Joomla has changed the way it handles alias.

As an example, look at the structure of this site:

• Home
• Collections
  • Black Star
    • Gold
    • Silver
    • SilverGold
• Contact

in the main menu I have the following items:

• Home
• Collections - article
  • Black Star - article with images linking to the sub-items below
• Contact

As my client wanted the main menu to display the first level only, and the article Black Star to have images pointing to the sub-items, I created a hidden menu with the remaining sub-levels to have the URL displayed correctly:

• Collections - alias to the menu item with the same name in the main menu
  • Black Star - alias to the menu item with the same name in the main menu
    • Gold - article
    • Silver - article
    • SilverGold - article

Previously, when creating an alias menu item to another type of menu item, Joomla would have the alias field filled with a number generated with the date and time the article was created. With SEO turned on, then it replaced this number with the alias of the original menu item.

That means that when I clicked on Collection > Black Star I would get www.site.com/collections/black-star.html

Once I was in the Black Star page, when clicking on the image Gold, I would get www.site.com/collections/black-star/gold.html

Now, that cannot be achieved anymore, because of the "conflict" of having two different menu items on the same level, although one of them is an alias.

I have to hardcode a different alias, e.g. collections-alias, which gives me a totally different URL and affects the site's SEO.

I heard this was changed because people were having problems with URLs with date and time.

This was easily fixed by simply deleting the offending alias and re-saving the menu item. When it was recreated, it would show on the live site the correct URL. Sometimes, it was necessary to change the menu item from alias type to another, clear the alias field, then go back to alias type and all worked well.

This change removed the capability of Joomla to create perfect SEO URLs in different scenarios.

In short, it solved a problem that could be fixed by any developer who did a basic research on the subject and replaced it with another that cannot be fixed at all.