Do you want to create custom permalinks in WordPress for posts, pages, and other post types? Recently one of our readers asked if it was possible to create custom permalinks in WordPress. Permalinks aka your page URL structure plays an important role in SEO. In this article, we will show you how to create custom permalinks in WordPress without affecting your SEO.
What is a Custom Permalink?
WordPress comes with a handy option to create SEO friendly URL structure called Permalinks for your site. All you have to do is go to Settings » Permalinks page and choose a URL structure.
There are a number of options to choose from, and you can even specify a custom structure. Take a look at our SEO Friendly URL Structure for WordPress article to learn how to use permalinks in WordPress.
Choosing a permalink structure affects all posts and pages (both new and old) on your WordPress site, so you have to be careful when changing this.
But what if you want to use a different URL for only some posts on your site? What if you want to have a custom permalink for your custom post types? Maybe you want to have a custom permalink for your categories and tags? That’s when you need a custom permalink.
Custom permalink is basically a URL structure applied to that particular item in WordPress without affecting the rest of your URL structure.
Let’s take a look at how you can create custom permalinks in WordPress.
Creating Custom Permalinks in WordPress
There are two ways to creating a custom permalink in WordPress. Often when users are talking about changing the permalink of a WordPress post, they are really talking about the post slug. We will show you how to change the post slug.
But in some cases, users may want to create a completely custom URL structure, and we will also show you how you can do that in WordPress.
Method 1. Changing The Slug Part of a Permalink
In WordPress, the term slug is used for the url friendly name of a post, page, tag, or category. It is automatically generated by WordPress and used in URL when you create a new item.
For example, a post titled “20 Most Amazing Coffee Shops in Manhattan”, WordPress would generate a post slug like this 20-most-amazing-coffee-shops-in-manhattan. Depending on what permalink structure you have, your post URL will look something like this:
http://example.com/2016/02/20-most-amazing-coffee-shops-in-manhattan/
Same thing happens for your pages, custom post types, tags, categories, custom taxonomies, etc.
Now if you just want to change that slug part of the permalink, then that’s easy. You can do that without installing any plugins or writing any code.
Method 2. Changing Slug of a Post or Page
The easiest way to change the slug part of a URL for a WordPress post and page, or custom post types is by editing them.
On the post edit screen, look just below the post title and you will see the post URL with an edit button next to it.
Clicking on this edit button will allow you to change the post slug. You can use alpha-numeric characters and dashes in your post slug.
For a more SEO friendly URL, make sure you choose a post slug that contains keywords people would use to search for that content.
Changing Slug of Categories and Tags
Changing the slug of categories and tags is also very easy. Simply go to Posts » Categories and WordPress will show you the list of categories.
You can take your mouse over to a category and click on the quick edit link. WordPress will show you the title of the category, and its URL slug. You can change the URL slug and click on the Update button to save your changes.
Same method applies for tags and custom taxonomies as well.
Method 3. Creating Completely Custom Permalinks
Changing post slug does not change your actual permalink structure. What if you wanted to change permalink for single post, post, page or taxonomy?
For example, if your post URL is like this:
http://example.com/2016/02/20-most-amazing-coffee-shops-in-manhattan/
And you want to change it to something like this:
http://example.com/best-lists/coffee-shops/top-coffee-shops-in-manhattan/
Let’s take a look at another example. Your category URL in WordPress is like this:
http://example.com/category/travel
For that particular category, you want to change it to something like:
http://example.com/travel/
Normally this would require you to change your permalink structure, but that would affect all URLs on your site.
Here is how you would create a custom permalink safely without affecting any other URLs on your site.
First thing you need to do is install and activate the Custom Permalinks plugin.
Upon activation, you can simply edit a post or page and change its URL to anything you want.
You can also edit categories and tags. Simply go to Posts » Categories and click on the edit link below the category you want to change.
On the edit category page, scroll down to the bottom and you will see the custom permalink field.
You can do the same for tags and custom taxonomies as well.
