Do I need a menu item with alias for all sef urls in Joomla?

Question

I'm new to Joomla so my comprehension of how it all works is a bit incomplete. I'd just like to know whether or not I need to add new menu items with an alias for all short urls used in the application (e.g. http://mysite/shorturl). What bothers me is that:

1. Why would I need to make a menu item for an alias if I don't use the item in a menu (why such a relationship between urls and menus).
2. If I had 50 articles using short urls (aliases), would I have to make a menu item for every single short url? There's some dependencies I don't like about that.

I thought it made sense to set the alias on an article level.

I read something about having to purchase an extension sh404-something for this - really?

If someone could help me out it would be much appriciated.

Thanks and regards, Kjetil

Answer 1

Each article has its own unique url, even it's own unique SEF url. The only reason for have the menu item there is because there has to be a way to locally group and link things. Try this, create a category called "Things Starting with A" then create 3 articles and put them in that category. Create a menu item with a blog layout assigned to the category "Things Starting with A". When you click the menu item you should see your 3 articles, when you click their title you should see them on a single page with their own URL.