PrestaShop URL Structure: Clean URLs, Canonicals and Avoiding Duplicate Content

Your URL structure is the foundation of your PrestaShop store's SEO. Clean, descriptive URLs help both search engines and users understand what each page is about. Messy URLs with parameters, session IDs, and duplicate paths confuse Google and dilute your ranking potential.

What Makes a Good E-Commerce URL

A well-structured URL is:

• Readable: /seo-sitemap-builder is better than /product.php?id=28&id_category=10
• Descriptive: The URL itself tells users and search engines what the page contains.
• Consistent: All product URLs follow the same pattern, all category URLs follow the same pattern.
• Short: Unnecessary words, stop words, and redundant path segments should be removed.

PrestaShop's friendly URL feature handles the basics, but there are several traps that can undermine your efforts.

The Duplicate Content Problem

PrestaShop has a well-known duplicate content issue: the same product can be accessed through multiple URLs. A product in two categories might be available at both /seo/seo-sitemap-builder and /tools/seo-sitemap-builder. To Google, these look like two separate pages with identical content — and that is a problem.

Duplicate content causes:

• Diluted ranking signals: Instead of one strong page, you have two weak ones competing with each other.
• Wasted crawl budget: Google spends time crawling duplicate pages instead of discovering new content.
• Confused search results: Google may show the wrong version of your page or suppress both.

Canonical Tags: The Solution

Canonical tags tell search engines which version of a page is the "official" one. When you add <link rel="canonical" href="https://yourstore.com/seo-sitemap-builder"> to all versions of a product page, Google knows to consolidate all ranking signals to that single URL.

For PrestaShop stores, canonical tags should be set on:

• Product pages — Point to the version without category path in the URL.
• Paginated category pages — Debatable, but generally page 2, 3, etc. should either self-canonicalize or point to page 1 depending on your strategy.
• Filtered pages — Product listing pages with active filters (color, size, price range) should canonical back to the unfiltered category page.
• HTTP vs. HTTPS / www vs. non-www — Ensure all variants point to your preferred version.

Friendly URL Best Practices for PrestaShop

Remove Unnecessary URL Components

Default PrestaShop URLs often include elements you do not need: language codes when you only have one language, category paths that create duplicates, or numerical IDs that add no value. Clean these up in your SEO and URL settings.

Use Hyphens, Not Underscores

Google treats hyphens as word separators but underscores as word joiners. So seo-sitemap-builder is read as three words, while seo_sitemap_builder is read as one long word. Always use hyphens.

Keep URLs Lowercase

URLs are case-sensitive. /SEO-Sitemap and /seo-sitemap are technically different URLs. Ensure your PrestaShop store serves all URLs in lowercase and redirects any uppercase variants.

Monitoring and Maintenance

URL structure is not a set-it-and-forget-it task. As you add products, categories, and CMS pages, new duplicate content issues can emerge. Regularly check Google Search Console for duplicate content warnings and use tools like Screaming Frog to audit your URL structure. A clean URL architecture pays dividends in organic traffic for years.