SEO URL - PHP Modern Showcase

A robust, modernized, and secure demonstration of creating search-engine-optimized (SEO) friendly URL routing in PHP. This project provides a complete implementation of mapping dynamically generated content to static, human-readable URLs using Apache's .htaccess mod_rewrite and MySQL.

Now fully updated, secure, type-safe, and compatible with PHP 8.0 through PHP 8.5+.

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✨ Features

• Dynamic to Static URL Mapping: Automatically rewrite paths like post.php?id=1 to clean, human-readable URLs like /post/lorem-ipsum-1.
• Accented & Turkish Character Mapping: A robust slug generation helper translating special characters (e.g., Ğ, Ü, Ş, İ, Ö, Ç) to safe Latin characters (g, u, s, i, o, c) before stripping non-alphanumeric elements.
• PHP 8.5+ Standard: Strictly typed codebase (declare(strict_types=1)), with explicit parameter and return type declarations.
• Modern Responsive Design: A gorgeous, glassmorphic dark-theme UI with responsive layouts, hover card animations, and Google Inter typography.
• Security-First Practices:
  • Database queries use secure PDO prepared statements to block SQL Injections.
  • Context-aware XSS prevention via htmlspecialchars() escaping.
  • Separated configuration parameters to avoid version control secret leaks.
  • Generic client-side database error messages coupled with detailed internal logging (error_log).
• Environment Resiliency: Avoids external dependencies (like mbstring) by mapping characters efficiently, enabling successful deployment on default minimal PHP runtimes.
• Automated CI/CD: GitHub Actions workflow ensuring PHP syntax validation across a matrix of PHP versions (8.0, 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, and 8.5).

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📂 Project Structure

seo-url-php/
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── ci.yml          # GitHub Actions CI Workflow
├── import/
│   └── posts.sql           # Database schema & initial data import
├── utility/
│   ├── config.php          # Database configuration (gitignore'd)
│   ├── connect.php         # PDO connection script
│   └── functions.php       # SEO slug generation & helpers
├── .gitignore              # Ignored local config files
├── .htaccess               # Apache URL rewrite configurations
├── CHANGELOG.md            # Project release log
├── README.md               # Documentation
├── index.php               # Homepage / Post feed
└── post.php                # Detailed post viewer

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⚙️ Requirements

• PHP: 8.0 or higher (fully compatible with PHP 8.5)
• Web Server: Apache with mod_rewrite enabled
• Database: MySQL / MariaDB

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🚀 Installation & Setup

Follow these steps to run the project locally:

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/tolgahanacar/seo-url-php.git
cd seo-url-php

2. Set Up the Database

Import the SQL script located in the import/ directory to create the seourl database and posts table:

# Log in to MySQL and run:
mysql -u root -p < import/posts.sql

3. Configure Database Credentials

Create a local configuration file at utility/config.php (this file is excluded from Git to protect secrets):

<?php
declare(strict_types=1);

return [
    'host' => 'localhost',
    'dbname' => 'seourl',
    'charset' => 'utf8mb4',
    'username' => 'your_db_username',
    'password' => 'your_db_password',
];

4. Enable Apache Mod Rewrite

Ensure Apache configuration permits override rules in .htaccess. Your virtual host block or server configuration directory should look like this:

<Directory "/path/to/seo-url-php">
    AllowOverride All
    Require all granted
</Directory>

5. Start the Server

Navigate to the directory in your browser, or start a local development server:

# Using PHP built-in server (Note: URL rewrites from .htaccess won't run on PHP built-in server out-of-the-box)
php -S localhost:8000

Note: To test .htaccess rewrite rules (e.g. /post/slug-1), serve the project using an actual Apache server instance.

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📝 Usage & Slug Example

URL slugs are generated via the seolink(string $text): string function:

require_once 'utility/functions.php';

echo seolink("Türkçe başlık - Ünlü Şarkıcı!");
// Output: "turkce-baslik-unlu-sarkici"

The corresponding HTML routing is dynamically constructed:

<a href="post/<?= seolink($post->postname) . '-' . $post->id ?>">More</a>

Apache translates the request /post/turkce-baslik-unlu-sarkici-1 and forwards it to post.php?sef=turkce-baslik-unlu-sarkici&id=1 internally.

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📈 Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md for detailed descriptions of releases and changes.

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.