Setting up Redirects for Custom Permalinks in WordPress
When you are adding a custom permalink for a new post, then you don’t have to worry about redirects.
On the other hand, if you are changing the URL of an already published post, then you need to setup proper redirects.
Users coming to the old address from search engines and other websites, will not be able to find that page unless you setup redirects.
Same goes for your categories and tags. If a category/tag archive page was indexed, then it would become unavailable when you change the URL.
You will need to redirect users and search engines to the new address. Take a look at our beginner’s guide to creating redirects in WordPress.
We hope this article helped you create custom permalink in WordPress. You may also want to see our list of 9 best WordPress SEO plugins and tools that you should use.
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I’ve been told by developers to not change permalinks at the “EDIT” level. I have some pages on a site I helped build that really could benefit with a name change. Something that reflects what a person may be searching for vs something we were trying to be clever with. So, question: What causes permalinks to “break” if you change them at that edit stage (When you open a page and see the URL). I would assume if I am careful and do_something_like_this than I’m okay, right?
Hi Tucker,
When you change a page’s URL by editing it, your page would work fine on your website. However, your old URL would be indexed by search engines and they will not be able to find it. If you must change the permalink of an existing page, then you need to set up a redirect.
Thanks for sharing this helpful post.
My problem is that my blog posts shows mysite.com/category instead of mysite.com/postname on search result but shows the post name once you click on it. my question now is, how do i make the post name to appear on search result as well?
nice article very helpful for beginners
Hi
i have a page which compares different products. permalink of the same is /page-name/?compareids=1,2,3
can you please suggest me about how to customize permalink of this kind of pages so to display permalink like : /page-name/compare-productname1-vs.-productname2-vs.-productname3
Hello Team,
I have an query,
1.How to implement keywords in url before creating post & after creating post?
2.How to implement keywords in Posts url without creating 404 error in WordPress?
3. Without creating 404 error how to optimise urls?
4.I want permalink customise ( insert keyword in url ) without any error how can I set that?
please help me…
Thank you.
My entire site is still under maintenance, but most of my posts are defined as “published” in that setup. If I want to change the slugs can I just revert the status to “draft” temporarily, change the slug and then re-“publish”? I guess I do not understand the meaning of the word “publish” as long as the site is not alive, but it helps to see the posts better s I did it. Thank you.
Hi Orit,
If your site is not live and your content is not indexed by search engines, then you can change the slug of a live page/post as well.
My site is new and under construction -not live. I’ve created a couple posts and published them, but my site is not live. Can i keep changing the slug , permalinks, and category tags, without needing the re-direct plug in?
Is it safe to keep making changes to the permalink as long as my site is not live (even though i clicked ‘publish’?
Do i only need the redirect plug in if i make changes tot the permalnk after the site goes live?
thank you!!
I would like to know how to create a page name before the website url example customname.yoursitename.com. i don’t know how else to describe this sorry for any misunderstanding.
Hi Nnamdi,
These are called subdomains. They are not like pages at all. In fact, a subdomain could be a totally different website using the same root domain name.
Hi, when a do this process, the /blog does not appears in the breadcumbs. What can I do?
I want my blog:
example.com/blog/category/post-1
and the breadcumbs:
Home > Blog > Category > Post-1
How can I add the > Blog to my breadcumbs?
I guess it does not appear because / blog is artificially configured. Is there any way to make it hierarchical?
My permalink structure is set to post type. After I have published a page & I parent it in order to use the parent’s sidebar menu, once I update the page it adds another link to the url structure — for example, page url originally is: example.com/acctg/new-page
After I parent it to my accounting landing page & I update the page the url becomes:
example.com/acctg/accounting/new-page
If I delete the extra /accounting from the permalink the page will appear as a blank page unless I un-parent it from /accounting landing page & create its own sidebar menu.
Is there a workaround to this problem?
Please, I added post I’d in my post permalink. But i want to change my permalink structure to /category/post_name but am afraid the old link will be down and this might make me loose my Google ranking.
I want to change the post ID *956* to category of the post. But how can i redirect the old URL to the new one after the changes is done? Please help me.
