This is the official documentation for Route 66 Joomla! extension.
Route 66 is a Joomla extension which allows you to define beautiful search engine friendly URLs for your site and improve your site's SEO. It also allows you to create Facebook Instant Articles and XML sitemaps for search engines. Starting from version 1.4.0 Route 66 includes optimization tools to make your site score high on Google PageSpeed.
This extension comes in two versions the free and the PRO version. The PRO version gives you access to our official help desk and also includes support for some more extensions than the free version.
All of our extensions are tested with the latest stable version of Joomla! available at the time they are released. Compatibility with future versions of Joomla! is added with extension updates.
There are no special requirements for this extension. It will work fine as long as your server meets the Joomla! system requirements.
Route 66 can be installed on your website the same as way as every other Joomla! extension, using the Joomla! extensions manager. You can refer to the official documentation to learn how you can install extensions on your Joomla! website.
There are two ways to update this extension:
Upgrading from the free version to PRO is very simple. All you have to do is install the PRO package. There is no need to uninstall the free version first, but it is fine even if you do so.
When you install Route 66 you get some plugins installed:
It's really very simple to define a URL pattern in Route 66. URL patterns can include any valid URL friendly character and some tokens for generating dynamic variables ( like the article's date for example ). Here are some examples of URL patterns you can use in Route 66:
As you may have noticed the tokens are wrapped inside curly brackets. There are some things you need to keep in mind regarding tokens:
The modules you have assigned to your pages will keep working as before even if the URLs are changed by Route 66.
Let's say for example that you have a menu link to a category named "Cars" and you have assigned some modules to be displayed on that page. Let's also assume that this page is accessible to your site under the /cars URL. The generated article URLs by Route 66 will probably ( depending on the pattern ) not include the "/cars" part. However, all the modules assigned to that page will also get displayed in article pages of the category "Cars" ( this is the default Joomla! behavior ).
Route 66 automatically detects the correct modules which means that you don't have to change anything in your site structure.
Here is a list of the supported extensions. Note that the identifiers tokens are marked with bold letters. Keep in mind that you have to use at least one identifier in the URL pattern you define.
Type | Tokens | Version |
---|---|---|
Joomla! Article | articleId, articleAlias, articleYear, articleMonth, articleDay, articleDate, articleAuthor, categoryAlias, categoryPath | FREE and PRO |
Joomla! Article Category | categoryId, categoryAlias, categoryPath | FREE and PRO |
Joomla! Tag | tagId, tagAlias | FREE and PRO |
K2 Item | itemId, itemAlias, itemYear, itemMonth, itemDay, itemDate, itemAuthor, categoryAlias, categoryPath | PRO only |
K2 Category | categoryId, categoryAlias, categoryPath | PRO only |
K2 Tag | tagId, tagName | PRO only |
K2 User | userId, userLoginName, userName | PRO only |
Virtuemart Product | productId, productAlias, productSku, productYear, productMonth, productDay, productDate, productAuthor, categoryAlias, categoryPath | PRO only |
Virtuemart Category | categoryId, categoryAlias, categoryPath | PRO only |
HikaShop Product | productId, productAlias, productSku, productYear, productMonth, productDay, productDate, categoryAlias, manufacturerAlias, categoryPath | PRO only |
HikaShop Category | categoryId, categoryAlias, categoryPath | PRO only |
eShop Product | productId, productAlias, productSku, productYear, productMonth, productDay, productDate, categoryAlias | PRO only |
Route 66 can perform an SEO analysis for your site's content using the famous Yoast SEO analyser. If you are using Joomla articles or K2 items the SEO analysis is integrated right into the editing form. Just make sure that all Route 66 plugins are enabled and you will see the SEO analysis tool when editing a Joomla article or a K2 Item. If you are not using Joomla articles or K2 Items, Route 66 provides a separate page on administration where you can analyse any page of your Joomla site.
Route 66 includes some optimization tools to make your site get ranked high on Google PageSpeed Insights. All the settings regarding this functionality can be found under the component options. Depending on your setup, your site can score 90/100 or greater at the Google PageSpeed Insights tool when using Route 66.
Facebook Instant Articles is a mobile publishing format that enables news publishers to distribute articles to Facebook's app that load and display as much as 10 times faster than the standard mobile web. You can learn more at the Facebook Instant Articles website. Route 66 can automatically transform your site's Joomla! articles and K2 items in the Facebook Instant Articles format. The articles are imported into Facebook using a feed. Route 66 can generate this feed for you based on your site's content.
There are options allowing you to filter the articles/items that will be included in this feed based on categories. You can also setup Google Analytics and Google DFP integration for your instant articles. Below is a list of all the available options/fields when creating a Facebook Instant Article feed in Route 66:
Note that this document only covers the process of creating the Facebook Instant Articles feed in Route 66. If you are going to use this feature you have to read first the official Facebook Instant Articles documentation.
Route 66 can generate XML Sitemaps for search engines. Route 66 implements the sitemaps protocol as found at http://www.sitemaps.org/. Route 66 also supports the Image and Video sitemap extensions defined by Google. Below are the available options/fields when creating an XML sitemap in Route 66:
Here are some video tutorials created by friends. You can check them out, they will help you get started with Route 66
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss-DD87KXNU (OSTraining)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvWrLo6IfPA (Basic Joomla Tutorials)