SEO Friendly URL Structure for WordPress
WordPress URL Structure by default is not the most Search Engine Friendly, and it is also not very user friendly. In this tutorial we will show you how to make SEO Friendly URL Structure for WordPress that are also user friendly. If you see us use Permalink structure instead of URL structure, you should know that they are synonymous.
Why SEO Friendly URL Structure
When you have a SEO friendly structure, you are increasing your chances of ranking higher in search engines such as Google and others. Which by default are the largest source of new visitors to any website. In our experience with SEO, we have seen that Google gives extra weight to the URL structure therefore it is recommended that you follow this tutorial.
Begin Process
By default WordPress URL Structure looks a bit more robotic because it is not user friendly at all let alone not being SEO friendly.
http://wpbeginner.com/?p=25
Above is an example of what a default WordPress URL structure looks like. The goal of making the URL structure more friendly is that your users should know before reading the article what it is about by just looking at the URL. The same goal is to be accomplished for Search Engines as well.
Step 1: Open the Permalink Option Page
First you need to open the Permalink Option Page which you can find in your WordPress Admin Panel if you click on the Setting Tabs and then go to Permalink. There you should see something which looks familiar to the image above.
You would need to click on the fifth option which says Custom Structure.
Step 2: Pick Your Structure from Documentation
There are many ways a URL can be organized. WordPress gives a few options which you can see at two, three, and four. But those are not the best option in our opinion.
We recommend the URL Structure of
/%category%/%postname%/
or if someone wants a completely static site, then they can use the version below.
/%category%/%postname%.html
By using that documentation your URL structure will be keyword rich as it will contain the keyword of the category and the title. Like the one below:
http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-install-WordPress-on-your-site/
Now while we recommend the options above there are multiple other ways you can organize your URLs. We have seen many different options in use. To know the possible URL Structure combination, you will need to learn a few documentation tags.
%year% – The year of the post, four digits, for example 2004
%monthnum% – Month of the year, for example 05
%day% – Day of the month, for example 28
%hour% – Hour of the day, for example 15
%minute% – Minute of the hour, for example 43
%second% – Second of the minute, for example 33
%postname% – A sanitized version of the title of the post (post slug field on Edit Post/Page panel). So This Is A Great Post! becomes this-is-a-great-post in the URL.
%post_id% – The unique ID # of the post, for example 423
%category% – A sanitized version of the category name (category slug field on New/Edit Category panel). Nested sub-categories appear as nested directories in the URI.
%author% – A sanitized version of the author name.
More information about the tags can be found in WordPress Codex for Permalinks.
Once you have selected the combination, paste it in the field and click “Save Changes”
Your .htaccess file will automatically be updated, and your URL will be changed. We suggest that you do this towards the start of your website, so you don’t have to go through the process of re-indexing in search engine.
Good Luck with Ranking High in Search Engines.
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Excellent tip, but I have a question that if I change permalink structure, are those backlinks and trackbacks broken? How to deal with this?
You can use Platinum SEO, and it has a built in option of 301 Redirects, so if you change any of your URLs, it will automatically change the old urls to direct to the new one. So trackback and backlinks will never be broken.
Thanks for the article! However, something doesn’t work. I cannot apply the changes because there are no rights to write the file. When i look for the file in my server i don’t find it… so i create it. However, when i upload it in the server via ftp the wordpress admin page is down. when i delete the file wp admin page is back. Although I read about it I still don’t know how to solve the problem. Any help? Thanks in advance!!
You were not suppose to create any file with this tutorial. What are you talking about?
well, i’ve read everywhere that if the .htaccess file doesn’t exist… you have to create one. and i don’t see it in the folder of my server, so i created one. but it looks i was wrong…
i am just lookig for this file to make it writtable and apply all the good pieces of advice you give in this post. and the thing is that i don’t find the .htaccess file. in which folder it is supposed to be? thanks!
If you are using cPanel hosting, you won’t see .htaccess through your file mananger. This file is found in the root directory, but can be found in other directories as well.
@pere
To create the .htaccess file, on your computer create htaccess.txt (windows does not allow files to start with a [.](dot). This file should be blank.
Upload it to the default upload directory (ususally something like /public/ or /public_html/ etc. I looked to see where my wp install had a .htaccess file and found one there and also in my wp-admin directory. You could also upload to there and after you make the changes to the url structure, check and see which one the server wrote to, delete the one that didn’t change.
After you upload them, change the name to .htaccess from your ftp or however you access your files on the server. On my server they need permissions=644, which is owner has read and write permissions, group and public have read permissions.
Does this help?
WordPress automatically rewrites your .htaccess file on most servers. And yes you can create a .htaccess file in Windows. Just open a notepad and save it as .htaccess
thankz for this tutorial sir ..
try to use it
, but how if we use 2 category or more for one article ??
If you use subcategory, then it should show /parentcategory/subcategory/url
Hey, I am currently making a YouTube video about something simular, would you mind me using you as a reference? I’ll be sure to give you a link within the video.
Sure you can use us as a reference
Root/Category/PostName is a great structure for SEO. You are absolutely correct.
However, for anyone with a significant number of posts and pages on their wp website, you’re going to create a pretty large problem as their database is going to receive an enormous amount of strain from WordPress trying to figure out whether each URL is from a page or post.
If you use a numbererically based URL structure, such as Root/Month/Year/PostName, you’ll avoid that problem. It might not be perfect in terms of SEO, but its not exactly horrendous either…and your site is much more scalable.
Adam, you bring up a really good concern here. But sites that are very huge, will have excellent database caching, and WordPress caching. Their servers should be strong enough to handle these tiny requests. While the solution you suggest is not horrendous, it is definitely not the most SEO friendly way either.
Also, note that this type of problem may occur on really really large sites.
Hi,
Sorry if this is a silly question, but do you still need this plugin with WordPress 2.9
It seems like it does an ok job of handling URLs or am I seriously mistaken.
Again, apologies if this is a very basic question.
T
This is not a plugin. It is a built-in feature and we recommend you that you get one of the url structures that we suggest.
Thanks a lot. . . this was exactly what i was looking for