindex. And how long will it take?

If I’m 100% honest, there is no definitive answer. The timing for Magento 2 URL rewrite reindex is wavering due to several factors:

  • Whether or not you delete the content of the URL
  • Whether or not you use the Google URL remover tool
  • Whether or not you use redirect with the URL

However, there are shortened routes we can take and we’ll talk about URL reindex later.

Magento 2 URL Rewrites to the rescue!

We’re finally here at the finish line – here is how you make use of technology for your convenience.

So you want a solution:

  • To break down the process
  • That is easy to follow
  • At the same time, it can process a vast number of URL rewrites

=> Using a Magento 2 URL rewrites extension to automate your process is the right way to go.

magento-2-url-rewrite-module

An introduction to Magento 2 URL Rewrites

For the high demands of merchants to rewrite the URLs and the importance of URL rewrite itself, we have introduced a useful tool to automate the process for you. The admin users only have to import and export the data of URL rewrites via a CSV file in the Magento 2 backend. 

In other words, this Magento 2 URL Rewrites Import and Export extension is a fantastic option for rewriting many URLs at once to fulfill SEO requirements or improve the user experience.

How you can use this extension to rewrite URLs

Step 1: Get the sample data

This Magento 2 URL rewrites module comes with a sample CVS file that you can imitate and replicate for your own site.

sample-data

This step is important because you need to know what goes into a URL rewrite in order to mass-produce with importing.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, so here is the second step.

Step 2: Export your current URL rewrites

To know is to grow. You need to start somewhere before jumping directly to the water.

magento-2-url-rewrite-module-export

First, let’s know what area you want to improve with URL rewrite. Then Export them with Product, Category,  CMS page, Custom page, and custom page filter.

We also give you the option for exporting URLs with store view and redirect type. So you can personalize your URL structuring even more.

Step 3: Do your data off-screen

Remember the sample CVS earlier? Now this time to cross-check it with your exported CVS of URL rewrite.

The job specification of this part is to fill in the gap with your changes. This file will be your new URL component for the next step.

Step 4: Import your URL rewrites

With Magento 2 import URL rewrites, this step is easier than ever.

You can validate your file in a blink to prevent any mistakes during the import process.

magento-2-url-rewrite-extension

With that being said, this module still sends out a notification afterward so you can have a final review.

magento-2-url-rewrite-extension-noti

Wrap Up

Hopefully, this post will do your job to create your SEO-friendly URL structure easier and smoother than ever!

The combination of hard work, well-thought strategy with a boost from technology is what you need to make your site rank higher and sell better.

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