How to create 100% customized permalinks on your Wordpress Blog

[brandonbaker]

We all know that how you choose to structure your permalinks is crucial for SEO, but not many of us know exactly how to do this. Yes, we can set our permalinks to Custom and structure them as /%postname%/, but sometimes we need that extra bit of customization to get exactly what we want. And when it comes to Permalink customization, there is no plugin that does the job better than this:

WordPress › Custom Permalinks « WordPress Plugins

Just set your permalinks to Custom and voila, complete permalink freedom.

Works like a charm.

Brandon

[yukon]

The down side of any WP plugin is, what happens If the next Wordpress update breaks the plugin code?

Will the plugin author be around next week, or in a couple of years (long term) to make any needed updates?

[iresh]

Thank you for sharing, and some of those may not work with the next WP update also, but it better to try any way

[yukon]

Originally Posted by iresh

Thank you for sharing, and some of those may not work with the next WP update also, but it better to try any way

Maybe, but what happens when you have several pages ranking #1 in Google SERPs a year from now, the plugin breaks & your entire site is screwed.

WP updates a lot, plugins that can kill a SERP ranking are risky.

A single day of broken links can bury your entire site in the SERPs...

[Leanne King]

before you install any plugin have a think about if you really need it. Remember plugins add to server load, updates, doorway for hackers. I'm often stunned how many plugins people have that do meaningless stuff (or stuff that could be easily achieved by clicking a button)

[brandonbaker]

Originally Posted by Leanne King

before you install any plugin have a think about if you really need it. Remember plugins add to server load, updates, doorway for hackers. I'm often stunned how many plugins people have that do meaningless stuff (or stuff that could be easily achieved by clicking a button)

Totally agree, but Wordpress on its own doesn't let you customize your URLs. This isn't something off-to-the-side or meaningless: this is the fricken' URLs on your site.

[cnailor]

Have to agree, I don't use a plugin for this crucial piece of my rankings. Rather, I use the custom structure option provided by Wordpress and insert /%category%/%postname%/ -- if my niche site requires it, I will also change the default ccategory base to something like dept (for an ecommerce site) or topics (for a news site).

[yukon]

A little trick for Wordpress Categories/Permalink. To make your Category URLs look like (cars is the Category):

hxxp://www.domain.com/cars/really-fast-red-cars/

Go to Settings/Permalinks/ in your WP-Admin.

Then inside the Category base add a single period (see screenshot below).

Then click the Save button.

[Jack Sprat]

Originally Posted by yukon

A little trick for Wordpress Categories/Permalink. To make your Category URLs look like (cars is the Category):

hxxp://www.domain.com/cars/really-fast-red-cars/

Go to Settings/Permalinks/ in your WP-Admin.

Then inside the Category base add a single period (see screenshot below)

I tried this once and while the URL looked fine inside the browser URL pane (not sure what its called, when I checked the rel=canonical meta tag that Wordpress creates, the period was still there is the URL structure as in www.domain/./cars/really-fast-red-cars/

Top Level Categories plugin will achieve the effect you are trying to achieve without funny stuff going on with the period.

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Jack Sprat

I tried this once and while the URL looked fine inside the browser URL pane (not sure what its called, when I checked the rel=canonical meta tag that Wordpress creates, the period was still there is the URL structure as in www.domain/./cars/really-fast-red-cars/

Top Level Categories plugin will achieve the effect you are trying to achieve without funny stuff going on with the period.

My rel=canonical tag in the source code is exactly the way it should be (no period).

I'm running the latest WP-Update & no SEO plugins, I do my own SEO code.

Sounds like a WP-Plugin problem?

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Jack Sprat

I tried this once and while the URL looked fine inside the browser URL pane (not sure what its called, when I checked the rel=canonical meta tag that Wordpress creates, the period was still there is the URL structure as in www.domain/./cars/really-fast-red-cars/

Top Level Categories plugin will achieve the effect you are trying to achieve without funny stuff going on with the period.

This is a follow up with the WP code I use to create my own canonical tags (no plugins).

Hope it helps,

PHP Code:

<?php if ( is_home() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="hxxp://www.YourDomainHere.com/" />
<?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_category() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="hxxp://www.YourDomainHere.com/<?php  = get_the_category(); echo ->category_nicename; ?>/" />
<?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_tag() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="<?php echo get_tag_link(); ?>" />
<?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_page() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" />
<?php } ?>
<?php if ( is_single() ) { ?>
<link rel="canonical" href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" />
<?php } ?>

Note:
Replace, the hxxp with http, & replace the YourDomainHere with your own domain name.

Also add the period in your WP-Admin like the screenshot above.

[Jack Sprat]

Thanks very much for the code Yukon. I'll look into this further in a week or so and see if I can work out if it was the default Wordpress canonical or the Platinum SEO plugin that was giving the URL's with the period.

Cheers

[yukon]

Originally Posted by Jack Sprat

Thanks very much for the code Yukon. I'll look into this further in a week or so and see if I can work out if it was the default Wordpress canonical or the Platinum SEO plugin that was giving the URL's with the period.

Cheers

Your welcome,

The above code is running on my own sites with the period in the Admin category box.

Also running the latest Wordpress update (3.0.4)

I double checked my page source code & the category was correct.

Example (hxxp = http): <link rel="canonical" href="hxxp://www.domain.com/fast-cars/" />

(Fast Cars is the category)



Tags will look like: <link rel="canonical" href="hxxp://www.domain.com/tag/car/" />

(Car is the tag)

[kaytav]

Thanks everybody a great knowledge for m .

Thanks