WordPress Permalinks: What Are They and How Flexible Are They?

Did you just launch a website with a WordPress blog? Have you set up the permalinks yet?

If these questions confuse you, worry not! We’re here to talk about permalinks and how a WordPress web design company can help.

A Brief Overview of Permalinks

Permanent links, or permalinks, in WordPress are the URLs to your pages and posts. Every page or post has a distinct permalink that visitors use for website access. These links are what users paste or type into the search bar of their browser. They are also what search engines use to link to your website. In fact, permalinks are applied whenever your website is shared via SMS, on forums, social media, and e-mail, among others.

Any WordPress web development company in Kolkata will tell you how important clean, properly set website permalinks are. When website owners recognize their importance, they might want to change the permalinks. This can cause loss of referrals and traffic as previous URLs stop functioning.

The Importance of WordPress Permalinks

There are two reasons why permalinks are so important.

Usability

Permalinks provide people with a teaser about what your pages or posts are going to be about. This makes them more interested in visiting your website.  

SEO

Permalinks let search engines know what the pages and posts are all about. Thus, they improve your website’s ranking and indexing.

It’s important to remember that not every permalink will execute this important two-fold role. Specific permalink formats usually perform better than others. They are usually considered more SEO-friendly by WordPress website design agencies in Kolkata.

Selecting the Correct Permalink Structure

There are 5 different permalink structures in WordPress.

Plain

Plain is the default URL structure. It consists of the domain name, which is followed by a “query string”. The question mark is a separator, p is for “post”, and the number succeeding the equal symbol is the ID number. This number can also be the post number in the WordPress database.

Day and Name

Another available selection is Day and Name. This shows the publishing date of the post and its title. Unlike the Plain type, this format is more practical and clearer.

Numeric URL

The Numeric URL contains the post number with the word archive following the root. It also doesn’t contain any special characters.

Post Name

This type is considered by most WordPress website design companies in Kolkata as the best URL format. To fit the URL format, the post name is edited with words defining the post, separated by hyphens.

Custom Structure

Custom structure is also preferred by the best website development companies in Kolkata, particularly for SEO. This structure lets admins categorize the content.

The Possibility of Changing WordPress Permalinks

So, can you change permalinks since they are so essential for your website? You can have many reasons for changing permalinks. The good news is that there are safe ways to do it.

The best website development services in India, like Digital Concepts, would use 301 redirects.

Similar to mail forwarding after changing a physical address, a 301 redirect works the same. It redirects traffic from obsolete and old URLs to new ones. It’s also a way to alert the search engines that the address change is permanent. This is significant for ranking and domain authority.

Permalinks can determine the way users and search engines see your website and its content to a certain extent. Thus, it’s clear you have to set them with care. You should select the URL structure from the beginning and stick to it. That’s ideal, but even if you do change permalinks later on, it’s not a risky endeavor!