How To Create Your Permalink Structure More User And SEO-friendly
Dainis Graveris
Okay, this time it will be just a small tip, I see many people do not know about. I must say this tip is for WordPress blog users, I don’t know what kind of system is in other blogs.
So what am I talking about??
Every WordPress blog user should use and customize their permalink structure. What permalink means and stand for? Permalinks are the permanent URLs to Your individual blog posts, categories, archives and others. It is URL that follows after Your web site address for example I use (example.com as web site front page address) – example.com/follows-permalink-address. You see?
This is default address to blog posts after installing WordPress blog – http://example.com/?p=123, WordPress calls this “Ugly” link and I cannot agree more :)
Whole reason I write this short article, because I see so many blogs using this default ugly link. Why people call this about ugly link? Actually it’s because this link is very unfriendly to the search engines – one of the most important criteria to the search engine spider is file name – do not to waste this SEO friendly factor. You see permalink address like ?p=123 do not say anything about Your post. Okay, now maybe You agree, You should use SEO friendly permalink so I will go ahead and answer to the next question – How to implement it?
Ugly permalink – http://example.com/?p=123
Pretty permalink – http://example.com/category/post-name/ or http://example.com/year/month/day/post-name
You can change permalink settings in Your admin panel Settings–>Permalinks. If Your settings are default I suggest and recommend to change it to – /%category%/%postname%/
Do this in every blog when You are starting out. Now Your address to post will be http://www.example/com/category/post-title – much better indeed?
Huh, but what You can do if You’re using default settings and have many posts already?
You have all these links in search engines, trackbacks, pingbacks and social bookmarking sites – permalink change would seriously crash and broke all links out there. If You are in this situation there is actually one thing to do, I’ll explain things later.
Take these steps then in following order:
1. Download and install Permalink Migration plugin
2. Unzip it, drop it in wp-content/plugins folder and activate it;
3. Now go to admin panel->options->PermalinksMigration
4. And then set the old, default permalink structure of your site in the form.
5. Now go to Your admin panel Settings–>Permalinks. Now change it to – /%category%/%postname%/
Permalink Migration plugin – “With this plugin, you can safely change your permalink structure without breaking the old links to your web site,and even doesn’t affect your search engine rankings.” It’s called 301 Redirect, also known as a permanent redirect. For alternative You can also check out this Redirection plugin with more options.
Now instead of hitting 404 error page, user will be automatically redirected to Your new structure URL in moments and search engine spiders also will find new links faster and change it! Nice one! Also You can use redirection plugin if You are migrating pages from other web site, or are changing the directory of your WordPress installation. I hope this will help – now You have much more SEO-friendly permalink structure!
If You have any tips, questions, feel free to ask, also consider to visit WordPress Codex – Using Permalinks, You’ll find more options how to change Your permalinks using different tags like - %year%, %monthnum%, %day%, %hour%, %minute%, %second% and much more detailed explanation.
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Rakesh Solanki
Posted 708 days ago 27Thanks for suggesting best permalink for wordpress. May be i will try this one in future.
.-= Rakesh Solanki´s last blog ..Fixup Nofollow Issue After WordPress Installation =-.
vinoth
Posted 718 days ago 26Thanks for this.. but i want know how this permalink is used in my php type website other then wordpress
Help me
thanks
ezra
Posted 877 days ago 25i using /%category%/%postname%.html
moratmarit
Posted 879 days ago 24Hii..thanks for share, this useful for me.
.-= moratmarit´s last blog ..Characteristics of Real Men =-.
Miss_E
Posted 890 days ago 23Thank you so much. I’ll be doing this today with 2 of my sites. Cross your fingers.
My question though is why in the world would the default option on wordpress be the absolute worst choice for permalink structure??
.-= Miss_E´s last blog ..Make Money on Twitter =-.
Ben Druce
Posted 915 days ago 22What happens if I’ve already changed permalink structure without using the migration plugin?
I’m pretty annoyed because my Google ranking has dropped off the map.
Any suggestions I’d be grateful.
theCount
Posted 958 days ago 20A positive side effect of doing this at the beginning of every wp install is that it creates a .htaccess file in your root, this is an essential file for a good wp installation and can be used for more than just redirecting links, you can configure server side functions (for example forcing host/ISP php/mySQL 5 to be used)
.-= theCount´s last blog ..Inspirational Quotes #14 =-.