Hi, thanks for the Useful article, I have a question, in my WordPress blog when I press on the post title it gives me the correct permalink (Post name only), but when I press on the (continue reading ) it gives the same permalink but with some extra codes! How can I make it similar without more extension! Only the post name without any additions ?
Hello, I already have a worpress website and I am using a theme with home,page, about us etc. I added woocommerce where woocommerce has its own permalinks structure,My WP permalinks are set for static page %post%
the woocommerce shop it is not the home page …
Should I leave the wp permalinks as it is ? And how should i have to set the woocoommerce permalinks and reading?
Hey Valente,
WooCommerce will not affect your website’s permalink structure.
Good evening,
I have a website up and running for several years. Now I want to use the WordPress generated permalink for my page to publish article(s). I have .htacess & index.php in place. Now the question? How do I use my custom permalink for new page? Do I copy the link & paste it in the address bar. Or how does it work? I am stuck at this last bit. Please help. Many thanks
Ameer
Is there no way of creating custom permalinks without a plugin.
Without the plugin, the slug always has a “-2” at the end, as if it were a copy. But with the plugin.it will not has a “-2”. How can I do
Hi
If I change the title of a static home page, should it affect the URL?
Hi Dor,
If you have published the homepage, then it will not affect the URL. However, if the page is still saved as a draft and has never been published, then changing the title will change the URL slug. However, you can click on the URL slug on the page edit screen and change it back.
Thank you for this!!
How to add prefix or suffix to permlink of all post_tag slugs?
I do not see the edit bottom to change perm links on post pages…why?
I want to get get rid of the permalink altogether. I don’t want the titles to have a link. Is there a way to do that?
Thank you
Yes, however most WordPress themes are designed to have permalinks. You will probably need to create a custom theme that meets your needs or customize an existing starter theme.
Thanks! I already thought I chose a simple lay out(‘Maker’) but I will look into the starter themes.
Please help me,
I want permalink like this
example.com/category/post_name
How can I set that?
please help me…
I have a newly built site and all the permalink options look like this: example.com/wordpress/xyz options
I can’t find a one without ‘wordpress’ in the middle. Have I done something wrong? How can I fix this? Thank you
Please see our guide on how to get rid of /wordpress/ from your WordPress site URL.
Thank you. This is indeed a good description. However, there is one aspect that you do not mention: what happens to the customized slugs in case the permalink structure changes.
I am currently moving a website in French to WP. When titles are too long, or include apostrophes (that result into making two words into one, when slugs get automatically created), I have shortened them.
After a number of my customized permalinks had been created, I decided that I preferred the permalinks to follow a structure on the pattern year-month-day, i.e…./2016/08/15/… instead of …/2016/08/…
Easily done… but all my customizations were gone!
I will recreate them. But then, how to make sure that my customized permalinks will stick, even if I would decide to change again the permalink structure before the site goes live?
There should be a way, or a plugin – but I have not yet found it.
Slugs are not supposed to be changed when you update permalink structure. They are stored in the database and will be used again when you use a Permalink structure that uses post-name in the URL instead of ID.
Thank you very much for your reply.
Yes, I expected indeed custom slugs not to change when I updated the permalink structure… but they did, for reasons beyond my understanding, and I do not dare to test that a second time. It may have to do with the fact that a number of posts were imported from another CMS in an automated way, which resulted in numeric slugs, that we managed to regenerate (using Permalink Manager) in order to bring them to standard slugs. Maybe this had unexpected consequences when changes in settings were made at a later stage.
Anyway, good to know this is not a frequent behavior, and probably caused by something else. But I will be extremely careful in the future with any change in the permalink structure!
The recent low ratings, inactive support forums and lack of response from author is making me hesitant to use Custom Permalinks. Anyone has any issues with it, considering last plugin update was 7 months ago?
It was now updated 1 month ago
superb post sir
Great articel
Thanks
Really interesting. Many thanks for the good stuff. I’ll give a try for sure as I have to manage categories, sub-categories and a lot of tags.