Permalink Structure for SEO
One thing I have noticed while lurking among the blogosphere is that some bloggers completely ignore the fact that you can change the structure of your permalinks. It is really one of the simplest changes that I immediately change when setting up a blog.
By default the structure is setup to create your permalinks like this:
www.yoursite.com/?p=123
This url structure essentially robs you of getting keywords in your url which, in my opinion is an important part of the optimization of your pages. You can, with the click of a few buttons, change that setup and never worry about it again!
With Wordpress (which is the BEST blogging platform ever! Well it is the only one I have ever used 
) it is very simple:
- Sign into your Admin page
- Click on settings/permalinks
- Change the “default” structure
At this point you will be faced with a few choices to click on
- Default
http://yoursite.com/2009/12/23/sample-post/ - Day and Name
http://yoursite.com/2009/12/23/sample-post/ - Month and Name
http://yoursite.com/2009/12/sample-post/ - Archives
http://yoursite.com/archives/123 - Custom <you can enter a custom structure here>
I usually write in my own custom structure because I can get the most out of the keywords offered. I like the category/postname permalink structure which allows me 2 chances to get keywords in the permalink. Put this in the area it allows you to write custom permalinks and click save.
/%category%/%postname%/
That’s it!
Don’t miss out on such a simple change that could help get you organic results.
Do you use a different structure? If so what and why?
Filed under: Blogging • wordpress
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Thta’s a powerful tip.I have seen cuntless blogs where I thought the person knew what they were doing,even told them a few times only to see p24 etc.I also have tried that cananical tag to consolidate all the post on search etc.Check that out and see if you agree with that
Anyway I was on John’s blog and wanted to stop by Hope to see you around
Merry Christmas
You bring up a good point on canonical urls which is something I only recently started researching, but I am pretty sure that my Platinum SEO plugin helps with that by automatically creating canonical urls for me. But as I said I am still researching it.
Thanks for stopping by and hope to see more of you here! Merry Christmas!
It is really one of the simplest changes that you immediately changed when setting up a blog. Anyway I was on John’s blog and wanted to stop by Hope to see you around. Merry Christmas!!!!!!
I started Kikolani with postname.html. The sites I create now are all /postname/. I wish I knew which was better, ultimately… having the .html or having it the other way, which seems to be most popular.
I really don’t think the .htm makes a difference Kristi, just the fact that you at least go with /postname will get you keywords in the permalink which helps I think.
I like category/postname because it gives me a place for another keyword.
Thanks for stopping by, and Merry Christmas!
Hi Keith, it seems that we have the same preference in terms of permalinks. Thanks for visiting my blog. I came here from your comment on my blog so I thought I might pay you a visit.
This wouldn’t be the last that’s for sure.
You are absolutely correct that using the “/%category%/%postname%/” URL structure helps in adding keywords in the URl and is better for SEO . But keep in mind that if you tag your posts in multiple categories then it can also cause Duplicate content issues!
The only problem Keith is that I’m pretty sure if you change the permalinks after doing a few posts all those original posts disappear from the search engines as they are still looking for the old posts. A plugin has been developed though for resolving this problem.
I have come to your blog from blogangage blog, I am using blogger blog, by default blogger use the keyword of the title of the blog post on the permanent links and I think it is helpful for SEO.
Not necessarily Sire, If you are also using a plugin like Platinum SEO it automatically creates 301 redirects for you….
This is true, and I am working on a post regarding the difference between tags and categories because of that. To me, one category is fine per post, multiple tags may be necessary, but not always either…. Good point though, thanks for visiting and commenting.
Chandan, thanks for visiting, and I am always happy to have other blog engagers here…
Yep, just like I said, if you didn’t have a plugin, like not everyone would have Platinum SEO, you would be stuffed
Permalink is in fact one of the simplest changes that you immediately changed when setting up a blog. I as well have tried that canonical tag to combine all the post on search etc.
The issue how to use SEO in an orderly manner is a bit complicated and what I think is that the proper solution to this is to obey the policy of search engines.
What I use is /%post_id%/%postname%
This has the handy benefit of being able to simply use the /%post_id% as a short URL. WordPress automatically tries to find a match for the URL.
For example,
digitivity.org/699
and
digitivity.org/699/how-to-claim-your-blog-in-technorati
both go to the same place.
Note: I also use a custom extension to expand the short URL to the big one, which is the canonical URL in order to avoid people bookmarking the shorter one.
Just curious what the benefit of the short url would be? So it will fit better in social media sites?
Twitter, as we all know has a limit of 140 characters for the message. But, of course, you have to leave extra space to allow for retweets.
If you take a typical URL shortening service’s URL:
bit.ly/5e1sOn
That’s 20 characters.
The equivalent post-id URL:
digitivity.org/632
is 25 characters, which is not bad for a URL that points directly to you and builds your sites brand.
The second reason is: If people take the URL and put it in a blog post somewhere, you’ll reap the Google goodness, not Bitly.
By the way, with this technique, you can also quote just part of the post title, which is great for avoiding line cutoffs. For example, in some comments which I made on some other sites which were also covering the same topic, I used only part of the post title:
digitivity.org/632/the-new-york-times-resizes-christina-hendricks-photo
(The actual URL is longer.)
As long as you only concatenate as opposed to changing the post title part, WordPress will get you where you need to go.
There are also some other reasons behind this. I’ll be writing a blog post on all of this plus the custom canonicalization plugin.