We often use Shadow Menus (or often called hidden Menus) in our Joomla Templates and also here at our own Site. The reasons are simple, it's better for a perfect SEO.
If you are using no Shadow Menus Joomla often create URLs like this:
http://www.your-site.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1&Itemid=199This is not well for SEO and also it makes it complicated to Link manually to this Article. Cause of this we are using Shadow Menu. The menu is “hidden” or in "shadow" because we don’t need to display the menu on the site. We are just using the menu for control purposes. It has also the advantage that you can assign Modules to this Article. So here's a short summary cause we use Shadow Menus:
How to create the Hidden or the Shadow Menu
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1.In the Joomla Backend navigate to: MenuMenu ManagerAdd New Menu
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2.For Title and Menu Type you can enter whatever you want, we recommend to use Shadow Menu or Hidden Menu to keep it clear
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3.Save and close
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4.Now you can navigate to MenuMenu (name of the Menu)Add New Menu Item and create a new Menu entry
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5.Important is now to enter a alias for the Menu entry like in the below Image
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6.Save and close
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7.Now visit your Frontend and check if the URL is working! In our Example you should now reach this Article with the URL:
http://www.your-site.com/my-awesome-article -
8.If you doesn't have the SEO option with URL rewritting active you have to use the following:
http://www.your-site.com/index.php/my-awesome-article
You can also check this Blog Article at Joomla.org.