Why Some Should Change The Permalink Structure
Mar 11 by Marcus Hochstadt | Posted in SEO
From time to time, I find WordPress powered blogs that use a certain default setting.
Nothing wrong with defaults in general, but the one I’m talking about today is one of the key essentials for getting high rankings at the Search Engines, and it makes folks remember and recognize certain pages more easily.
Therefore, I find it essential for your Internet Business.
What am I talking about anyway?
Permalinks (or “Permanent Links”)
When people visit your WordPress blog they will see a list of the most current posts. But what happens if a user wants to come back to read a specific post in a few days or months time? It could be that it has disappeared off the home page and is now archived somewhere. This is where permalinks come in.
Permalinks are quite simply permanent links to your post, and per default these look like…
http://www.yourblog.com/?p=123
The “p=123″ means something to WordPress, however it means very little to anyone else, or Search Engines for that matter. These are the two main reasons why you might want to change your permalink structure in your WordPress application.
SEO is a hot topic nowadays. Just in case you have been living with cotton wool in your ears for the past few years then it stands for “Search Engine Optimization.” This basically means making your site more attractive to Search Engines.
When Search Engines are crawling the Internet they may pay attention to certain sites and index them. “p=123″ means absolutely nothing (other than that it’s the 123th post,) unless of course someone searches for “p=123″ which is very unlikely! What would be better is to change this link to something meaningful.
Changing the format of these links will also make it possible for humans to remember certain links. Including the post name in the permalink will make it much easier for people to remember the content of the post.
Also, when someone sees a post of your blog, s/he decides whether or not to click-through to that particular blog post. Having a “p=123″ may not accomplish this.
Changing The Permalink Structure In WordPress
To change the permalink structure in your WordPress application, click on OPTIONS -> PERMALINKS. Under “Common Options” check the radio button beside “Custom, specify below” and enter the following…
%postname%
This will result in a structure such as http://www.yourblog.com/name-of-post
Why only %postname% and nothing more, like the date or the category?
The reason why I use %postname% only is word-of-mouth, which is a crucial part of any Internet business. Similarly to choosing a good domain name, the longer the URL the harder to remember and the more difficult it will be to have a clickable link in e-mails, comments, chatting, etc (may be chopped off.)
—Marcus Hochstadt
P.S. For more information, visit the WordPress tutorial on changing the permalink structure.
Tags: permalinks
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15 Responses for "Why Some Should Change The Permalink Structure"
James (6 comments)
March 11th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
12Hi Marcus,
My blog is running on Blogger platform. Is it the same thing applied to Blogger blog as well? If yes, do you have any idea about how to do that in Blogger blog..
Thanks,
James
Jason (1 comments)
March 11th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
13When I updated my permalinks it made a huge difference. This is a great explanation on why and how. Thanks for sharing.
androo (1 comments)
March 12th, 2008 at 12:45 am
14good topic… i had trouble with permalinks at first when i transfered over my blog form blogger to wordpress… but i got someone to help me with them and i had to contact my hosting service to allow access to my database (or something along thoses lines)… Thanks for sharing the valuable info!
Ben Barden (6 comments)
March 12th, 2008 at 1:54 am
15Hi Marcus, glad you mentioned this. I don’t use WordPress for my site but I know a lot of people do. This kind of thing is so fundamental to finding content on the web that it should just be enabled by default, so users don’t have to follow tutorials or install SEO plugins. Options that everyone should turn on shouldn’t even be options. There’s just no need!
Relax Max (1 comments)
March 12th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
16Although I have passed by several times in my entrecruising, this is the first time I have stopped to smell the flowers. I should have stopped earlier. I don’t use WordPress on my current blogging project (mainly because I don’t agree with Matt that “code is poetry”. To some of us, code is work), but your post on permalinks is helpful and important, and I have copied it down to follow up on my WordPress ventures. Thank you for it.
Magpies Zone (1 comments)
March 12th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
17Great point on the %postname% permalinks rather than using date and month before the post title. I also using /name-of-post for my blog permalink, and before change it I have read on about not to do this if your blog is already existed and changing the default url into permalinks are only valid for new blog.
Maybe that is true, because I have experienced of losing my feeds stats for couple days, the feeds statistic is showing zero result, but I see it as if I didn’t use permalink now, my blog will also suffered.
Now, my alexa rank is looking even better and my Technorati authority is also growing after I change my default url into permalink :)
iphone games (1 comments)
March 12th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
18If you aren’t running a wordpress site the same thing can be achieved with modrewrite rules in your .htaccess file.
Google modrewrite and you will see what I mean. If you have no web experience though you are better off sticking with wordpress and letting them handle the nitty gritty for you!
Margaret (2 comments)
March 12th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
19Using this structure on your permalinks just makes good sense as like you say, the default of p?123 makes little sense to GOOGLE or any other search engine.
Also, changing from the default to this structure won’t break anything as I recently found out. Even people who have bookmarked the old link will make their way back OK.
M
Elizabeth Edwards (1 comments)
March 12th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
20Thank you SO much.. This is MUCH better :)
A Girl... (2 comments)
March 12th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
21Thanks for the tip! Now I need to focus on writer fresh post titles.
stormwhistle (1 comments)
March 13th, 2008 at 12:45 am
22Well written and very informative point you have brought up here.
Marcus Hochstadt (159 comments)
March 14th, 2008 at 7:35 am
23Hi all, glad my post hit a nerve. :-)
@ James, as far as I know, Blogger powered blogs are already set up with the page title in the file name (at least part of it) and they end in .html. Don’t know though whether you can change their default permalink structure. (Couldn’t find such a setting.)
@ Ben, I changed my permalink structure right before my first official blog post. Though, I had to move from a trusted German to a U.S. host in order to make it work.
@ Magpies Zone, I’m not an expert on that matter, though perhaps WordPress takes care of that?
Others, any idea? Perhaps “iphone games” gave a solution…
John Lockwood (1 comments)
March 14th, 2008 at 8:58 am
24Youre right, good point. I’ve been doing that all along but I see a lot of bloggers who still have the default on. Some of them quite good in other respects who may to some extent be shooting themselves in the foot with this.
Nessher (1 comments)
March 21st, 2008 at 5:46 am
25Your article was posted in the “Bringing more traffic to your blog” - 3rd Ed. Blog Carnival:
http://blogging4good.blogspot.com/2008/03/bringing-more-traffic-to-your-blog.html
Appreciate your participation.
BioTecK (1 comments)
April 1st, 2008 at 3:09 pm
26Very nice article! Thnx for sharing!! But I am still confused about the permalinks…
I agree that the default (?p=123) permalink is just “bad”!
But then again, you can also use 2008/04/01/sample-post/ tag, right? So my question is, what’s the different between that en %postname%?? Beside that the url gets long!?
Is this just a matter of choice or what? Cause I see a lot of blogs which have a lot of amount readers and they use the yy/mm/dd/post-name tag and me… I’m having a “hard” time choosing the right permalinks… :p
So can you help me out! ;)
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