If there is one thing foremost in importance when starting a new blog is to optimize your URL or what one would call permalink. Permalink refers to the URL by which a particular post can be referenced. When proper permalink structure is taken care of, you stand a better chance of ranking higher in search engines results.
By default, WordPress set the permalink structure as www.domain.com/?p=12 which is a big NO NO for Search Engines Optimization (SEO). It doesn’t actually gives any indication to the robot what the post is all about. Hence it is important to optimize your URL and make it more SEO-friendly.
What is the optimal URL or Permalink Structure?
In what I have come to learn, the optimal URL structure, according to Matt Cutt with his SEO tips, would be to use only the post title as part of the URL and don’t include the post date in your URL. Not only it is human-readable, more importantly it gives the maximum SEO benefits.
The point is you need to use a more descriptive URL than just any number which has no relevant value to search engine and using post title serves the purpose well. As we all know it, one of the important factor in SE ranking is the keywords in the URL.
How to optimize your URL for search engines?
WordPress lets you easily change or customize your URL structure with ease. If you are using WP 2.5, you will have 4 other options apart from the default one, namely Day and name, Month and name, Numeric and Custom Structure.
1. From your Admin Dashboard, go to Setting
2. Select Permalinks
3. Choose Custom Structure
4. Fill in with the tag /%postname%/
This should be the most ideal setup for your URL.
It is important to note that you need to setup your permalink structure early when starting your blog, failing which it will be a pain in the @#% to change the URL structure later when, say you have already published 100 posts. So get your act early before it’s too late.
By the way, what permalink structure do you use?
PS: Colin, if you reading this, it’s about time you do something to your URL.
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I just realize that maybe this is the reason I lost my PR3. I change my url structure during the 2nd week of May.
Am I right?
Saw your comment in NJC that’s why I came here.
pmonchet’s last blog post..Land of Serenia
@pmonchet: There are a couple of reasons you could lose your PR, changing your URL structure when your blog is already established, I believe is one of them. I share your concern too.
BTW, what is NJC?
Yeah I’ve changed my permalinks from year/mont/posttitle/ to /postitle.html
Now I’m thinking to change again to /posttitle/ because tracksbacks don’t seem to work :{ oh well
Michael Aulia’s last blog post..Work. Together. Anywhere.
Hey Michael,
Glad you stop by. You have a great blog yourself. The fact that I picked up a thing or two from you, make it one.
Anyway, I didn’t know that trackbacks doesn’t work well with .html. Is that the case? I read it somewhere that with .html, your page will load faster. Well, I just think, without it prettify the url a little bit.
I’m using /%posttitle%.html at the moment …having problems with trackbacks but it’s kinda too late to change, unless I want to do the 301 redirection thingie again :(
PS: Your friend Colin needs to change his permalink indefinitely :D
Michael Aulia’s last blog post..Windows Search 4.0
Ya that 301 thing is pretty scary when you get it wrong.. that’s why the setting has to come early before everything else..
On last check, he hasn’t done it yet but I’m sure he will..
Yep yep it’s a pain changing your permalink structure after you blog has been up for awhile.
Gerald Weber´s lastest post..5 Free SEO Tools You’re Probably Not Using Yet
Wow….I have just started out and your tip came in really handy…
Thanks…
RightMan´s lastest post..Internet poker game, an easy way to gain dollars from your lounge
I am thinking of switching to a wordpress blog later and I will keep your excellent tip on permalinks in mind.
Associate Money´s lastest post..<a href=”http://ass
hi yan
how to structure permalink such as this /% category% /% postname% /? because in my blog like that.
syafur
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I generally structure URLs for dynamic sites the way I would if they were static files, except without extension. Pages that are an index of some sort I treat like directories
For example:
/users/jack – not /user/view/jack
/projects (and then /projects/my-awesome-game) – not /projects/list