This will also be in my upcoming post on improving SEO in WordPress, but since I promised to write about everything I’m doing on this blog, I’ll make a separate post about it now. Permalink structure refers to the way URLs are formed within WordPress. For example, the default permalink structure in WordPress looks like this:

https://alexmansfield.com/?p=123

Not very pretty, useful, or search engine friendly. A human can’t read “?p=123” and tell what the page is about and neither can a search engine. Thankfully, WordPress makes it easy to change the way your URLs look. Just login to WordPress and go to Settings>Permalinks. First, there are some built in options, such as:

https://alexmansfield.com/2009/06/sample-post/

These are an improvement over “?p=123” but they’re still not that great. Very few people will include a date in their search, so the date is pretty much just wasting space in your URL. But you don’t have to settle for these built in options. WordPress also gives you the opportunity to specify your own permalink structure. Here’s what I use:

/%category%/%postname%

That displays the category that the post is assigned to, followed by the name of the post. Short and sweet. Unless of course, you use categories like “This-is-the-best-category-on-my-website-and-you-should-read-all-about-it.”

Do you have a different permalink structure that you prefer. Tell us why in the comments section!