Permalinks and htaccess Setup Made Easy
Today i had finished polishing my permalinks. To give you a gist of the term permalink, it is the URL that points to a specific blog post or forum entries after it has passed from the front page to the archives. You see a lot of this without knowing that it is the permalinks… here are some examples. We have the
UGLY (usually the default):
http://example.com/?p=N
Almost-Pretty (path info):
http://example.com/index.php/yyyy/mm/dd/post-name/
Pretty Permalinks ( mod rewrite):
http://example.com/category/post-name/
or http://example.com/year/month/day/post-name
Now, based on what i have read, the most SEO friendly is the PRETTY PERMALINKS. If you can see my url on the browser bar, you’ll find that i use the /category/post-name permalinks.
How to do it?
If you are on the stage of setting up your site, this is the best time to set up your permalinks.
- Go to your Dashboard WP >> Settings >> Permalinks
- You can use any common settings but i prefer categeory/postname structure, check the custom structure bullet then type in ” /%category%/%postname%/ “
CUSTOM STRUCTURE: /%category%/%postname%/
- Press Save
Notice that if you have a 755 access on your cmod, (permission structures) you will have a message that states
” Please Update you .htaccess now. “
Dont Panic! all you have to do is update your .htaccess file with the code given below to your root directory which is in http://example.com (together with the index.php).
I Didnt See One??
You have to create one, open your notepad application, click save as (empty notepad) with the name .htaccess, dont forget to change the file type to .txt to all files.
- Edit your .htaccess using a file editor (i use and recommend editplus2) copy and paste the code given by wordpress (at the bottom of the same page with the “pls update your .htaccess now”)
- Now transfer your .htaccess to your root directory ( http://example.com) via ftp or ftp cpanel. I use filezilla for transfer.
NOTE: If you have placed your wordpress files in a different location (common: http://example.com/wordpress) and your BLOG ADDRESS is at http://example.com, you have to put a copy of the .htaccess to both directory, one on th..
http://example.com
and also in
http://example.com/wordpress
There is a plugin for this, but i rather choose the manual type of setting up the permalinks. Anyhoo, Thats about it, If you have questions and clarifications feel free to comment under this post! ENJOY!
September 23rd, 2008 at 5:47 am
[...] are very important when it comes to seo. I have posted few months back about permalink structures on my experimental weblog. Most seo’s are aware of this factor and do not overlook this [...]