This short tutorial will show you how to clean up your WordPress URL’s from the default structure e.g. http://example.com/?p=123 to a more search engine friendly structure. This is a good thing, and Google will reward you for it.
An introduction to Permalinks
Permalinks are links to pages, or posts in a blog that point to the page after it has been moved from the front page. So irrespective of what you do to re-structure the presentation of your WordPress blog, the permalink will always point to the same page.
The type of permalinks most commonly used for SEO purposes are ‘Pretty Permalinks, e.g. http://example.com/blog/my-search-engine-friendly-post-title.
Setting up Permalinks in WordPress
We’re going to set these up on your blog right now. Dive into your WordPress Dashboard (surely you remember how by now. If not, try this) and click on the ‘Settings’ tab.
This will open a sub-menu where you can click on the ‘Permalinks’ menu option. Clicking on ‘Permalinks’ will open the Permalinks pane (who would have thought?).
You’ll be presented with 5 options. Depending on how you want to structure things on your blog you may want to explore a ‘Custom Structure’ but you’ll probably be safe enough selecting option 3 (Month and Name).
Click the ‘Save Changes’ button and you should see a little box telling you your Permalink structure has been updated.
If it worked, you’re finished. Make yourself a stiff drink to celebrate your impending rise to the top of Google thanks to search engine friendly URL’s.
It didn’t work
Umm, yes. Sometimes setting up Permalinks doesn’t work. In 100% of cases this is because your hosting provider doesn’t allow WordPress to create the necessary file to build Permalinks (the .htaccess file) on your web hosting server.
Because this is a WordPress ‘User Guide’ I’m not going to get all technical and explain how to fix this problem yourself. If you have a problem and you need some help, email me with your hosting information and I’ll help you out. Otherwise, your hosting company will be able to fix the problem for you (if they can’t, get a new hosting company).
Hello, I’m Dave. I work with web design agencies, freelancers and bloggers to develop standards-compliant WordPress and Thesis themes.
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Very nice post, thanks!!!
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Best option select Custom and insert this: /%postname%/
Thanks for the helpful infos. Sure you are fan of Wordpress like me:)
Keep it up!
I have only used this … %postname% on one of my blogs and i found out that its much better than using this one /%category%/%postname% or any other.
Thanks,
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Thank you for your helpful post. Yes, this technique improves search engine ranking also, your pages will look better when displayed in SERPs
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@Ival I think it depends how many posts you have on your site. If you’re only planning on posting once every couple of weeks, %postname% is ok. But if you’re planning hundreds of posts a year it could get messy.
Just my 2 cents worth, but it’s definitely something to consider when planning a new blog.
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