WordPress Permalink Dashboard Settings Explained
WordPress has several options for setting your main permalink.
WARNING: DO NOT MAKE ANY CHANGES HERE IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A LIVE SITE WITH LOTS OF CONTENT. IT CAN INFLUENCE SEO AND MESS UP YOUR INTERLINKING AND SHARING.
If you make changes here you need to use a redirect plugin to match your old URLs with the new ones, otherwise you will get a lot of 404 errors (page not found) when you click on your internal and shared links.
It’s okay to make changes here if you only have a few recently created content like an about me, privacy policy, disclaimer and one or two posts/pages.
Here at Wealthy Affiliate the default setting for permalinks is “Post name”. Exactly what it should be. This is the best possible option for permalinks.
Let me know in the comment section below if yours is different and if you want to change it. Please don’t change it unless you know what to do next and understand the consequences.
Examples of the Different Permalink Options
Here are examples of what my post permalink will look like if I select the other options.
1. Plain:
It adds a random number as the "slug".
NOT GOOD for people and search engines to understand. You cannot see what the content is about by just looking at the permalink.
2. & 3. Dates (day and name / month and name:
It adds the date of the post/page before the "slug".
Date makes the URL even longer and do you really want people to see the date of the post in your URL?
People might hesitate to click on your evergreen content if your content seems out of date, although it’s still relevant.
4. Numeric:
It adds “archives” before the "slug" and a number as the “slug”.
Not good for people and search engines to understand.
5. Post name (RECOMMENDED):
This only adds the page/post title as the "slug".
The best setting for your permalinks. It's a clearly understandable "slug" with your keyword/s. This is good for people and SEO.
I'm going to show you how to optimize this "slug" to make it even beter for user experience, SEO and brand building.
Other Options
You also have other options where you can add categories and tags as part of your permalink.
People selling products normally prefer to use this method but you need to know what you do.
I do not recommend this for newbies because you need to understand the best SEO practices for adding categories and tags to your permalink.
So I just set up my second website for blogging and the content editing tools are not the same in my 2nd site as I have been using in my first site. I just upgraded to Premium a few days ago and I am a loss. I know this thread isn't about that topic but I couldn't find an article published relating to this issue.
Thanks Everyone!
Do I understand it correctly that I can't change the Permalink in WordPress before I publish my post? I always have to publish first and then change it?
I was thinking perhaps the other way I could do it is creating the title and permalink in WordPress and then publish it and put the post on draft or doesn't this make sense?
Is the manual way of changing the permalink in WordPress after publishing your content free of risks to get 404 errors or is there still a chance this can happen?
Looking forwards to hearing from you and thanks a lot for the training.
Jude