How to Remove Parent Slug From Child Page URL in WordPress

We remember the headache of setting up parent and child pages, only to end up with long, messy URLs. Seeing the parent page’s name stuck in a child page’s link just looked unprofessional and felt clunky.

It’s frustrating to think these default URLs might confuse visitors or even harm your site’s search engine rankings. You just want a clean, simple link that makes sense for your content.

The good news is that you can fix this. After testing different methods on our own websites, we found a reliable way to remove the parent slug without breaking any links.

In this guide, we will walk you through the exact steps to clean up your child page URLs. It’s a straightforward process that anyone can follow.

What Is a Parent Page Slug in WordPress?

Your WordPress website comes with two main content types called posts and pages.

Pages are hierarchical, which means they can have child pages. These child pages are dependent on their parent pages and typically cover subtopics related to the parent.

For example, you might have a ‘Products’ parent page with ‘Pricing’, ‘Support’, and ‘Features’ child pages.

By default, the URL of a child page in WordPress will have its parent page’s slug in the URL. Here’s an example:

http://example.com/parent-page/child-page/

Using URLs like this is the best way to organize content within a hierarchical page structure on your WordPress site. These URLs are considered best practice for WordPress SEO and will make sense to your users when they read them.

It’s usually not a good idea to remove the parent page slug. It can potentially break the URL, and some experts believe it is less SEO-friendly. Sometimes, it may even cause conflicts with the WordPress permalink structure.

That said, there are specific situations where a shorter URL is desirable. For example, you might have a ‘Services’ parent page with key child pages like ‘Web Design’ and ‘SEO Audits.’ For marketing materials or branding, you may prefer the cleaner, more direct URLs like yoursite.com/web-design.

If you simply want to show a relationship between pages for visitors, the best approach is often to create standard pages (instead of child pages) and organize them with a drop-down navigation menu.

However, if you need to use a parent-child structure and still want a shorter URL, then you’re in the right place.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily remove the parent page slug from a child page URL in WordPress.

Removing Parent Page Slug From Child Page URL in WordPress

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Custom Permalinks plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to edit the child page that you want to change. Under the content area, you will see a ‘Custom Permalinks’ field where you can change the child page URL.

Now you can see your page’s current default URL in the permalink field. You just need to click it and enter the custom URL you want to use for your child page.

In our example, the hollywood-boulevarde page is a child page oflocations, so the default permalink is locations/hollywood-boulevarde.

We deleted the locations parent slug from the URL, as you can see in the screenshot below.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Update’ button to save your page and store your URL changes.

After saving your changes, the plugin will automatically redirect the old permalink to the new address. This means your visitors will not see a 404 error if they click a link or bookmark to the page’s old address.

When you view the child page, you will now notice that its URL does not contain the parent slug.

Frequently Asked Questions About Parent Page Slugs

Here are some of the most common questions our readers ask about managing their WordPress page URLs. We hope these answers provide some extra clarity.

1. Will removing the parent slug from a child page URL affect my SEO?

Changing any URL structure can have a temporary impact on SEO, but it’s generally minimal if handled correctly. The default hierarchical URL (parent/child) is logical for both users and search engines and is considered a good practice.

Using a plugin that creates proper 301 redirects, like the one we recommend, tells search engines that the page has moved permanently. This helps transfer any existing SEO value to the new URL. However, search engines generally prefer stable and predictable URL structures, so it’s best to decide on your URL format and stick with it.

2. What happens to the old URL after I remove the parent slug?

The Custom Permalinks plugin automatically redirects the old URL to the new one. This means anyone clicking an old link from another website or a saved bookmark will be taken to the correct page without seeing a 404 error.

3. Is it a good idea to remove the parent slug from the URL?

In most cases, we recommend keeping the parent slug. It creates a clear and logical site structure that helps visitors understand how your content is organized.

If you do not want a hierarchical URL, the best alternative is to create a standard, top-level page instead of a child page. You can then use your navigation menu to create a visual parent-child relationship for your users.

4. Can I remove the parent slug without using a WordPress plugin?

It is possible to remove the parent slug by adding custom code to your theme’s functions.php file or by using .htaccess rules. However, these methods are complex and not recommended for beginners. A single typo can cause a critical WordPress error, like the ‘white screen of death,’ making your entire site inaccessible.

Additional Resources to Manage Your WordPress Pages

We hope this article helped you learn how to remove the parent page slug from a child page URL. If you’re looking for more ways to organize and optimize your site’s pages, you may find these other guides helpful:

• Posts vs. Pages in WordPress – A clear explanation of when to use posts and when to use pages for your content.
• How to Add a Navigation Menu in WordPress – Learn how to organize your pages in a menu, which is a great alternative to using child pages.
• How to Create SEO-Friendly URLs in WordPress – A complete guide to setting up the best URL structure for search engine rankings.
• How to Create a Child Page in WordPress – Our step-by-step tutorial on properly setting up parent and child pages from scratch.
• How to Display a List of Child Pages for a Parent Page – Automatically show a list of sub-pages on a main parent page.
• How to Create a Landing Page with WordPress – Build a custom page for your marketing campaigns without any clutter.

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