The structure behind WordPress is generous enough to allow for built in SEO advantages which come with building pages that static web page building and other blogging software cannot afford you. By using WordPress, you already have an advantage over bloggers, but only as long as you are willing to take advantage of the right permalink structure. By default, your dashboard in WordPress gives you three different choices that you can select from. The default permalink structure and one of the other options are both pretty terrible options. Basically, the three permalink structures that are available to you would create blog post URLs that look something like this:
- http://www.yourwordpressblog.com/?p=123
- http://www.yourwordpressblog.com/2008/01/01/the-name-of-your-post
- http://www.yourwordpressblog.com/the-name-of-your-post-123
Which of these linking strategies do you think is going to be the most ideal for SEO purposes?
The truth is, while the bottom two seem to both be advantageous, including the date in your blog posts is not the best strategy to follow, making the third option the best option for you to follow.
For starters, putting the date stamp in your URL like the second example dilutes the value of your keyword, increasing the number of characters in your URL. While there is no real rule here, and while some SEO experts do seem to appreciate having the date stamps, it does seem to be much more advantageous to leave the post date out of the URL of your permalink structure. When you are trying to rank for keywords that you use in the titles of your blogs, and when you want to be found for the titles of your blogs, you need to show Google and other search engines how important your pages are based on their URLs. If you have a date stamp in your URL, Google will perceive the date stamp to be more important than your keyword, which can have a negative effect on your SEO effort.
It is surprising how important your URL names can be when it comes to your SEO effort and the efficiency of your blog. Not only are there numerous factors that make it worthwhile for you to leave the date stamp out of your URL, but there is also no good reason not to.
There is an added bonus to leaving the date stamp out of your permalink structure, in that it allows you to revitalize old posts, bringing them back to the forefront of your blog without having to mess with the date stamps. If someone links to your blog at http://www.yourwordpressblog.com/2008/01/01/the-name-of-your-post and you decide to change the date of your blog entry to bring it back to the front of your blog, all of those links will be destroyed, and your SEO effort will be largely undone in one fell swoop.
Sound good to you? Learn how to remove dates from permalink.
Photo Credits: 1
Originally posted 2009-02-05 14:15:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter
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4 comments ↓
Back when I moved my site to WP, I knew next to nothing about SEO and Permalink structure. Now that I know a little bit, here’s what I would like to do: I want to change the structure from /?p=2110, ex., to a more SEO-friendly structure like the one you use above. I know how to do that in WP, but I don’t want to change all of the previous posts permalinks because of backlinks, etc.
If I switch in WP, will it just do it for the posts going forward or will it change all posts.
Thanks in advance!
I believe that you can switch the permalinks in newer versions of wordpress. I know that if you switch and the 301 redirect isn’t added automatically you can switch back. No harm no foul. Go for it.
awesome–thanks Kevin!
One more thing: it’s asking me to change my hta access. Is that to change the structure for just future posts?
I also gave the thumbs up and review for your site on “Stumble Upon”. I can’t believe it wasn’t up there yet!
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