How To Shorten WordPress Custom Permalinks

Posted by Jeff

on December 19, 2008

Using a custom WordPress permalink structure is something most WordPress bloggers know about, and incorporate on their WordPress blogs. Using the category and postname in the WordPress permalink structure adds a little more SEO for the Google bots to soak up and helps your posts get to the top of the Google search results. But it can make the permalink or URL of the posts very long if you use the recommended postname in the permalink structure.

The above image is an example of using the category and postname in the permalink structure. The postname part is going to pickup the actual post title. To check your permalink structure go to Settings, Permalinks. If you are using the postname which is the actual title of the post in the WordPress permalink structure and tend to write long post titles you may want to shorten the permalink. First I recommend using a post title that is as short as possible while still accurately describing the post content. Leave out the fluff and get to the point of the post. While writing the post you have the option to specify what was once called the post slug in previous versions of WordPress and is now just called the Permalink.

In the write post or edit post screen you will see an option between the title box and the content box. In previous versions this is called the Post Slug and is on the right side. Simply click the Edit button to shorten the trailing permalink. I suggest just a few very targeted keywords and try to keep out filler words like “the”, “if”, “an”, well you get the idea. If using the category in the permalink structure I also suggest keeping them as short as possible and using only one per post. Remember you want to target your content to exactly what its about and more importantly what the person is searching for and typing into the search engine.

This post is an example of what I am trying to explain; notice the actual title: “How To Shorten WordPress Custom Permalinks ” but look at the URL in the address bar. You will see that I took out the “How To” and “Custom” part but still got in the main part of the posts content. Is this absolutely necessary? No, but it helps make your blog a little more search engine friendly and orderly.

Caution! Before you head over to your WordPress blog and change all your existing posts permalinks you will be changing the actual URL and loose any links that are on other sites pointing back to them, this includes any social bookmarking sites that you or others may have saved.

Similar Posts:

WordPress Guide

Tags: WordPress Guide, wordpress-permalinks

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Comments

Comment by bebo skinz on December 19, 2008 @ 10:18 pm

this is a usefull bit of information, thanks!

Comment by Peter Morrow on December 20, 2008 @ 12:38 am

Good tip. Basic seo.

Comment by blogger templates on December 20, 2008 @ 4:57 am

what it is good, if i use :

/%category%/postname.html

i’ve just add (dot) HTML

Comment by Busby SEO Test on December 20, 2008 @ 8:24 am

Wordpress was the greatest blog engine i ever use. In this case, we don’t need to change our htaccess setting to make a short permalink. It only one click

Comment by Free Xbox 360 Elite on December 20, 2008 @ 5:09 pm

thanks for the info

I did try and do this earlier, and I had to reinstall wordpress!

Comment by Rapidshare King on December 21, 2008 @ 5:38 am

a must for everyone who means it seriously. yet many forget about it.

Comment by Free Wii on December 21, 2008 @ 6:48 am

Nice tip there! I need to get my WP Blog sorted out! I’ll bookmark this to keep it in mind

Comment by Busby SEO Test on December 21, 2008 @ 9:52 am

Urgently tell me which one is best, between the 2 following permalink:

/%category%/%postname%/

and

/%postname%/

Comment by Jeff on December 21, 2008 @ 10:45 am

Busby, I can’t say which is best. I use and setup blogs with /%category%/%postname%/ .

If your categories are short and keyword rich I suggest you use them to add more keywords for the Google bots to find. Its really a matter of personal preference and how long you want the permalinks URL to be.

Comment by Free iPods on December 21, 2008 @ 5:25 pm

I’ve always thought about doing this, but wasn’t really sure of how beneficial it would be to my site? would it help with SEO?

Comment by Jeff on December 21, 2008 @ 5:35 pm

iPods dude, are you reading the posts?
The post has the answer to your question:

Is this absolutely necessary? No, but it helps make your blog a little more search engine friendly and orderly.

Comment by Content Written Michael on December 25, 2008 @ 1:04 am

The Permalink engine that makes Mod_rewrite so user friendly is one of the greatest features of WordPress. Totally why WordPress powered sites get such great SERP most of the time.

Comment by Bargain Banners By JON Vinyl Banner Store on December 29, 2008 @ 10:04 am

Thanks! This is really going to help out my blog! http://www.bargainbannersbyjon.com/blog

Comment by nakusya on January 9, 2009 @ 12:50 pm

Hi,

Thanks for the tips. I am using the custom structure:

/%postname%/%category%/

as I read somewhere that its best to get the ‘longtail’ keywords from the post nearest to the domain so that there is less chance that they are truncated in the SERPS..

I am also using sub-categories which are sometimes 4 layers deep or more so getting horrendously long URLs!

Does anyone know of anything out there that can help me?

An example would be:

/drilling-engineer-abu-dhabi/oil-and-gas-gulf/oil-and-gas-jobs-gulf/drilling-jobs/drilling-engineer/

The post name is first, then the category heierarchy starts with the parent and the children from left to right.

I need this structure to allow browsing of posts (in this case job adverts).

Any help gratefully appreciated

Thanks

Comment by Jeff on January 9, 2009 @ 2:03 pm

Nakusya. if you read the entire post you will see that you are trying to keep your cake and eat it too:

If using the category in the permalink structure I also suggest keeping them as short as possible and using only one per post

If you are going to pile up the categories on each post you will have the long URLS. That is the point of this post.

Another point made in the post:

Remember you want to target your content to exactly what its about and more importantly what the person is searching for and typing into the search engine.

The point is if you jamb too many category/keywords in the permalinks you are going to diminish the effects of a highly targeted permalink structure.

Keep in mind that the permalinks are only a small part of the SEO, the title of the post and the actual unique content is much more important.

Comment by tukang nggame on May 7, 2009 @ 10:05 am

That trick still long permalink

Comment by Pet Snakes on May 27, 2009 @ 1:23 pm

It’s great to see some unique content and a good quality blog for once, actually I would be very interested in doing a link exchange with you.

Comment by Frank's Dojo - SEO Packages on June 2, 2009 @ 12:10 pm

Nice tip for my WP websites. About SEO, i built WP sites and Drupal sites, all my results from Drupal websites are better in SERPs

Comment by Ravi Bopara on September 3, 2009 @ 5:25 am

Will it help in getting traffic to your site
thoi trang

Jeff Replied:
September 3rd, 2009 at 7:55 am

It helps just a little bit with SEO, the traffic part is up to you and your content.

Comment by Joe on November 4, 2009 @ 7:14 pm

Finally. I was looking everywhere on how to do this because I see so many blogs doing it.

Great stuff.

Comment by Hamster cages on January 9, 2010 @ 10:26 am

I have never thought of the post titles, but after I read this I look at mines and they all are extremely long!Thank you for the advices.

Comment by Printing Birmingham on February 7, 2010 @ 9:36 am

Soon after I installed WordPress on my Windows Home Server (WHS) which runs IIS I realized my permalink options were limited since IIS does not support mod_rewrite. I definitely wanted to produce Pretty Permalinks, therefore, I spent some time searching plausible solutions that would mimic mod_rewrite capabilities so I could accomplish this goal. What I found were several workaround tutorials that explained how to create 404 redirects while others provided instructions on how to use PHP and INI files in association with a ISAPI Rewrite Filter. Nonetheless, I was not interested in going through all the tedious steps in these workarounds so I continued doing my homework. Thanks to a project on Google Code I was able to find a solution that works perfectly and only takes minutes to implement.

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