Do you know WordPress Custom permalink structure decides your total on page SEO effort. But new blogger and webmasters usually don’t give any attention to permalinks and leave them in their default state. And after regular use and after writing hundreds of article they realize their mistake. But then its too late. If are experienced user of WordPress then you must be knowing that you can use hundreds of different variations of permalink structure. But not all of them are SEO friendly.
Best WordPress Custom Permalink For SEO
So which is the best permalink structure for WordPress based sites. For those who are still confused, where to get it. Then please see the steps below :
- Move to your dashboard
- Then put your cursor on Settings
- From the fly over menu select the Permalinks
You will see six different types of options available. And each of them is completely different from others. Remember that you have a huge possibility to get your own custom link using ” Custom Structure ”
WORDPRESS CUSTOM PERMALINK SEO
Considering The Structures : Which Is The Best
So here we are going to put our hands on different sets and forms of links, and we will examine them, so we can find the best one : Make sure you perform the tests on the test site. And please make sure you read :
- You link should contain you keyword
- Your title should have your keyword
- Your content should have your mainly targeted words ( LSI, Long Tail and synonyms )
?p=123 : Our default string. So can you read it aloud. I mean, I have written an article on wordpress seo guide and its string is ?p=137. So by looking at the link can you assume what is my content based on. I think your answer should be no. And the same is with search bots.
Remember that your link reflects your content. As I already told, if your sitelink doesn’t have keywords in it, then how you can think to rank in that niche. : So completely Not suitable
/archives/%post_id% : Again these types of links won’t contain any text in them. And since the data are retrieved directly from the archive pages, so it means the pageload time will be more.
Anyone who wishes to be involved with Google news must have at least 3 numbers in their url (that’s from Google). So /%year%/ is best for you.
Similarly other WordPress custom permalink structures are not suitable too ( only in terms of SEO and except one ). Check out two simple reasons :
1st Reason : is, these strings increases the presence of the extra text in front of your main title. So search engine robots before moving to your main title will have to face those contents first.
2nd Reason : Is limit of 70 words. Google and Bing ( might be yahoo ) all of them loves short titles and links. If you adding those non useful characters into your link, then they will just increase the number of words, and still do worst for you in terms of SEO.
Now you might be using %category%/%post% ( it has been discussed below ). If you think your permalink is good and SEO friendly, then I will still say nooo. Why. so check out the post by Otto ( wordpress ninja programmer ). Category Is Harmful
Regarding The Speed : Only For Better Performance
If you are considering the page-load time as most important then, the /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/ is the best. The simplest reason is : The string contains the date stamp. So whenever any search query is made, PHP instead of searching the whole of the database, will only check out tables with the same date stamps. ( year, month, days ). The same goes with Category and archive contained links.
So for better performance you should never include the category or tags before the postname. Because they are text fields and adding them before the post name in permalinks will make wordpress sluggish. Now wordpress will take more time in distinguishing between the post and pages.
With Other String : /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/
Image By DigWP
Using Only Post Type :
Image By DigWP
I think images speaks 1000 words, but over here these images are expressing the whole topic. I wish you got what I meant to speak out..
WordPress SEO Permalink : Do & Don’t
So from the above information, we come to conclusion that /%postname%/ is the best, but worst when pageload time is considered ( but it can be overcomes using better CDN and Hosting )
- You link should not be more than 70 words, so its better to use your post name string
- You can add the post id after the post name : /%postname%/%post_id%
- Never use category slug : /%category%/%postname% : reason already provided above
- Don’t add your site-name in the permalink
- Add your site name to the titles : Good for branding
Stick With What You Have
Now after reading this article, you would want to change your settings. But I will say, leave it. If have a well established blog with hundreds on contents on it, then leave it. Since once you change you permalinks, all those links which are indexed on google and for which you have build lots of backlinks will give 404 error. This will drastically affect your SEO.
About Vivek Kumar Poddar
I’m using the /%year%/%monthnum%/%postname%/ on my blog and it is the best option of choosing permalink on WordPress because we need to let the readers know about the date of the post too.
Great guide on permalinks here.
I am not saying that its wrong to use them. Actually in terms of performance your setting is the best and mine is the worst, but when it comes to seo then I might have little more wight.
You can also install “Permalink Finder Plugin” after you changed the URL, very easy to configure. It will automatically give 301 redirect to your new permalinks / URL, so you can keep SEO score.