How To Optimize WordPress Permalink Structure
One aspect of onsite SEO for blogs is to configure a desirable permalink structure. Essentially, a permalink is a permanent reference URL used for access once the post passes from the first page of your blog. It is what others will use to link to the post and, perhaps more importantly, the link the search engines will use to identify your post, page or article. Permalinks should be unique.
There has always been debate about whether, and the extent to which, keyword-rich URLs contribute to a pages. It is commonly believed that keywords in the permalink do indeed contribute to a page’s SERPs.
The structure of WordPress permalinks is dictated by a series of settings and parameters found under the Settings > permalinks section, within the administrator console.
In order to fully optimize the permalink structure, aim to use your target keywords in the leftmost position of the URL. In order to do this you would need a custom structure containing the single parameter /%postname%. This creates a permalink based on the post title. It is then up to you to choose a unique, keyword-rich and compelling title for each of your posts.
Be aware that using just the /%postname% parameter compels you to create unique titles for every post on your blog in order to avoid collisions (where two articles might have the same permalink, clearly not a good situation).
Also, be aware that if your blog is established with numerous indexed pages then your should avoid altering your permalink structure without a full understanding of the consequences. It will affect your backlinks, trackbacks and ultimately your SERPs. Usually, optimizing a blog’s permalink structure should be undertaken during the early stages of the blog’s development, and before a substantial content base is developed.
There are several plug-ins available that allow auto-manipulation of post slugs and consequently permalinks. These often remove “noise” words (such as “the”, “and” and alike) with the belief that increasing the overall keyword density of the permalink, and shifting the keywords leftward, will ultimately increase the link weight. Although these plug-ins might offer some small SEO benefit, be extra cautious when using these on active blogs for the same reasons stated above.
Later iterations of WordPress offer the facility to edit the permalink before publishing in a box just beneath the post title when writing it. This way you can manually create a permalink for the post or manually crop noise words prior to publishing.
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Blog Optimization Tips | seowhitehats | December 15, 2009
Permalink Structure, Permalinks, Search Engine Optimization, Techniques & Trends, wordpress
using just /%postname%/ doesn’t pose any risk of URL collision on self hosted WordPress. WordPress will automatically add a -2 (or whatever) at the end of the URL. Not sure about wordpress.com blogs but I would be surprised if it wasn’t the same there as well.
I’m not sure when this feature was implemented but it has been around a while.
I would recommend using /%category%/%postname% since this creates a URL that most closely resembles what users are familiar with. It also allows you to use the category name which should be a relevant keyword.
WordPress warns us (its users) that using /%postname% or /%category%/%postname% structure could slow down the performance.
Is it really significant? And if it’s true, could the caching solution solve this performance problem?
I just want to say, Good article , thanx for all the great posts!
I agree. The url structure is important. I have found that dynamic urls still rank ‘ok’ but not as good as static urls. I think like any other onpage element, having the keyword within the url can help with rankings although it’s not as powerful as having teh keyword within the domain name.
If your site is going to have thousands of posts, you may also want to append the post id, or some other unique info (e.g. date) as you may otherwise have issues with ModRewrite slowing down.
Also, having the permalink structure can get you slightly better click through rates as it helps searches identify that they have found the info they are seeking
Very useful info thank you for the post.
A plugin that we always recommend for WP is All in one SEO which is a great help when optimizing.
One of its best features (by default) is the option of choosing each page format, each post format and each title format – which is a great feature.
Great article about permalinks in WP! Buy the way, is it better to make longer permalinks with more keywords, or less keywords in url but a lot shorter.
like url.com/post_name or url.com/category/post_name/etc ?