If you’re reading this, you probably know what a permalink is. This article is about optimizing your permalinks for both search engines and your readers. That said, do not change your permalink structure if you can help it. If you’re starting a new blog, put a bit of thought into your permalink structure of choice. Otherwise, you should probably leave them alone. By changing your permalink structure, you’re basically killing off all of your search rankings and incoming links (kind of defeats the purpose). However, if you are an .htaccess expert (and feel like setting up a complex redirection scheme), you could update your permalink structure (though I’d still advise against it).

Some of the More Common Permalink Structures

Wordpress’s default format for permalinks is http://www.yourdomain.com/?p=456. The number “456″ is the numerical id for the post. If your permalinks look like this, then change them immediately. They’re not very user-friendly, and they won’t rank well in search engines. Even if you’ve been blogging for awhile, you can go ahead and change them. Doesn’t that contradict what I said earlier? No, because the default permalinks always work, and will just redirect people to the updated URL. (more…)