How to Configure Friendly URLs for WordPress
by Frank Jovine on 06/06/2009 in WordPress
It’s simple to configure friendly URLs on a self hosted WordPress blog. It will also improve your Search Engine Optimization.
Why have Friendly URLs?
Dirty URLs
Complex, hard-to-read URLs are often dubbed dirty URLs because they tend to be littered with punctuation and identifiers that are at best irrelevant to the ordinary user.
Example: http://www.techjaws.com/?p=123
Friendly URLs
Improve usability and user experience. I’ve always been a big fan of the friendly urls, when I see a site that uses friendly URL’s I get a sense of elegance, and cleanliness.
Example: http://www.techjaws.com/here-comes-tweetie-for-mac/
It looks more elegant and it’s easy to tell what the content is about by just reading the URL.
Setting up Friendly URLs for WordPress:
- Log into WordPress
- Under ‘Settings’ look for Permalink
- Click on Permalink
- In the edit box next to Custom Structure type in the following; /%postname%/
See image below:
See it’s simple and good for your SEO!
Kikolani
Jun 6th, 2009
This is a very good tip for making articles search engine friendly. If you choose the best keywords that people are likely to search for your title, your article will generate a good bit of traffic quickly, once the article gets indexed.
~ Kristi
Jonathan - Advanced Life Skills
Jun 6th, 2009
Hey, there’s another one I am doing right. This is so easy to do and the search engines like it. It would be crazy not to take a minute and make the change.
Frank J
Jun 7th, 2009
Jonathan,
It really is easy and does wonders for search.
Check Pagerank
Jun 8th, 2009
Very well written post however, I would recommend that you turn the No Follow off in your comment section.
Keep up the good work.
Frank J
Jun 8th, 2009
It set to dofollow after 5 posts.
Highest CD Rates
Jun 8th, 2009
Nice post — thankfully this is one that I’m doing right. On some blogs it might make sense to use the date and post name, if you might be writing articles with similar names.
Hard Money Lenders NY
Jun 9th, 2009
Aside from the niche, I guess this is also one thing every blogger should be careful of. A lot of sites did better because of cleaner urls.
carrie
Jun 13th, 2009
I tried it but when I go to click on the links on my homepage, I just 404 errors. When I remove the the /%postname%/ everything goes back to normal. So I’m assuming that something isn’t updating somewhere. What to do? I really want seo friendly urls?
Frank J
Jun 13th, 2009
Carrie,
It’s because you do not have 301 redirects setup.