Layered navigation (faceted filtering) is essential for modern UX, allowing users to quickly refine product listings. However, for search engines, faceted navigation is an existential threat. When every filter combination generates a new URL (e.g., /shirts?color=red&size=L), the store creates an exponential number of unmanageable, duplicate URLs, leading to wasted crawl budget and low SEO authority.

For developers working with the high-performance combination of Hyvä (for frontend speed) and ElasticSuite (for filtering performance), maintaining SEO integrity is the final frontier. This technical guide explores how the Pretty Filter URLs extension by qoliber solves this conflict, converting parameter-based filter URLs into clean, path-based URLs.

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Table of Contents

• 1. The Core Conflict: Crawl Budget and Duplicate Content
• 2. The Solution: Transforming Parameters into Path-Based URLs
• 3. Technical Synergy: Integrating with Hyvä and ElasticSuite
• 4. Mastering Canonicalization and SEO Integrity

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1. The Core Conflict: Crawl Budget and Duplicate Content

The problem with default Magento layered navigation is not the filter functionality itself, but the resulting URL structure. Standard filtering generates query parameters that search engines typically ignore for ranking purposes, but still attempt to crawl. This results in two major technical issues:

• Wasted Crawl Budget: Google’s time budget for crawling the store is consumed by thousands of identical pages (e.g., pages differing only by the filter order), diverting resources away from important product and category pages.
• Duplicate Content Risk: If filters are not perfectly controlled via canonical tags or robots rules, the store risks generating competing indexed pages for the same content, diluting SEO authority.

While ElasticSuite solves the speed of the filtering process on the backend, it does not solve the fundamental SEO challenge of URL structure.

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2. The Solution: Transforming Parameters into Path-Based URLs

The strategic SEO solution is to treat specific filter combinations as potential long-tail landing pages. This requires changing the ugly parameter structure into clean, crawlable URLs:

Example Transformation:

• Default: /running-shoes?color=blue&size=9
• Optimized: /running-shoes/blue/size-9/

This path-based approach allows developers to choose which high-value filter combinations should be indexed and rank for specific, long-tail search queries (e.g., "blue running shoes size 9").

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3. Pretty Filter URLs: The Hyvä + ElasticSuite Solution

The Pretty Filter URLs module by qoliber is engineered precisely for this environment. It ensures that the speed of filtering provided by ElasticSuite is coupled with the SEO integrity required for ranking.

Key Technical Advantages:

• ElasticSuite Integration: The module works seamlessly with ElasticSuite’s rapid filtering engine, ensuring that URL rewriting does not slow down the product listing page (PLP) rendering speed.
• Hyvä Compatibility: It handles URL rewriting at the server level, preventing the need for heavy client-side JavaScript manipulation, which is essential for maintaining the sub-second performance of the Hyvä frontend.

By preventing unnecessary JavaScript and server-side redirects, the module actively protects the CWV scores achieved by the Hyvä theme. You can find technical details and integration steps on the Pretty Filter URLs extension page.

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4. Mastering Canonicalization and SEO Integrity

The Pretty Filter URLs module provides granular control over which filter combinations should be indexed. For developers, this means gaining mastery over the two core SEO controls:

• Canonical Tags: The module automatically manages the canonical link element, ensuring that all non-indexed filter combinations point back to the main category page, consolidating link authority.
• Meta Robots Control: Developers can precisely apply nofollow and noindex directives to low-value filter paths, preventing search engines from wasting crawl budget on irrelevant pages.

This level of control is fundamental for successful large-scale Magento SEO. 

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Conclusion

The synergy between Hyvä (performance), ElasticSuite (speed), and Pretty Filter URLs (integrity) represents the definitive architectural approach to modern Magento SEO. Developers no longer have to choose between fast filtering and rankable content.

Explore qoliber’s Hyvä-compatible ecosystem - performance-first, compliance-ready.

Article updated January, 2026