---
title: How to Customize Your URLs
description: If you were talking to a potential customer, how would you describe your stores pages? Would you use real words?
---
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# How to Customize Your URLs
If you were talking to a potential customer, how would you describe your store's pages? Would you use real words? Or a bunch of computer-generated numbers and code that amounts to gobbledygook? We're guessing the former, especially considering that the latter won't be found by Google or any other search engines that shoppers are using to find what they're looking for.
By default, the URLs for your category pages, product pages and custom article pages are not friendly to search engines because they don't describe your sites content. But you can easily change this so that the URLS are more informative for search engines and the shoppers that use them.
To get started, log in to your Admin Area and go to **Marketing** \> **SEO**, locate the **Search Engine Friendly URLs** section, select the **Enable Search Engine Friendly URLs** check box, and save. You will now be able to customize your URLs. Please read on for additional instructions on customizing the URLs of each different page type.
**Contents**
- [Category Page URLs](https://help.volusion.com/s/howtocustomizeyoururls#category-page-URLS)
- [Product Page URLs](https://help.volusion.com/s/howtocustomizeyoururls#product-page-urls)
- [Custom Article Page URLs](https://help.volusion.com/s/howtocustomizeyoururls#custom-article-page-urls)
**Category Page URLs**
By default, your category page URLs are formatted in the following manner:
```
/SearchResults.asp?Cat=
```
For example:
```
http://www.yourvolusiondomain.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1
```
When you turn on Search Engine Friendly URLs, they are formatted in the following manner:
```
/category_s/.htm
```
For example:
```
http://www.yourvolusiondomain.com/category_s/1.htm
```
To customize the "category" portion of one of these URLs:
1. Go to **Inventory** \> **Categories.**
2. Hover over the category you want to edit.
3. Click **Edit.**
4. Open the **Advanced Info** section.
5. Select the **Search Engine Optimization** tab.
6. Write the text of your choice in the **Category URL Text** field.
7. Click **Save**.
The text you typed now displays in place of the "category" portion of the URL in this manner:
```
/_s/.htm
```
For example:
```
http://www.yourvolusiondomain.com/shirts_s/1.htm
```
Note that the text is case-sensitive. The "\_s" and "/.htm" portions of the URL are always present and cannot be eliminated or changed.
If you edit the **Category URL Text** value at any point, an automatic 301 redirect will be created from the old version of the URL to the new version in order to preserve page rank.
If you would like your search engine friendly URLs to use hyphens instead of underscores, go to **Marketing** \> **SEO**, open the **Search Engine Friendly URLs** section, select the **Use Hyphens instead of Underscores** check box, and save.
**Product Page URLs**
By default. your product page URLs are formatted in the following manner:
```
/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=
```
For example:
```
http://www.yourvolusiondomain.com/ProductDetails.asp?LH257
```
Note that any underscores, hyphens, or periods in your product's **Code** value are rendered as percent symbols, and the text is case-sensitive.
When you turn on Search Engine Friendly URLs, they are formatted in the following manner:
```
/product_p/.htm
```
For example:
```
http://www.yourvolusiondomain.com/product_p/lh257.htm
```
To customize the "product" portion of one of these URLs:
1. Go to **Inventory** \> **Products**.
2. Select the product you want to edit.
3. Open the **Advanced Info** section.
4. Select the **Search Engine Optimization** tab.
5. Write the text of your choice in the **Product URL Text** field.
6. Click **Save**.
The text you typed now displays in place of the "product" portion of the URL in this manner:
```
/_p/.htm
```
For example:
```
http://www.yourvolusiondomain.com/v-neck-shirt_p/lh257.htm
```
To edit the "PRODUCTCODE" portion:
1. Go to **Inventory** \> **Products.**
2. Select the product you want to edit.
3. Overwrite the text in the **Code** field.
4. Click **Save**.
Note that the "\_p/" and ".htm" portions of the URL are always present and cannot be eliminated or changed. The **Product URL Text** value displays in a case-sensitive manner, but the **Code** value no longer does.
If you edit the **Category URL Text** value at any point, an automatic 301 redirect will be created from the old version of the URL to the new version in order to preserve page rank.
If you would like your search engine-friendly URLs to use hyphens instead of underscores, go to **Marketing** \> **SEO**, open the **Search Engine Friendly URLs** section, select the **Use Hyphens instead of Underscores** check box, and save.
**Custom Article Page URLs**
Your store has two different types of article pages: those that come with the store by default, and those that you create. The following are examples of default articles:
```
/aboutus.asp
/terms.asp
/help.asp
```
For example:
```
http://www.yourvolusiondomain.com/aboutus.asp
```
When you create custom articles, the URLs are formatted in the following manner:
```
/Articles.asp?ID=
```
For example:
```
http://www.yourvolusiondomain.com/Articles.asp?ID=1
```
To create your own article page:
1. Go to **Design** \> **Site Content**.
2. Click **View List** in the top right.
3. Click **Add**.
4. Fill out the fields with the appropriate information.
5. Click **Save**.
At this point, visitors can only access the page by typing the exact URL in their browser address bars. To add a clickable link for the article to your website theme:
1. Go to **Inventory** \> **Categories**.
2. Click **Add**.
3. Type the text you want to appear in your theme in the **Category Name** field.
4. Choose the navigation menu you want the link to appear in from the **Show in Menu** drop-down menu.
5. Expand the **Advanced Info** section.
6. Click the **Misc** tab.
7. Type the relative URL of the article in the **Alternate URL** field (for example, "/Articles.asp?ID=1").
8. Click **Save**.
The link now appears in your theme.
To customize the URL, change the **Alternate URL** value above in the following manner and save:
```
/_a/.htm
```
For example:
```
/companyhistory_a/1.htm
```
When you click the link in your theme, you are now taken to a URL with the following format:
```
/_a/.htm
```
For example:
```
http://www.yourvolusiondomain.com/companyhistory_a/1.htm
```
Note that the "\_a" and "/.htm" portions of the URL are always present and cannot be eliminated or changed.
It's important to use this exact URL structure in all cases that you link to the article page, otherwise search engines will index the same content on other URLs and penalize the rank of all competing versions.
**Summary**
By optimizing your URLs to be more descriptive of what the pages of your website contain, you help more people find your store, which usually means more sales. Yay! 🤑
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