This article will analyze different top ranking wordpress blogs and see which permalink structure performs better. I’m writing this article because many new bloggers tend to use the default wordpress permalink structure (http://example.com/?p=1) rather than a better optimized structure which will fasten your indexation on Google and also rank you higher for specific keywords you are targeting How To Change The Permalink Structure ? After you login in your wordpress admin panel, you click on Settings -> Permalinks and there you have several available options plus a “custom†option where you can add your own permalink structure Personally I have always used 2 different permalink structures: www.yoursite.com/category/post-title-here www.yoursite.com/post-title-here As you can see, I’m actually using the first option on this blog (www.goldenblogger.com/make-money/how-to-make-money/). This type of permalink structure is highly recommended when you discuss several topics on your blog such as Internet Marketing , SEO, Domaining or even Social Media. After your post gets indexed, it can show up on Google even if someone is searching a particular category such as domaining or business which makes your url keyword rich and hence, more chances to rank higher which leads to more traffic Top Bloggers & Their Permalink Structures ProBlogger Even though Darren uses the “Date/Post-Title†type of permalink structure, this didn’t have a big impact on his blog because he ranks pretty well for different long tail keywords (What is a blog or Blogging Tips For Beginners) I wonder what would have happened if he would have used another more search engine friendly type of permalink structure, would he still have the same position as now or perhaps he would rank better ? CopyBlogger Bryan is using the most friendly permalink structure, which is /postname/. If you actually Google any of his article titles (like 10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer) you will see its ranking first and with a short and straight to the poing URL (www.copyblogger.com/become-a-better-writer/) Conclusion The conclusion is plain simple , do not use the default permalink structure provided by Wordpress. Change it to whatever listed above and your life will be much nicer Source: http://www.goldenblogger.com/blogging/best-permalink-structure-wordpress
Just make sure when you add the custom structure you use this format: /%category%/%postname%/ I prefer the category because you get an extra keyword in there ;-) -Scott
Good points! I tend to stick to /%postname%/ for blogs where titles are longer... and /%category%/%postname%/ where they are shorter and there are many categories...
Hmmm...I think having the category in the URL string is a valuable SEO benefit. Look at Google's search results and you will many times see them highlight keywords within the URL string. Just my thoughts ;-)
Removing category from Wordpress permalink is better as we can remove word repetition. But as you pointed out in the post, it will adversely affect blog posts in long term point of view.
Hello sir i have a question can we put the front of our site url any custom word like example com/fun and this is stay not change any thing else thanks.
thanks for this recommendation, .. i always use default permalink, but it's not good i appreciate it, i will try it
For ahnternet and a personal blog of mine, I do the /date/postitle format because well, the date is important too. However, for sites that I emphasize SEO and SE traffic, I use /category/postitle or simply /postitle
Ok I am using now year/month/postname structure. If i modify it, all the internal links will be affected. How can I solve this issue. Is there any plugin, that can convert the old permalinks at my blog into the new structure and also redirect if someone from other blogs come to the old link.
I prefer %postname%.html because post should be html format and it will be nice for crawlers to crawl.