Question on Wordpress Permalink

A question has been raised and posted at the comment section under my article, “how to optimize Wordpress URL?”, which says:

“selaplana.com/post-title/”.

selaplana.com
>post-title
>index.php

Newbie question: If you were to look at the directories in your cpanel or something, does this mean that under the root directory is a folder named ‘post-title’ and within this folder is the lone content called, say, index.php? (The ‘index.php’ being the file that contains the article entitled ‘post title’.

Because usually, it would have been “selaplana.com/post-title.php” (or .html)

selaplana.com
>post-title.php

My Answer

Previously, when you see an URL like this:

http://selaplana.com/money/make-money-online.php

It is most likely true that in the root directory in a hosting account, there is a folder named “money”, and within that directory there is a file with filename “make-money-online.php”.

However, today especially if you are using the latest version of the Wordpress blogging software, the URL mentioned above doesn’t really mean that “money” is a folder that contains the file “make-money-online.php”.

Wordpress is now capable of generating beautiful, easy to read, easy to remember and search engine friendly URL or Permalink. That’s one of the main reason why Wordpress is the best blogging platform ever.

What you need to do is to specify the permalink structure of your Wordpress blog by doing the following steps:

Step 1: Log-in to the Admin of your Wordpress blog. Usually, the URL for the Wordpress blog admin is “example.com/wp-admin/” and here in my blog, the URL is “selaplana.com/wp-admin”.

Step 2: I assume that your blog is installed with the latest Wordpress blogging software. As of writing this article, the latest version is Wordpress v2.7.1. Now, on the left side of the page, you’ll notice links. Scroll down the page and look for the link “PERMALINKS’ under the section “SETTINGS”, and click it. (view the screenshot)

Step 3: On the “Permalink Settings” page, insert the code into the blank field for the permalink structure that you want to use (view the screenshot).

• If you want to use the “selaplana.com/post-title/” permalink structure, just insert /%postname%/.
• If you want to use the “selaplana.com/post-title.html” permalink structure, then insert /%postname% .html.
• If you want to use the “selaplana.com/category/post-title/” permalink structure, insert /%category%/%postname%/
• If you want to use the “selaplana.com/category/post-title.php” permalink structure then insert /%category%/%postname%.php.

Here on this blog, I am using the permalink structure “selaplana.com/year/month/day/post-title/” but I am not happy for it already because the “year/month/day” part of it is just making the URL long.

If you want some advice on what permalink structure should you use, please read my article, “How to optimize Wordpress blog’s Permalink“.

Step 4: Then Click “Save Changes” button. But you should take note that the settings would not be saved if the “.htaccess” file is not writable.

More on SEO and Making Money Online

If you have questions related to SEO and Making Money Online, just reply this email or visit the live version of it (Optimizing Wordpress Permalink Question) and drop your comment at the comment section of it.

Our previous article related to SEO are:

1. Search Engine Optimization?
2. On-Site Search Engine Optimization?
3. Search Engine Optimizing Domain and URL?
4. Optimizing URL of Wordpress Blog?
5. Off-Site Search Engine Optimization
6. Canonicalization of Duplicate Content

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