CodeIgniter, the PHP framework, allows for URL customization so that the URLs are more friendly to search engines. As a rule of thumb when you deal with URLs, it is best to avoid long URLs. To shorten your CodeIgniter URLs, for e.g. changing the default controller/method format in the URLs to just reflect the method name.
As an example, if we had an online product catalogue and had a URL format of http://www.yourdomain.com/catalogue/list/shoes/412, we can actually create a route, so that users can just enter a more SEO-friendly URL of: http://www.yourdomain.com/list/shoes/412
To do this, open up your routes.php file, i.e. at /system/application/config/routes.php, and define a new route in CodeIgniter, as such:
$route['list/:any/:num'] = ‘catalog/list/$1/$2′;
Here’s a breakdown of the route:
:any can contain any characters
:num contains only numerals
$1 is the first parameter, which is the product type, in this case, shoes (defined as a :any type)
$2 is the second parameter, which is the product number, in this case, 412 (defined as a :num type)
Note that routes will run in the order that they appear in the routes file, so routes that appear higher will always take precedence over lower routes.
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