URL Helpers
URL Helpers provide an easy to use interface for creating URL slugs for pages and other elements of your website. They are fully automated to create slugs from every input, optimized and self contained. If you are unfamiliar with URL slugs, they represent parts of the final URL of the generated pages that are assembled together with the rest of the elements needed in order to create the full page URL link.
Example: in the following URL: http://domain.com/google-serp-preview-tool.html the red part of the URL is the URL slug. The other parts of the URL shown as an example here are the domain, and the .html ending in this case. Please note that not all of these parts are available in all links generated on your site.
URL Helpers linked to a title field
URL Helpers can be linked to other input fields in different modules used for building your website, but mostly you will find them linked to title elements. In the examples above you can see an URL helper linked to the title field. The main purpose of the linked helpers is to generate the URL slug from the title field automatically (as seen on the left image). If you wish to disable the auto generation of the slug just click on the URL field and you can change the slug to whatever you like (as seen on the right image). After you add the page or other item, the auto generation is disabled in order to preserve the URL slug. You can still change the slug from it's field.
URL Helper linked to a title field other languages
Please note that all the input is filtered for creating an optimized URL slug that will work on any server and will be recognized by any search engine. Although URL addresses can contain Cyrillic, Greek and other Non-Latin letters in order to make your website available to anyone using any kind of browser on any device (not just desktop computers and laptops, but mobile phones, tablets and other Internet enabled devices), all the input is romanized (as shown on the image above) in a way that Google and other search engines recognize.
Standalone URL Helpers
Sometimes in the creation of your own personalized ThinkCMS SiteManager modules, standalone URL helpers might be used. They function in the same way as the linked helpers except they do not auto generate the URL slug from other fields. Instead you are required to manually enter the slug in the field.
Why are URL slugs important?
- You can use your keywords in the slug to better optimize the page (Search engines like Google use the keywords in the URL).
- They provide easy to read URL addresses.
- They are search engine friendly.
The URL Helpers are available in SiteManager versions 3.1+ installed after April 18, 2011