This tip is for new blogs only because changing your blog post URLs mid-stream will leave a bunch of dead links in the search engines’s indexes and anyone that has linked to your posts.
Permalinks are simply permanent URLs (What you see in your browser’s address bar) to your blog posts. By default WordPress uses permalinks such as http://blog.youradtracker.com/?p=174. Short and sweet, sure, but it ain’t all that pretty now is it? There’s a way to easily convert that URL to a longer yet more descriptive address. Something like: http://extremeezine.com/just-ask-someone/ Notice that the URL actually uses the key word enhanced title in the new address.
Including relevant keywords in your permalinks rather than numbers and special characters can greatly help your search engine optimization (SEO). Optimizing your blog for maximum traffic is important and custom Permalinks can play a huge role in your SEO efforts.
So how do we customize our permalink structure? It’s easy. Log into your WordPress admin area. Go to ‘Settings’ and then ‘Permalinks’. Click the radio button ‘Custom Structure’ and enter the following…
For the category and post name:
/%category%/%postname%/
Here’s one that will show the year and the post name:
/%year%/%postname%/
If your site uses multiple authors this may be a nice option.
/%author%/%postname%/
There are many options. See the list and a more detailed explanation at WordPress ‘Using Permalinks‘.
I M P O R T A N T
Now that we see the benefits of a custom permalink structure I need to offer a note of caution…
Always test your Permalinks before you commit to a particular structure. Changing your permalinks could be incompatible with other plugins, hacks and themes. Some modifications can play havoc on your blog when using custom permalinks.
Suggested reading: Configuring WP Permalinks by Weblog Tools Collection.
Related posts:
Have you noticed an increase in the number of comments since installed KeywordLuv? I’ve been considering using it on a blog I own and need some honest feedback.
This is an example of a blog comment spammer getting lazy. A quick Google search shows they left this same exact comment, word for word, on another blog that same day. See our post at Is It Comment Spam Or Not? for more on these low life spammers.
I’ve bookmarked your site for now because I don’t have any blog currently, I am looking for a wordpress blog, so they may be useful for me, I agree long URLs which have your title on the link is useful when you search in google because sometimes I find blogs having the keywords in their url easily. I’ll have to learn more on how to use my blog effectively and market it well. Thank you.
Good luck on getting a blog soon Mark, they’re a lot of fun.
I think that if you change permalink structure,wordpress will automatically redirect old urls to new urls by writing new rules in your htacess file . I did this for blogs with very few posts .
Also really liked website lowlifespammer and how you deal with spammers i never heard of it before
Your right James, post URL’s are automatically redirected. It’s better, I think, to decide which one to use and stick to it. Always back up everything before switching, some themes cause problems with different permalinks.
I would have to say that the first option of /%category%/%postname%/ is best for SEO purposes since the category usually has relevant keywords as well as opposed to the author’s name or year that don’t.
I’m with you Ben, I’m not sure why anyone would want the author’s name or year in their URL.
Actually using WordsPress today won't affect how the structure is set up in the future. So even if your blogs been around for two years you can still do this and Google won't have 404 Not Found pages.
thanks for the information the information provided by you is so useful and very informative thanks for posting this.