When we talk about WordPress SEO, the first thing which we take care of is WordPress
permalink which by default is not search engine friendly. To make WordPress permalinks search engine friendly, we change the permalink structure to make it search engine friendly. Changing Permalink in the wordpress is the first thing any one should do after installing WordPress. Though many new WordPress users are not aware of importance of permalinks initially and later when they change their blog permalinks, they create 404 error issues.
In this tutorial I will be sharing, How you can change your WordPress permalink structure without breaking anything. I will be using a WordPress plugin call Dean’s Permalink migration plugin, which is one of the best plugin till the date to change your permalinks.
This plugin create a 301 redirection and that’s how your readers and search engines are redirect to new permalink structure.
Tutorial :
To get started with install and activate Permalink migration plugin. Make sure you have taken a complete backup of your blog, so that if you make any mistake, you can always revert back to earlier stage.
Once you have plugin installed, go to Settings > Permalinks Migration and check if you see your current permalink there. This is a screenshot of a client website where I’m working to change his blog permalink structure.
Changing your Permalink Structure:
Navigate to Settings> Permalinks and add your desired permalink structure.
Now check your blog listing in search engine by typing site:domain.com and see if your posts are getting redirected properly.
If you use more than 1 category per post, I recommend don’t use category slug in your WordPress permalink. Keep it short and simple.
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Yeah, Dean’s plugin is awesome. I had to use it when I needed to change permalink structure of a WP website and it worked very well.
How many times we can use it harsh?
ya you use it at once
I will recommend use it once. As Google made it official 301 redirection doesn’t transfer 100% link juice. So when you change it, be wise else you might be left with broken blog.
Thanks for the feedback and comment… Even I prefer the same plugin, specially when I work on client sites for SEO.
I think you dont need to install any plugin for this. WP by default can make your links as permanent links.
Go to Settings -> Permalinks. Select Custom Structure and type /%postname%/
@Satinder
If you change permalink structure directly (without using plugin), you will end up with a blog with lots of broken link.
This plugin “remembers” your old permalink structure and thus any requests matching with old permalink structure will be properly redirected.
Also, one more thing – this plugin is needed if you want to change “permalink” structure second time.
It seems from your comment, that you are talking about permalink structure change for the first time (form wordpress’s default permalink structure)
I recently switched
/%postname%/ (which I now have in Deans)
to
/%category%/%postname%/ (I believe thats the syntax!)
I like this EXCEPT that all of my posts that are in (child) sub-categories work correctly but those that are only in a parent category do not. I’ve not found a good way to revise my category structure to solve this. I still have some 404′s to clean up because they were in a parent category.
@Kimberly
/%category%/%postname%/ is somewhat complex structure.
To make it work beautifully (and as expected)
We need to have:
One category per post
Almost static list of categories
If we keep changing categories, specially deleting them, permalinks may be affected way too much.
/%category%/%postname%/ is recommended only when you have (almost) fixed categories on your blogs.
In those “fixed categories” structure, you use tags to overcome constraints you put on tags.
Thanks, I was planning to change my blogs permalink structure.
deans permalink plugin is a life savier plugin for those who are thinking to move from blogspot blog to self-hosted blog or thinking of changing permalink structure
Yes, your right Vivek, This plugin saved the old permalink structure and when any requests come with old permalink structure will be properly redirected to new URL.
Hi, thks for ur post. Can u explain me how to use the Dean’s Plugin starting from the default permalinks structure (?p=123)? I want to change it to /%postname%, I tried a lot of time but I don’t know what to insert in the field of Dean’s plugin page, cause everytime it tells me that a slash “/” (without quote) is my old structure, but if I save this settings, all the olds links aren’t working. Any suggest?
Thks a lot
hey harsh,
i m left with the broken blog, i recently changed my blog permalinks and use the Deans plugin. But when i saw my blog in google webmaster there are around 150 Not Found Links displaying in it…..
what to do??? pls help me out…
Hi, thks for ur post. Can u explain me how to use the Dean’s Plugin starting from the default permalinks structure (?p=123)? I want to change it to /%postname%, I tried a lot of time but I don’t know what to insert in the field of Dean’s plugin page, cause everytime it tells me that a slash “/” (without quote) is my old structure, but if I save this settings, all the olds links aren’t working. Any suggest?
I have just migrated my blogger blog to WP and worried about my URL structure as i am seeing dates and year in my URL but this plugin helped me in getting URL which search engines friendly. Thanks for sharing such an grate info.
Anyone here can help me how to change the link of my “read more” link? it’s cause I get the link something as “www.example.com/permalink-of-my-the-link#48″ and I want to change it to “www.example.com/permalink-of-my-the-link” I don’t know how to remove the #48(this is the post_ID right?)..
Here’s my read more in my index.php:
something like this