How to set up Joomla's internal SEF URLs

So a very important aspect to your Joomla site is making sure that people can find it. One simple way to do this is through search engine friendly url's. Now there are quite a few components and modules that can do this for you in Joomla, but many of them are commercial extensions, and they are confusing to figure out. Luckily, Joomla does come with an internal SEF option. Now, you may have tried to implement this setting, only to end up frustrated. Not to fear it's easier than you think.

1. First we need to go to the back end of Joomla.  Go to Global Configuration>>Site.

2. If you look to your right you should see a little box that says SEO settings. 

3. Now you see we have 3 options, this is where you probably ran into trouble.  For the most part you cannot just have Search Engine Friendly URLs (it is dependent on your template, but most don't work) You also have to have the Apache mod_rewrite checked too.  Note: Your server has to be running Apache to work, otherwise do not do this.  If your not sure contact your hosting service.

4. So before you hit apply on both those being checked we have to go into our server and change the name of a file.  Either using FTP or your cPanel go to your public_html folder.  In here we need to find the file named htaccess.txt we need to rename this file to .htaccess  Note: The period in front is important, don't forget it.

5. That is it! Now go back to your Joomla Admin and hit save on your settings and you should see your SEF url's.

Any questions just lemme know!