Modifying your Permalink Structure for Search Optimization

This is the second in my series of making your blog search engine friendly.

One important aspect that is often overlooked by newbie (or even veteran) bloggers is the structure of their permalinks. Most often go with the default version i.e. domain.com/?p=123 where 123 is your post ID. Those who change their permalink structure go with the form – domain.com/year/month/day. But after seeing the URL structures of other top SEO-aware bloggers, I have noticed the tendency to modifying your URLs to be as short as possible. My blog URLs are now modified to display only the domain name i.e. ipatrix.com followed by the post slug title i.e. domain.com/post-name. I have chosen to remove other variables like year, month, or day references or even directory structure like category or archives. Remember, you should try to specify your post slugs whenever you can.

The best way to do this is in your Dashboard > Options > Permalinks. Change the default to custom and enter “/%postname%/” and click on ‘Update Permalink Structure’. Make sure your .htaccess file located in the root directory is writeable. However, if you have been using your current permalink structure for quite some time, Google may have indexed your blog using that structure so if you change it, (search engine) visitors may get a 404 Page Not Found error.

This can be easily fixed by using the Permalink Redirect plugin. After activation, enter your old permalink structure in its options page. This will issue a 301 redirect to your current page. In plain English, visitors clicking on the old URL structure will now be redirected to the new one. This will also transfer the Google juice of your old URL to your new one.

Update: Note that the permalink structure that I use is not necessarily SEO-friendly as compared to other that has categories and dates in them, as pointed out by Venu and Chetan in the comments. But I recommend at least changing them from the default ID structure.

Next, I’ll be writing on the importance of robots.txt file and a sitemap for your blog. Stay tuned.

“Modifying your Permalink Structure for Search Optimization” [Short URL: http://www.ipatrix.com/?p=2075] was published Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 10:26 am by Patrix, filed under Internet, Technology, Weblogs, and tagged as blogging, Internet, Internet, permalinks, SEO, Technology, WordPress. Both comments and linkbacks are closed.

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http://www.venukb.com/blog Venu
Intersting !! But I really want to know if i makes a big impact on SEO. Anway the URL looks much simpler this way.
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
Venu, definitely the emphasis here is to simplify the URL and keep out redundant information. Unless you want your posts to be identified with date or category, it is wise to keep them out of the URL. Regarding the SEO angle, I’ll elaborate on that in my next post.
http://ckunte.com/ Chetan
Shortened URLs are better optimized for search—like by curtailing year, month or day or references to category or archives? That’s news to me.
I did this a while ago, but for altogether different reasons—to easily type out my own permalink and because I wanted my permalinks to be friendly to *me*. Human first, machine next. Google’s Webmaster Guidelines conveys this simply: Make pages for users, not for search engines.
I, for one, honestly believe that.
I think you’re misleading people reading this blog into thinking that URL shortening would somehow make their posts better optimized for search, better ranked than those longer URLs. The only thing that matters is that a URL must conform to a correct html syntax and should preferably not have dynamic query characters (see a simple explanation in the Google Webmaster Guidelines).
Most of what you’ve said here or in your previous post is not optimization, but your own personal preference. They make no difference to how your content is visible to the bots.
And let’s kill this one for good:
Donâ€™t give me the spiel that you write for yourself because if you would, you would be doing it in a Word file.
I write for myself and I have a reason why. But instead of a reply, let me quote someone for a change:
If you consciously write for a teacher or for an editor, you’ll end up not writing for anybody. If you write for yourself, you’ll reach the people you want to write for.
It looks like you’re looking to your blog advertising revenue for some serious living off it. Or else, you wouldn’t be so robotic or animated to go the extent you’re trying to. Are you?
http://ckunte.com/ Chetan
It looks like youâ€™re looking to your blog advertising revenue for some serious living off it. Or else, you wouldnâ€™t be so robotic or animated to go the extent youâ€™re trying to. Are you?
My very sincere apologies for saying this, I think I have been a complete *sshole saying this, without meaning it—please remove the above quote if you can from my previous reply.
It is very personal and I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry—I have a tendency to rub people the wrong way, I don’t want you to be the next victim. [I don't know what I was thinking.]
http://www.ipatrix.com Patrix
Chetan, As I mentioned in my introductory post for this series I am no expert and I am simply sharing the changes I did on my blog. Some bloggers were interested in making similar changes and instead of doing it via email, I thought I would put my thoughts for all to see. If I sense most of other readers are not interested in this stuff, I will discontinue my series and carry on with the email conversations.
I don’t pretend to be a web expert and may be wrong and hence the comments section is open to correcting me. I’ve no qualms in admitting my mistakes if I am wrong. Regarding the permalink structure, as I mentioned to Venu it is kinda related to the robots.txt disallow exception that I intended to write about next. But you’re right and it doesn’t directly impact SEO. My emphasis was on changing it from the default WP structure that has no date, category, or post name and hence less SEO-friendly. Usually I don’t care about explaining myself about what I chose to write on my blog but I respect you for your blogging and design experience so am doing so.
Regarding your second comment, I appreciate it and no personal offense taken. However, it does hurt to hear that from a person that I look up to especially because what you accuse me of isn’t true. I’ll leave your first comment unedited since you have added the second one.

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Modifying your Permalink Structure for Search Optimization

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