My Permalink Structure Experiment: Change From Default to Custom Postname for Better Optimization with WordPress blog Posts.
I am on a search to learn more about Worpress and optimization for my sites and blogs (see SEO Tip at bottom) and last month I found out that there is something in WordPress called Permalink Structure that you can set to various options to make your blog post and category urls be better optimized and contain keywords from the title or heading.
This is good!
Instead of a blog post using the default url which ends in a number, it can have the keywords I use in my blog post titles which is better for optimization of the header tags. In other words, the search engines can find my blog posts easier and thus people searching for what I am posting about can find me.
Will it break my links when I change Permalinks Structure?
Before I made the change over, I needed to know if this would break my links to other blog posts and category urls that I used in my 400+ blog posts that refer to other info in my blog. So I needed to back up my blog first and then do an experiment.
Let me explain.
By default WordPress uses web URLs which have question marks and lots of numbers in them, however WordPress offers you the ability to create a custom URL structure for your permalinks and archives. This can improve the aesthetics, usability, and forward-compatibility of your links. A number of tags are available, in your admin area there are some examples you can see.
Here is what the default urls for my blog posts and categories look like. They end in a number (p=post and cat=category) :
http://leadcapture101.com/?p=4
http://leadcapture101.com/?cat=3
On this next post I added links to the above two, just as I have in my original blog (with over 400 posts with links to other posts and category urls):
http://leadcapture101.com/?p=5
These options are found in your WordPress admin area under Options > Permalinks:
.
Now I will change the Permalink structure from default to custom /%postname%/
Here is what that looks like in your WordPress admin area:
.
Optional
If you like, you may enter custom bases for your category and tag URLs here. For example, using /topics/ as your category base would make your category links like http://example.org/topics/uncategorized/. If you leave these blank the defaults will be used.
OK lets see if links break or work after the change in Permalink Structure.
Now I clicked the links in the 2nd post made with the default urls (ending in numbers) to see if they still go to the right post or category url, (now set to use words from the title or post heading):
http://leadcapture101.com/test-post-2-default-permalinks/ vs http://leadcapture101.com/?p=5
…. Lets see if the link will work or break.
It worked!!!! Yeah!
Also you have a couple more Custom Options for Category base and Tag base. I choose for Category base: /on … as it is short. Like “a topic on…”. Its just what came to me as a short and related meaning option. Some people use the whole word “category” or “topic” or “dir”.
So my category url (in this case called “test-category”) looks like this:
http://leadcapture101.com/on/test-cat/
instead of this:
http://leadcapture101.com/?cat=3
Now I need to understand tag base. Jerry said its not important to SEO though
I wish I knew what a tag was. Anyone know?
Jerry Leventer says: “It’s just a keyword, but it can be used in different ways, like this one is in the URL apparently.”
Can any one comment on this?
I can find post urls and cat urls but how do you get or make tag urls?
Jerry Leventer says: “The tag url is just for the Archives, apparently. It’s not very important to SEO for your site. The actual posts are primary, the categories are next. Most people will link to a post not a category. But the category and archive url’s will be indexed.”
Can any one comment on this?
Now I just need to back up my Blog database and FTP up my Blog folder and I can click the default off and the Custom /%postname%/on; as well as the Category Base to /on and I’m set! its done!
And another lesson learned from others mistake…
From now on, we have to be very sure what we save the title heading to … maybe make the post first then give it a title with good keywords in it! Cuz you can’t change it later! … or you will get sabotaged like KR did ( LOL) . The typos stays in the url, even if you fix it. Or can you adjust that in the slug of the post?
I hope I get lots of comments and feedback here as I am still learning all this wonderful stuff about WordPress. Please Comment below! I want to learn all I can. Thank you for reading.
Speaking of Optimizing your sites and blogs here is a …
SEO Tip – Get On the Waiting List Early:
Confused by all the conflicting SEO information? Sign up for early notice of my friend Michelle Water’s SEO Training Course to get the real scoop on optimizing your site!
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- Lead Capture 101 » SEO Secrets Revealed - [...] Waters Says: February 18th, 2008 at 10:03 am eCongrats on tackling this project! It can be a bit overwhelming ...
Julie Wolf
Congrats on tackling this project! It can be a bit overwhelming the first time you try to figure it out. Looks like you had a helping hand — Jerry is really great about that.
Now, looking at your questions…
I see that the category and tab bases can be customized. For example, if you have the category:
http://leadcapture101.com/test-cat/
You can change it to this:
http://leadcapture101.com/on/test-cat/
While you can do this, I agree with Jerry in that it doesn’t affect your SEO. I recommend that you just leave both the category and tag base areas blank. All you need in the URL is your domain name and the keywords.
Now, when you write a post and you give it a title, and publish, wordpress will automatically create a post slug from that title.
So, if your title is:
SEO SEcrets Revealed
WordPress will create a URL like this:
http://leadcapture101.com/seo-secrets-revealed/
Keep in mind though, that if you write a long title, you’ll need to custom write a shorter, keyword-focused post slug.
Also, if you want the meta title tag to feature your keywords, and not just the title that you have given the post, you can install the SEO Title Tag plugin from:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-title-tag/
I have this on one of my sites and it makes creating a custom title just as easy as editing the Post Slug or the post title. It will also allow you to control the title tag on your pages as well.
Hope this helps!
Michelle
Thank you Michelle, it certainly does help! I will definitely check out this plugin for seo title. I don’t quite yet understand what this does that editing the post slug does not. One question though … when you edit the post title (after publishing) … or the slug for that matter, does the url for the post change?
Out of the box, when you first publish your post, WordPress will automatically create the post slug from the post title. So, if your Post Title is:
How To Make Golden Widgets In 10 Minutes Or Less
the slug will be:
how-to-make-golden-widgets-in-10-minutes-or-less
Now, let’s say you want the file name to be make-golden-widgets, along with your Title Tag, because that is your keyword phrase, but you want the post title to stay the same because it’s more customer friendly.
Currently, you can edit your post slug and put make-golden-widgets for the fire name, but you can’t make a separate Title Tag.
But with the SEO Title Tag Plugin, you can have a unique post title, post slug and title tag.
And to answer your question: Yes, if you edit the post slug after publishing, the URL for the post changes. So make sure you get it right the first time (Or immediately thereafter)! If your post already has traffic going to it, I would not touch the post slug. (unless you have a golden widget site and your page is attracting fans of a certain pop star whose name I will not mention. LOL