Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs are an effective way of improving the experience that customers have on your website at the same time as fine tuning the results that a search engine might generate. Add to the good news that it is a simple one minute job to set them up and it makes sense to enable them.
Have a look at the following two URLs:
Without SEF URLS
Consider the link
yourdomainname.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=18&Itemid=162
just as an example. These type of links are not so good because they have none of our keywords and it is confusing to read them.With SEF URLS
The link
yourdomainname.co.uk/index.php/category-1/28-3-reasons-to-use-long-tail-keyword
is good enough, as we can read the keywords.In VirtueMart
And lastly we have the link in the form
yourdomainname/shop/powertools/outdoortools/chain-saw-detail
. You can see how they are not only friendly to the search engines but also help your site be more intuitive...