Before we get into details on how to set up permalinks in WordPress, let’s talk about permalinks and what it’s all about.
What Is Permalink?
Permalink is just the abbreviated form of “permanent link”. As its name implies, it is a link that doesn’t change. That’s why you have to be very careful in creating one. On the other hand, if a domain provides an address to your blog, a permalink guides Internet users to your every blog post or page. To fully understand, look at the sample below:
Domain: http://www.mywebsite.com
Permalink: http://www.mywebsite.com/2011/9/what-is-permalink
Set Up Permalinks in WordPress: two main reasons
Permalinks are crucial to your WordPress blog or website for two main reasons. First, they’re the ones used by other marketers, bloggers, and Internet users to link back to you. Second, they can help you from properly optimizing your website. This is because your permalinks can be customized to contain your targeted keywords.
There are different types of permalinks for WordPress, but they can all be broadly classified into two: ugly and pretty.
Ugly permalinks are those that contain special characters such as question marks. These are very weak permalinks, since they don’t tell much about the page and thus doesn’t help in link building or page optimization. This is an example of an ugly permalink: http://www.example.com/blog/?p=123sqaz.
On the other hand, pretty permalinks are well-structured. At first glance, visitors or readers of your blog can already know what your article is all about just by looking at the permalink. For example, if your post is all about “taking care of dogs” a pretty permalink could be this - http://www.example.com/blog/taking-care-of-dogs.
You can set up permalinks in WordPress according to the following formats:
• Day and name
• Month and name
• Numeric
Set Up Permalinks in WordPress: A Guide
One of the first things you should do before you set up permalinks in WordPress is to determine the platform version you have. You can get this information at the Dashboard. If you’re using the latest version (which is 3.2.x), you should be able to find the Permalinks section under Settings. If you have the older version, it’s under Options.
All permalink types are already provided on the page. All you have to do is make a choice. The default is the ugly permalink. If you wish to change it, just click on the radio button that corresponds to your pick. Fortunately, every kind has a sample, so you have a good idea of how the permalink of your website or blog is going to look like.
For a more “systematized” pretty permalink, click Custom Structure and put /%postname%/ on the box. This will create permalinks similar to this one: http://www.example.com/blog/taking-care-of-dogs.
Set Up Permalinks in WordPress: Main Issue
Is it possible for you to experience glitches while setting up the permalink structure? Yes, in fact, many have already lost hundreds of their articles after doing so. That’s why you have to customize it even before you start creating your first blog post.
If you need more information about permalinks, you can visit http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks. You can also sign up and participate to several WordPress online forums to get some help from the experts.