Permalinks were invented to make the URLs permanent and also more easier to remember.
WordPress blogs by default use dynamic URL structure, in the form of http://mysite.com/?p=344. This is dynamic as the page is retrieved using the number parameter which changes for every page.
Using permalinks, the previous URL becomes something like http://mysite.com/cooking-tips-tricks.
Why use permalinks?
Besides being easier to remember and use, permalinks can have positive impact on your search engine rankings.
It is believed that Google ranks pages based on appearance of keywords in the URL, among other factors. You can see a hint confirming the theory in the actual search results page, as all keywords appearing in the URL will be highlighted as well.
Setting up Permalink structure
Permalinks are edited in Settings->Permalinks screen, and best results are made if you enable "Custom structure". Custom means you can define permalink structure by using one of many permalink tags. Most useful are %postname% (title of the post), %post_id% (id of the post) and %category% (post category, if in multiple categories first created category will be used).
Most basic usage is only having %postname% tag and as an example you can see urls on my site which are using this structure.
Recently I am more inclined to think that using %category%/%postname% may yield you better results if category names contain keywords you want to rank for.
Setting permalinks for Google News
If you want to list your site in Google News, one of the requirements is to have at least three digit identifier at the end of every URL.
This is easily accomplished using %postname%-%post_id% structure, which will append post ID to the end of url so it becomes http://mysite.com/cooking-tips-tricks-344. You only have to create at least 100 pages first in order to have three digits at the end :)
Conclusion
Since permalinks cost you nothing to set up, there is no reason not to use them. This should be the first step you do when you install a WordPress blog as changing permalinks at a later time requires more work (you will have all incoming links to your old urls).
Please also check out ManageWP, One dashboard to manage all WordPress sites.
Related Articles:
- Newbie guide to WordPress SEO
- SEO Smart Links and Category Search plugins
- Do it Yourself: Optimize your WordPress Site Titles
Posted in: SEO, WordPress
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46 Comments
I use I use %category%/%postname%, for my posts and add keywords to my titles and it seems to work quite well.
I am running the travel blog i.e. http://www.tourtravelagency.com and the Category section is like category/newcategoryname/postname.html but I don't want to add category before our category name. How to do it.
In the WordPress codex they say:
"Starting Permalinks with %category% is strongly not recommended for performance reasons."
There are similar warnings for %postname% and a couple of others. Yet your recommendation (and some of their own examples) includes starting this way. Can you comment on the performance problem and whether the size of the blog or the number of categories is a factor?
I have a url that uses wordpress version 2.8.2 which I have set up static pages for. I don't want to use it as a blog; just a stand alone website with a few pages.
I want to set up the permlinks so that the URL shows the postname only on each page e.g as http:///%postname%/
But, despite what you say, this doesn't work.
I don't want to show the year, month ,day or category; just the url and postname.
Does anybody know how I can set things up like this?
Hi,
It's really very useful tip. I'm using it in my new health blog http://healthoutfit.com. Thanks for this useful tip.
Please tell me, ¿What is the better /%postname%/ or /%postname%?, and ¿why?.
Thank you very much.
Hi, nice post.
I found your topic when I was looking for the way to optimize permalink in wordpress.
I've wondering about it, so thank for writing.
I have tried this Friendly URL and within 10 min it's start working. Thanks a lot!!
or you can outsource the work to a freelance site, and hire someone to manually redirect it all for like 10 cents a link? :)
Vladimir,
thanks for that quick response! That's what I was afraid of. I considered using the 301 redirect, but we have too many posts to manually index.
I may look into the idea of creating a pre-loader routine that checks the request for url structure, and does a lookup/redirect against the MySQL tables if it finds the old format.
It's never easy, is it? :>
Thanks again.
s.
No you can not use two concurrently (at least not without hacking)
But you can use 301 redirect in your .htaccess file to redirect old structure to new one
Anyone know if it's possible to use 2 Permalink structures concurrently? (Ugly & Pretty?)
Going forward, we would lile to change from "Ugly" to "Pretty" to make the links a little more descriptive. However, when we tested the change, all the inbound links (Ugly format) from sites that have picked up our posts are broken. We have years worth of posts that still get linked to.
Would hate to lose all those referrals just to make the switch.
If anyone knows a workaround, would love to hear from you...
Thanks!
I've tried category/postname, but none of the links will work and I don't know why. o_O;
So until I figure out how to make them work, I have to leave it as the ugly default. =(
go！
Hello - am I right in thinking that when the permalinks are changed to (e.g.) /%post_id%-postname% , the "IfModule mod_rewrite.c" code that WordPress puts in .htaccess takes care of converting/diverting external links in the old format - i.e. "/?p=498" ?
I've tried it on a duplicate blog I use for testing plugins/changes etc. (before going live on the main blog) and it all seems to work fine. Seems too easy... Anyone hit any problems other than here in the comments ?
Vladimir, would you please answer an SEO newbie question?
I'm trying to build a SILO structures. Can I achieve SEO by setting up theme-related blogs each in its own directory on the same site? I would use regular HTML or PHP for the index page and their directory folders.
Another alternative would be putting the related blogs in their own subdirectories. Would this be better for Google ranking?
Mary
Vladimir
This is a very interesting post. I tried inserting %category%/%postname% in Custom Structure for my client Hersey & Son and the URL extensions appeared exactly as I would wish them too. However, as you note in your Conclusions, it did mean that none of the posts appeared when clicked on thereafter, so I had to revert to the standard setting.
I've about 30 posts written since June last year. How do I go about updating these so that when I update the settings next time my old posts remain available?
Ian
no need to
"You only have to create at least 100 pages first in order to have three digits at the end :)"
you can do like this:
%postname%-00%post_id%
cheers
Great tip - plus permalinks make the post look better, IMHO.
I use %category%/%postname%, and I also edit the automatically generated postname only to have keywords. For example, my last post was titled "Social Media Confession: I Follow Brands on Twitter" and was in the social media category. The permalink is http://www.afhill.com/blog/social-media/brands-on-twitter
Keith you may want to take a look at this link
Yes that's correct, why didn't I think of it first :)
You don't have to create 100 posts
Just add "0" or "00" or any number :)
%postname%-0%post_id%
and if I don't misunderstood, the 3 digits can place anywhere in the URL.
I am your opinion. See also my article in German: http://playground.ebiene.de/933/optimaler-permalink-in-wordpress/
I set up permalinks to work on my site but some of my readers are complaining they don't work. However the links they are complaining are broken work when I try to look at them. It doesn't appear to be browser-related. Here's an example of what they've said:
The relevant thread is here: http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2009/01/19/2009-f1-car-comparisons-ferrari-mclaren-renault-williams-and-toyota/#comment-232906
If you could offer any help I'd be very grateful!