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SEO friendly URL structure is a common technique for search engine optimization. The SEO friendly URL holds the keywords which help to improve the search engine ranking. The difference between normal URL and SEO friendly URL is like the following.
The above example clearly shows that the SEO friendly URL is more human-friendly than the normal URL. It always a good idea to make website’s URL SEO friendly for getting more traffic from search engines.
If your website built with CodeIgniter and you want to create SEO friendly URL for the dynamic contents (posts, products, pages, etc.) of the website, there is an easy way for doing that. In this tutorial, we will show you how to generate SEO friendly URL in CodeIgniter and store the dynamic URL in the database.
Here we will demonstrate the complete SEO friendly URL implementation process by posts or articles creation in CodeIgniter. The following functionalities will be implemented in our example script.
Before you get started, take a look at the files structure of CodeIgniter SEO friendly URL implementation.
To store posts data a table needs to be created in the database. The following SQL creates a posts table with some basic fields including SEO URL field in the database.
CREATE TABLE `posts` ( `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `url_slug` varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL, `title` varchar(255) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL, `content` text COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL, `created` datetime NOT NULL, `modified` datetime NOT NULL, `status` tinyint(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT '1' COMMENT '1=Active, 0=Inactive', PRIMARY KEY (`id`) ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci;
The Posts controller contains three methods, index(), details() and add().
url_title() is used to convert post title to URL slug.isUrlExists() helps to check whether the URL already used in url_slug. If already exists, time stamp suffix will be added to the URL slug.<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
/**
* Posts Management class created by CodexWorld
*/
class Posts extends CI_Controller {
function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
$this->load->model('post');
$this->load->helper('common');
$this->load->library('form_validation');
}
public function index(){
$data = array();
//get the posts data
$data['posts'] = $this->post->getRows(array('limit'=>10));
//load the view
$this->load->view('posts/index', $data);
}
public function details($url_slug){
$data = array();
//get the post data
$data['post'] = $this->post->getRows(array('url_slug'=>$url_slug));
//load the view
$this->load->view('posts/details', $data);
}
public function add(){
$data = array();
$postData = array();
if($this->input->post('submitBtn')){
$this->form_validation->set_rules('title', 'Title', 'required');
$this->form_validation->set_rules('content', 'Content', 'required');
$postData = array(
'title' => strip_tags($this->input->post('title')),
'content' => strip_tags($this->input->post('content'))
);
if($this->form_validation->run() == true) {
/*
* Generate SEO friendly URL
*/
$title = strip_tags($this->input->post('title'));
$titleURL = strtolower(url_title($title));
if(isUrlExists('posts',$titleURL)){
$titleURL = $titleURL.'-'.time();
}
$postData['url_slug'] = $titleURL;
//Insert post data to database
$insert = $this->post->insert($postData);
if($insert){
$postData = array();
$data['success_msg'] = 'Post data inserted successfully.';
} else {
$data['error_msg'] = 'Some problems occured, please try again.';
}
}
}
$data['post'] = $postData;
//load the view
$this->load->view('posts/add', $data, false);
}
}
The Post model helps to fetch records from the database and insert records in the database. It contains two methods, getRows() and insert().
posts table and returns as an array.posts table and returns the insert ID.<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
class Post extends CI_Model{
/*
* get rows from the posts table
*/
function getRows($params = array()){
$this->db->select('*');
$this->db->from('posts');
//set start and limit
if(array_key_exists("start",$params) && array_key_exists("limit",$params)){
$this->db->limit($params['limit'],$params['start']);
}elseif(!array_key_exists("start",$params) && array_key_exists("limit",$params)){
$this->db->limit($params['limit']);
}
if(array_key_exists("url_slug", $params)){
$this->db->where('url_slug', $params['url_slug']);
$query = $this->db->get();
$result = ($query->num_rows() > 0)?$query->row_array():FALSE;
}else{
$query = $this->db->get();
$result = ($query->num_rows() > 0)?$query->result_array():FALSE;
}
//return fetched data
return $result;
}
/*
* Insert post data to table
*/
public function insert($data = array()) {
if(!array_key_exists("created", $data)){
$data['created'] = date("Y-m-d H:i:s");
}
if(!array_key_exists("modified", $data)){
$data['modified'] = date("Y-m-d H:i:s");
}
//insert data
$insert = $this->db->insert('posts', $data);
if($insert){
return $this->db->insert_id();;
}else{
return false;
}
}
}
The view directory (posts/) contains three files, index.php, details.php, and add.php.
posts/index.php:
This view file is loaded by the index() method of the Posts controller. All the posts are listed in the index view with details link. The dynamic SEO URL slug is used in the hyperlink.
