Permalinks in Wordpress

[zzman]

I have a client with a wordpress site, but they did not optimize their permalinks. Now I was wondering, if I go change their permalink structure in the settings what happens to their old posts?

thanks

[Taruru]

well, why not back it up before changing the settings? that way, if you do lose any info, at least you could still recover it..

[Christian Little]

I don't remember the name of the plugin, but there use to be one that was built for this purpose. It would change all the permalinks, and then create permanent redirects for the search engines.

Otherwise you have to do it manually, which can be a real nightmare if you have a lot of posts.

[Bradley J Anderson]

Yeah. I tried changing my permalinks 'after the fact' once, and it was a nightmare. 404's galore. lol. Haven't tried the plug-in, though.

[Christian Little]

Here's one plugin that claims to do it, but I haven't tested it and it was posted in 2009, so it may not work with WP 3.1: Permalinks Migration: Easily change Permalinks of wordpress blog

[jayshankard]

Earlier permalinks will remain as they were, new posts will be created with the new permalink structure.

[Josh Rossdale]

Use something like BackupBuddy first, then a full web host backup too. Then try to switch to a better permalink structure.

[Istvan Horvath]

Originally Posted by jayshankard

Earlier permalinks will remain as they were, new posts will be created with the new permalink structure.

Nonsense...

When you change it - it affects all the posts, Pages, category and archive pages... everything.

Note. If by "not optimizing" the OP meant they used the default - then there is no problem. The default "ugly" permalinks ALWAYS work, no matter what is your setting!

Changing from one custom to another custom type... it is supposed to be taken care of in the newer WP versions - although I am a bit skeptical. Check it and if they don't work - use a redirect/permalink plugin.

Also, don't forget about the canonical permalinks.

[Christian Little]

Originally Posted by jayshankard

Earlier permalinks will remain as they were, new posts will be created with the new permalink structure.

Originally Posted by Istvan Horvath

Nonsense...

When you change it - it affects all the posts, Pages, category and archive pages... everything.

QFT.

Lesson of the day to newbie warriors - don't post about something you don't know about.

[CheapTrafficDude]

Nah, nothing will change exept the way SE's and people read your links. Usually you have to manually change them. You can change those permalinks any time you want so instead of a link looking like this http://yoursite.com/p?=345 it would like like http://yoursite.com/my-post-about-whatever. To do this, just click on permalinks, click on custom structure and type in /%postname%/ I do mention a trailing slash, for some reason it makes loading faster although I fail to understand that... A wiseman once told me to do that and it worked

In the case of permalinks, search engines read them like a human does. Many go and do something like this: http://www.keyword.com/keywordagain and yes, it does work

[jazbo]

The old posts will be there with the new structure. You should 301 redirect the old URLs to the new. There are plugins that can do this automatically.

[raycowie]

Originally Posted by CheapTrafficDude

Nah, nothing will change exept the way SE's and people read your links. Usually you have to manually change them. You can change those permalinks any time you want so instead of a link looking like this http://yoursite.com/p?=345 it would like like http://yoursite.com/my-post-about-whatever. To do this, just click on permalinks, click on custom structure and type in /%postname%/ I do mention a trailing slash, for some reason it makes loading faster although I fail to understand that... A wiseman once told me to do that and it worked

In the case of permalinks, search engines read them like a human does. Many go and do something like this: http://www.keyword.com/keywordagain and yes, it does work

This is good advice that I implement with every blog I set up. Nice one...

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by zzman

I have a client with a wordpress site, but they did not optimize their permalinks. Now I was wondering, if I go change their permalink structure in the settings what happens to their old posts?

thanks

I use the plugin called Dean's Permalink Migration. Does the trick to redirect old urls to the new permalink

[CatherineMay]

I've just this morning had to install a plug-in for redirecting my permalinks.

What I don't know is how long it will take search engines to find the new permalinks. Do I just keep watch to see what URLs are showing in the results?

And when I see the new URLs in the results, then deactivate the plug-in?

I know these are simple questions, but I've been surprised more than once at how something to do with websites is a lot more complicated than I originally thought.

[Christian Little]

It could take days or weeks depending on a number of factors such as how old your site is, how many links you have, how much authority your site has, etc. A few weeks is probably a safe bet, and most plugins that let you change permalink structures will setup 301 redirects to point to the new location, so you should be fine.

[CatherineMay]

Originally Posted by Christian Little

It could take days or weeks depending on a number of factors such as how old your site is, how many links you have, how much authority your site has, etc. A few weeks is probably a safe bet, and most plugins that let you change permalink structures will setup 301 redirects to point to the new location, so you should be fine.

I really don't mean to sound dense, but after these days or weeksand I see my new permalinks showing up in the results, then it's safe (and better) to deactivate the plug-in? Right?

[smorse1]

@CatherineMay
No, don't disable - you want to continue to 301 the old url to the new one, in case you have backlinked to the old URL. The 301 passes link juice to the new url.

[Christian Little]

What smorse1 said is correct. Keep the 301 redirects up permanently. You never know when Google or MSN's bots will follow a link to the old pages and think they're new since they were deleted. The 301 tells the the bots that the page has permanently moved, so just keep them there, they don't do any harm.