Some time ago the new router became active in Joomla, enabeling you to remove the article ID from your URL.
This is what it was, and still may be for you:
Old URL Structure: http://www.yoursite.com/category-alias/123-article-alias
New URL Structure: http://www.yoursite.com/category-alias/article-alias
This new URL routing feature can be turned on/off for Articles, Contacts, News Feeds, and Users from global options.
So how enable this new routing and remove ID from URLs?
Here are very simple steps to do it:
- Log into Joomla admin area and go to System -> Global Configuration
- Click Articles from the left menubar
- Go to Integration tab
- Find the URL Routing option
- Switch the default option Legacy -> Modern which will open another option
- Select YES in that Remove ID from URL option
- Save the settings and you're done!
Be aware that if you are doing this on an existing site with URL's that are crawled through by google, you might run into 404 pages. The url's will change, and the old ones will not work. So be carefull with that!