Dainis Graveris
Posted 957 days ago 21@theCount good addition, I didn’t know that, thanks!
Stop Dreaming Start Action
Posted 961 days ago 18For me I like to use the .htm ending.. so it will be like this %postname%.htm or html.. look like static page..
Stop Dreaming Start Actions last blog post : Follow Your Dream
Dainis Graveris
Posted 960 days ago 19@Stop Dreaming Start Action is it a better way? why you need it to look like static page?
Sherry
Posted 985 days ago 17thank you for the info I able to change it :)
Sherrys last blog post : Natural Bar Soap
Teddy
Posted 1048 days ago 16Question about the following:
“4. And then set the old, default permalink structure of your site in the form.”
What is the ‘default structure’?
John
Posted 1070 days ago 15For some reason when i changed my permalink settings to custom, all my posts lead to a 404 error. can someone help me out on this one? thanks!
JCarlosMC
Posted 1102 days ago 14Thanks, thanks,thans ….from spain.
JCarlosMCs last blog post : “Mala vida”…Mano Negra
Alexandre
Posted 1121 days ago 13Wonderfull !
exactly what i needed
It’s work perfectly
thanks !
Alexandres last blog post : Résaux à vendre
Daniel Richard
Posted 1186 days ago 12The permalink migration plugin is what I should have installed over on my other blog prior to the change in the permalink structure! But that was a way good find which other WP users will find very useful! :)
Daniel Richards last blog post : 10 Things: Absolute Coolness That You Can Believe In To Make Your Blog Super Awesome!
Dainis Graveris
Posted 1186 days ago 11@Brian oh, do so, maybe it’ll help :)
@Ricks that’s great, if ou have any problems, just ask :)
@Chris if You don’t believe me just read WordPress Codex link and search for SEO.
@Angie thanks for the tip! :)
@Tom yeah, I do it to hopefully help those people, who don’t know this tip..:)
Danh ba web 2.0
Posted 1187 days ago 10Thanks for great post. It’s very useful !
Danh ba web 2.0s last blog post : Top những mạng Social Media hàng đầu hiện nay
Tom Ross
Posted 1187 days ago 9I was aware of this tip already, but I know that a lot of people aren’t. It’s well worth doing.
Tom Rosss last blog post : Daily Image Inspiration #9
Angie Bowen
Posted 1187 days ago 8Really nice article! For anyone considering using category/postname who also has a tendency to assign posts multiple categories, make sure you put something in place to counter wordpress’ tendency to create multiple addresses for the same post. I started out using category/postname and quickly switched to postname only.
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Chris Ritke
Posted 1187 days ago 7Hum. I built my own blogging engine and must admit that I defaulted to the /?b=xxx url scheme. Mainly because it’s simple to implement. I see a lot of the url schemes you’re advocating here and agree that they are prettier. But I’m just not convinced that it’s going to make a difference for SEO. You’re just saying it’s better. I’d like to understand why.
That said – I’m going to go into the code tonight and add in the prettier scheme – and do the redirecting as you suggested. Thanks for the nudge!
Chris Ritkes last blog post : Where’s the Gantt Chart?
Ricks
Posted 1187 days ago 6Had no idea about this, well found and thanks for sharing!
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Brian Yerkes
Posted 1187 days ago 5Nice article! I am thinking about doing exactly what Selene did, using categories/postname. Right now I have simply /postname..
This will come in handy when I get round to doing this! Thanks Dainis!
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Dainis Graveris
Posted 1187 days ago 4@Brian oh, thanks – corrected spelling :) my bad.
Brian
Posted 1188 days ago 3Criterions?
Brians last blog post : Gaming the tubes
Dainis Graveris
Posted 1188 days ago 2@Selene oh, You really cheered me up – this is one coincidence, and I am happy this article helped to You! I’ll be thankful if You pass this link further! Thanks for good words!
Selene M. Bowlby
Posted 1188 days ago 1No kidding! I literally just changed from date based permalinks to /category/postname/ structure this morning. With the Permalink Redirect and Permalink Migration plugin, it went off without a hitch!
My problem was I changed a few postname title url’s too which I needed to use the Redirection plugin to fix.
Great info here – I know a few people thinking of changing their permalink structure… I’ll be passing this link onto them!
Selene M. Bowlbys last blog post : Guest Post on Freelance Folder – 10 SEO Techniques All Top Web Sites Should Use