URL Engine: Pattern-Based URL Management

URLs that manage themselves

PrestaShop's built-in URL handling is limited. You get a fixed slug per entity, and that's it. No patterns, no variables, no bulk URL generation, no automatic updates when products change.

The URL Engine provides proper URL management with pattern-based generation, entity lifecycle hooks, and pluggable storage backends.

Pattern-based URL generation

Define URL patterns with variables, and the engine generates SEO-friendly URLs automatically:

• {category}/{name} → electronics/wireless-headphones
• {manufacturer}/{name}-{id} → sony/wireless-headphones-42
• {category}/{reference} → audio/WH-1000XM5

Patterns support hierarchical variables, transliteration, and multi-language generation.

Entity lifecycle integration

When a product is created, renamed, moved to a different category, or deleted, the URL Engine picks up the change and updates the URLs, provided the module using it forwards the relevant hooks. A slug change is recorded in the URL history and a redirect is created.

Pluggable storage

URL patterns can be stored in the database (for user-configurable patterns) or in module configuration (for fixed patterns). The engine handles its own table creation and migration.

Used by eight modules

The URL Engine is the shared foundation behind Friendly URLs and SEO Revolution, among the eight installed modules that carry it: different URL needs, one piece of URL infrastructure.

The numbers

• 17,211 lines of runtime URL management code
• Pattern engine with placeholder expansion and transliteration
• Automatic lifecycle: URLs update when entities change
• Multi-language: generates language-specific URLs per language

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