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>Generate SEO Friendly URL in CodeIgniter</title> </head> <body> <div class="container"> <h1>Post List</h1> <div class="row"> <ul class="post-list"> <?php if(!empty($posts)): foreach($posts as $post): ?> <li><a href="<?php echo base_url('post/'.$post['url_slug']); ?>"><?php echo $post['title']; ?></a></li> <?php endforeach; else: ?> <p>Post(s) not available.</p> <?php endif; ?> </ul> </div> </div> </body> </html>
posts/details.php:
This view file is loaded by the details() method of the Posts controller. The requested post information are displayed in details view.
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>Generate SEO Friendly URL in CodeIgniter</title> </head> <body> <div class="container"> <h1><?php echo $post['title']; ?></h1> <p><?php echo $post['content']; ?></p> </div> </body> </html>
posts/add.php:
This view file is loaded by the add() method of the Posts controller. Initially, a form is displayed to create a new post. Once the form is submitted, the given information is inserted into the database and the status message is shown.
<!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <title>Generate SEO Friendly URL in CodeIgniter</title> </head> <body> <div class="container"> <h1>Add Post</h1> <div class="row"> <?php echo !empty($success_msg)?'<p>'.$success_msg.'</p>':''; ?>
<?php echo !empty($error_msg)?'<p>'.$error_msg.'</p>':''; ?> <form method="post"> <p>Post Title: <input type="text" name="title" value="<?php echo !empty($post['title'])?$post['title']:''; ?>"></p> <?php echo form_error('title','<p class="help-block error">','</p>'); ?> <p>Post Content: <textarea name="content"><?php echo !empty($post['content'])?$post['content']:''; ?></textarea></p> <?php echo form_error('content','<p class="help-block error">','</p>'); ?> <input type="submit" name="submitBtn" value="Add"> </form> </div> </div> </body> </html>
The custom helper function named isUrlExists() is defined in this file. It helps to check whether the URL slug already exists in the posts table.
<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
/*
* Helper function to check whether the url slug already exists
*/
if(!function_exists('isUrlExists')){
function isUrlExists($tblName, $urlSlug){
if(!empty($tblName) && !empty($urlSlug)){
$ci = & get_instance();
$ci->db->from($tblName);
$ci->db->where('url_slug',$urlSlug);
$rowNum = $ci->db->count_all_results();
return ($rowNum>0)?true:false;
}else{
return true;
}
}
}
autoload.php:
Specify some required libraries and helpers in autoload.php to loads automatically.
/*
| -------------------------------------------------
| Auto-load Libraries
| -------------------------------------------------
*/
$autoload['libraries'] = array('database');
/*
| -------------------------------------------------
| Auto-load Helper Files
| -------------------------------------------------
*/
$autoload['helper'] = array('url','form');
routes.php:
To load the post details based on the SEO URL slug, a routing rule needs to be specified. As per the following routing rule, if URI contains SEO URL slug, the details() method of the Posts controller would be loaded.
//specify route for post details page
$route['post/(:any)'] = 'posts/details/$1';
You can follow this process to create SEO friendly URL for dynamic contents of your CodeIgniter application. Hope! this simple process helps to switch to the SEO friendly URL and make your CodeIgniter application SEO friendly. Use CodeIgniter Routes to change the URL format as per your requirement.
See Also:How to Generate SEO Friendly URL in PHP
Do you want to get implementation help, or enhance the functionality of this script? Click here to Submit Service Request
thanks for the sharing. Simple and smart.
Very good, thanks for help me!
thanks for this perfect solution
I try It my website & it’s really helpful. Thanks For Solution.
Thank you for sharing.
Thanks for your tutorial i like tis
Good day, please do u have tutorial on cideigniter search engine? I want to implement a search engine with codeigniter. I’m not talking about datatables with search and pagination. I’ve got that already .
Hello,
Great tutorial how can i get this installed by Codex?
Yes, we can implement this functionality in your CodeIgniter application. Please send your requirements to support@codexworld.com, we will review and provide the cost estimation.