WordPress & SEO Chris Gray on 26 Jul 2007 11:54 am
Playing it safe with Search Engine Safe URLs – How to optimize your WordPress Permalink structure
One of the first tips I picked up while delving into the world of SEO was the use
of so called “Search Engine Safe” (SES) URLs. SES URLs are formatted in such a way
that your query string parameters appear to be part of the path. The result is a cleaner,
more “human readable” URL that is more likely to be indexed by most search engines.
While search engines vary on what they will and will not crawl, most spiders tend
to ignore pages that contain numerous query string parameters so most SEOs recommend using Search Engine Safe URLs whenever possible.
For example:
Typical dynamic URL:
http://www.seoladder.com/index.php?category=seo&id=1234
Search Engine Safe URL (note the query string is now part of the path):
http://www.seoladder.com/category/seo/id/1234
Ho to create SES URLs in WordPress
Fortunately, WordPress allows you to optimize your Permalink Structure right out of the box without the need for additional plug-ins or code hacks. The downside is that SES URLs are not turned on by default and many users (including myself) fail to activate this feature until after they have been indexed (more on this in a minute).
To turn on Search Engine Safe URLs in WordPress you will need to perform the following steps (Note: this tutorial is based on WordPress 2.2):
- Login to the WordPress Admin and select Options | Permalinks
- From the Permalinks sub-page you will be presented with four Permalink options (Default, Date and Name Based, Numeric, and Custom). Choose one of the three SES Permalink options that best suits your needs (i.e. Date and Name Based, Numeric, or Custom).
- Finally, click the Update Permalink Structure button to commit your change. That’s it, nothing to it.
Which Permalink Structure should I use?
Most web masters tend to use “Date and Name Based” Permalinks because the post name is included as part of the URL. By including the post name in your URLs you can potentially boost your page’s ranking (provided you’ve included relevant keywords in your page titles). You can also design your own Permalink structure by selecting the “Custom” option. Beware though, if you choose to go with a “Custom” Permalink structure be sure to include some sort of numerical data in the URL structure (i.e. post id, or date). Using the post name alone can prevent you from accessing some pages such as style sheets or the wp-admin.
While WordPress makes it extremely easy to change your Permalink structure, you should carefully weigh the pros and cons before deciding to make the switch. For example, if your blog has already been indexed under the default Permalink structure you will loose your existing page rank for those pages already in the index (not to mention you will also now have bad links in index). Changing your Permalink structure will also break any incoming links that have accumulated to date. To avoid these issues you will need to ensure that the proper 301 redirects are in place before you change over to a new Permalink structure. I suggest taking a look my previous post on the proper way to move a web page for additional information on how redirect old links to your new Search Engine Safe URLs.
What SES structure are you using?
As you may have already noticed I am currently using the “Date and name based” Permalink structure on this blog (as well as a few others that I maintain).I would be interested in hearing your take on SES URLs and what structures are preferred by other webmasters…
on 29 Jul 2007 at 8:00 am 1.Wayne Smallman said …
It’s strange that the default should be something that’s both confusing to the average ‘blogger, who’s often not technically literate and isn’t “SES”.
So the question is, why is the default the default at all?
on 29 Jul 2007 at 10:23 am 2.Chris Gray said …
Wayne :: I couldn’t agree more. I am sure that I am not the only user that got burned by this default.
It appears that SES URLs made an appearance in the January 2004 1.0 release…you would think they would have fixed the default by now. It’s possible that because .htaccess is not natively supported on the Windows platform they went with an option that was compatible with all platforms.
I am planning on submitting a feature request for this issue. Thanks for the feedback and welcome to SEO Ladder.
-Chris
on 29 Jul 2007 at 10:27 am 3.Wayne Smallman said …
“It’s possible that because .htaccess is not natively supported on the Windows platform…”
Good point.
But, it’s easy enough to do a quick beforehand.
BTW, I think that we’re “old friends” on StumbleUpon…
on 29 Jul 2007 at 12:08 pm 4.Chris Gray said …
Agreed, WordPress is an “ease of use” platform and I would think the development community would target usability in lieu of the worry of “code bloat” from platform specific code, IMHO.
That’s right, my bad. You’re Octane on MyBlogLog…correct? Thanks again for the feedback.
on 06 Aug 2007 at 7:01 pm 5.Speedlinking - 06 Aug 2007 » Derek Semmler dot com said …
[…] Chris Gray secured second place with 30 comments. Chris recently provided a very nice summary on how to optimize your WordPress permalink structure. If you’re new to WordPress or just not sure you really understand the permalinks, this post […]
on 06 Aug 2007 at 8:20 pm 6.San Diego SEO Blog said …
Great post. My url preferable url structure is /category/post title/date but thats just me
on 06 Aug 2007 at 10:30 pm 7.Chris Gray said …
@San Diego SEO Blog - Thanks for your input and the good word. That’s an interesting structure…any particular reason (other than personal preference) that you went with “/category/post title/date”?
I wish I would of included the “category” here…but not worth the trouble at this point.
on 25 Aug 2007 at 9:40 pm 8.NY SEO said …
I just started testing out numeric and name based urls because google news prefers sites without dates in the url because they tend to change over time and when archived.
But I think this preference that google news likes is becoming outdated, since more and more sites are starting to realize that urls should stay the same before and after being archived.
between linkbacks, trackbacks, social and personal bookmarking there is more than enough reasoning to keep urls the same once they are set.
on 07 Sep 2007 at 10:32 am 9.Chris Gray said …
@NY SEO - Thanks for sharing your permalink structure. I agree, I prefer to keep my URLs static as well (to keep from having to redirect them).