In this tutorial we will share that a SEO friendly URL Structure in Word press. We know that the default word press URL structure was not SEO friendly at all.

What is a SEO friendly URL?

A URL is the acronym for Uniform Resource Locator. In simple terms, a URL specifies the web address of a page. Each and every web page on the Internet has a unique URL.

Example of a SEO friendly URL:

https://shouts.dev/add-custom-domain-and-install-ssl-on-localhost.html

So what does a non-SEO friendly URL look like?

https://shouts.dev/?p=1117

By default, WordPress now uses the post name in the URL which is the most SEO friendly URL structure.

By default, WordPress now uses the post name in the URL which is the most SEO friendly URL structure.

If you are using wordpress 4.2  then your site is SEO friendly , word press 4.2 has by default SEO. You can easily verify your permalink settings in your WordPress admin area.

The Permalink Settings Page Explained

In WordPress, links are called Permalink, first, you need to do visit on permalink setting page in the WordPress admin area, on setting link in the admin menu click on the permalink, after you click this page your page looks like this:

As you can see there are number of choices available:

• Plain
  https://shouts.dev/?p=123
• Day and name
  https://shouts.dev/2016/01/22/sample-post/
• Month and name
  https://shouts.dev/2016/01/sample-post/
• Numeric
  https://shouts.dev/archives/123
• Post name
  https://shouts.dev/sample-post/
• Custom Structure
  Choose your own URL

let us explain one by one first, we explain plain mode, word press pain mode is by default function, it is not SEO user-friendly.

The second option day by name is a very long URL, for long URL it has some problem.

However, if you’re a news publication, then you want to have the dates in your URL to show the recency and improve the user experience.

Post name option is the most SEO friendly because it is short and pretty.

If you are running a larger publication, then you can use a custom structure that can also be SEO friendly.

In order to use a custom URL structure, you will need to add special tags in the custom structure box. For example, we use:

/%category%/%postname%/

Creating Custom URL Structure with Available Tags

Choose the post name as your URL structure.

There are lot of combination , you can create your own costume URL:

• %year% – The year of the post, four digits, for example 2016.
• %monthnum% – Month of the year, for example 05
• %day% – Day of the month, for example 28
• %hour% – Hour of the day, for example 15
• %minute% – Minute of the hour, for example 43
• %second% – Second of the minute, for example 33
• %postname% – A sanitized version of the title of the post (post slugfield on Edit Post/Page panel). For example, if your post title is This Is A Great Post! It would become this-is-a-great-post in the URL.
• %post_id% – The unique ID # of the post, for example, 423
• %category% – A sanitized version of the category name (category slug field on New/Edit Category panel). Nested sub-categories appear as nested directories in the URI.
• %author% – A sanitized version of the author name.

Very important note : don”t forget save the permalink setting option.

Warning: Important Note for Established Sites

if you are using permalink setting for more than one year or six months please don’t change it.

if you are changing permalink setting, you might be loose your all data and SEO friendly structure.

If your site is using the plain URLs, then no matter how old it is, you should update the URL structure for better SEO. Yes, you will still lose social share counts, but the benefits far outweigh that.

“We hope this article helps you a lot”.