title: Joomla and the default index.php added to the URL
body: <p>OK, I'm mainly curious on this issue...</p>
  
  <p>Why do Joomla sites (maybe others as well, I just use Joomla) have the index.php added to the URLs of the web site. </p>
  
  <p>I know how to remove it, using .htaccess, so that's not the issue, I'm mainly just curious as to why a site would want <a href="http://www.xxxx.org/index.php/contact-us/" rel="nofollow">http://www.xxxx.org/index.php/contact-us/</a> as a URL?</p>
  
  <p>Shouldn't it ALWAYS be <a href="http://www.xxxx.org/contact-us/" rel="nofollow">http://www.xxxx.org/contact-us/</a>, isn't that the way search engines want it?</p>
  
  <p>Am I missing the point of having the index.php affixed the to URL? What is it's purpose?</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone shed some light on this?</p>