Permalinks: How To Change The Permalink Structure In WordPress

WordPress has a default permalink structure that looks like this:

http://blogmarketingjournal.com/?p=123

The problem with this is the individual blog post permalink, which is identified by the second part of the URL (everything after the final /), provides no SEO benefits. Another problem with it is should you ever change blogging platforms then no one will be able to find any of your archived blog posts because this is a proprietary permalink structure that will only work with WordPress. That’s bad.

I recommend the first thing you do after you set up your blog is to change this permalink structure. To do that, click on Options and then click on “Permalinks.” You’ll see 4 permalink structure options. I like Date and Name Based, but some people prefer Custom. If you choose Custom then you’ll have to create your own structure and that’s a different lesson. I’m just going to deal with Date and Name Based right now.

Mark the box next to Date and Name Based. Scroll down and you’ll see some code in a box. You’ll have to copy and paste that code into your .htaccess file, which means you’ll have to open your ftp, modify the file, and upload it again right to the place that it was before. If you don’t have an .htaccess file you’ll have to create one.

To create an .htaccess file, open up Notepad and paste the code. Be sure to save the .htaccess file with a file name that looks just like this: .htaccess. It must have the preceding period in it and it cannot have .txt or any other extension after it. Once you’ve done that then you can can upload the file to where it needs to be. The file must be placed in the same folder as your index page file and that could have one of several different names. It is likely a php file, but not always.

One more thing: Before you upload the .htaccess file, change your permissions so that WordPress will have the authority to write to your .htaccess file. If you don’t do this first then you won’t see any changes to your permalink structure and you will likely see 404 error pages when you try to view an individual blog post.