What is Permalink?
The Permalink is a full url of post, page or any content of your site.The permalink also the permanent link. A permalink clould include your domain name and a slug which is the small piece of content after the domain name.
example: https://www.pintire.com/?p=41
A Permalink should be simple and its easily to unserstand and share the article.
Why it’s important?
The target keyword of the post or page should be included in permalink for better SEO and it makes user to navigate eaily. By default wordpress permalink is not seo friendly so it’s important to change it.
Common mistakes in wordpress
- No Traget keyword in permalink its not a seo friendly url.
- Lack of user friendly navigation it’s possible to loose traffic.
- possiblities of duplicate content because more than one permalink pointing to same content.
How to set best permalink setting for wordpress
In the wordpress dashboard youcan find Settings -> Permalink
As per the yoast the following two permalink structures can be good for seo optimised.
The Best Permalink Structure for WordPress SEO
a) http://domain.com/%category%/%post-name%/
This makes site navigation easy, use this one if you choose one category per post and have a short and simple category name.
b) http://domain.com/%post-name%/
This is one of the best and most commonly used permalink structure which makes URL short and simple – Actually this is the which i’m using.
Can I change my permalink structure after publishing few posts?
Yes, but you must setup 301 redirect in order to redirect users and spiders to avoid loss of SEO.
Conclusion
- Always change the wordpress default permalink when you configuring your site.
- Create more user friendly and seo friendly url.
- Must do proper redirect after changing your permalink.