Creating SEO Friendly WordPress URLs

Setting Permalinks to Create SEO Friendly URLs


By default, WordPress uses dynamic web URLs that may hinder some of your search engine optimization efforts. This challenge can be easily overcome simply by creating SEO friendly WordPress URLs. Thankfully the WordPress admin panel is set up so that you can implement this technique in a matter of minutes!

STEP 1 - Open Admin Control Panel

Go to the admin control panel.
Click on: Options > Permalinks



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STEP 2 - Edit Permalink Structure

Copy and paste the code for the structure you prefer, to the empty text box next to "structure"

I prefer the following structure:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

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When finished, click on: Update Permalink Structure

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In the majority of cases this will automatically create the structure for you, making it unnecessary for us to change anything in the .htaccess file.

STEP 3 - Verify Link Structure

After updating the permalinks on your blog, you need to VERIFY that the links work on your blog. If you click the title of the test post, does it work? Do the category links work? The archive?

If not, you may not have NOT updated your permalinks correctly.

The most likely scenario is that the permissions were set too strict for the htaccess file when you updated.

Troubleshooting Broken WordPress Links

Go to the admin control panel.
Click on: Options > Permalinks

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Now, just set this window to the side. I simply want it open and ready to go. We will come back to it in a moment.

Using your FTP program, locate the .htaccess file on your server. Right hand click on the file and select "properties".

While we are doing the updating we need this file to be writeable.
Change the number to 666. If you can't see numbers, but only settings, it should have a checkmark in every setting EXCEPT execute. Click OK.

Do not close your FTP program, as you will be return to it in a moment.

Return to the Permalinks page we had open and waiting

Copy and paste the code for the structure you prefer, to the empty text box next to "structure"

I prefer the following structure:

/%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/

view screenshot

When finished, click on: Update Permalink Structure

view screenshot

Now view your blog and see if the links are working again.

If so, we can now return the permissions on the .htaccess file back to its normal settings, which is: 644, or a check in owner, group and world for read, and a check in owner for write.

Click on: Okay

You're done! That's all there is to it. You should now be ready to move forward to a tutorial on how to Configure WordPress Categories.