Customize WordPress URL structure (permalink / static path)

This part may sound a bit technical, but it’s not that difficult. And yes, the topic is a bit boring but you have to pay attention because URL structure affects SEO, as well as the possibility of it being shared on social networks or linked to by other sites (you have backlinks).

You should set up the URL structure fine-tuned right from the start, or in case you are negligent, don’t let the situation of writing hundreds of new articles decide to change the URL structure because then it will be quite difficult to fix. Also, if you don’t edit it well, it’s still Destroy SEO efforts yours.

OK, no more detours.

Video tutorial

You can watch the video or scroll down to read the article to know how.

By default this is the WordPress URL structure:

http://1wp.ducanhplus.com/2018/04/03/ban-nhap-tieu-de-bai-viet-o-day/

You won’t need to care about the first part: http://1wp.ducanhplus.com this because it is a domain name & there will be no change in that part.

The URL structure I mean is here: 2018/04/03/ban-nhap-tieu-de-bai-viet-o-day/

You can see this is the structure year/month/day/url

There are 2 top important criteria in the canonical URL structure, which are:

• It needs to be brief.
• It is descriptive.

Looking at the criteria on the default WordPress structure, there are 2 things wrong:

• It gives redundant information to readers, since the date information in the URL is of no use to the reader in most types of articles (except in some cases like newspapers, the date information in the URL can be important). important).
• Even the date in the URL has the opposite effect if the reader thinks that the article is already too old and unsuitable for reading (when in fact it may not be).

1. OK understood, so what structure should I use now?

Currently, there are two popular structures in use:

• Prioritize maximum brevity, domain-name/post-namelike: kiencang.net/nghien-cuu-tu-khoa
• Short but still paying attention to the directory, include the directory in the URL, domain-name/directory/article-namelike: kiencang.net/seo/nghien-cuu-tu-khoa; where seo (SEO) is the directory.

The above structures are all omitted, in fact some websites still use the structure may or even day month Year but that number is not much, and websites that actively use that structure have their reasons, for example they have lots of daily poststhe structure may help them limit duplicate URLs.

Going back a bit to the 2 common structures, the maximum concise structure seems easy to understand, but what about the structure with folders? What is its advantage?

In terms of providing information to the reader, the directory structure helps the viewer to know which large directory the article is being read in. In terms of marketing, the directory structure makes it easy for advertisers to set up remarketing for people who have already visited the website.

There is only a small note in the URL structure with directories that you should not let the directory name be too long, 1 word is best, not just 2 letters maximum. That helps you avoid destroying your brevity advantage.

2. WordPress Template URL Restructuring

This is the practice part, after you have understood the theory I described above.

The first is to set up an overview of the URL pattern (static path). You look to the left hand side of the Dashboard (message board).

With Vietnamese WordPress, you go to Settings > Static Paths

As for English WordPress, you go to Settings > Permalinks

You can see a huge variety of options for setting up static paths (sample URL structure):

You only need to care about the last one, Custom Structure, because this is where we customize the URL structure to our liking.

If you follow the direction The shortest URL If possible, copy the following information into the blank: /%postname%/

If you follow the direction URL with directorycopy the following information into the blank box: /%category%/%postname%/

In there category means directory, and postname means article title.

To save the settings, scroll to the bottom and press Save Changes.

3. Edit the article URL when necessary

The above part is to set up the overall sample URL of the articles, when necessary you should rewrite the specific URL of an article, it is the postname part.

Why is that, because every time you write a new post, when you set a title for the post, WordPress will automatically generate the postname for that post, it’s quite good but sometimes not optimized in terms of length and sometimes keywords are also missing.

For example, postname is auto generated for this very article is titled as follows: Tuy-chinh-cau-truc-url-cua-wordpress-duong-dan-tinh

It has up to 10 words, which is long, in most cases you should limit it to 5 words only.

To edit this URL, click the Edit button right below the title:

Then you choose the most important keywords only, for example I choose this: cau-truc-url-wordpress

A small note is that if while writing an article you have not selected a folder for the article, it will automatically classify the article as uncategorized (meaning not classified) as above.

To edit a folder, in the Categories area, select a new folder, then click Save Draft:

In the end you will have the desired structure:

Above is the URL structure with directories.

If it were the most concise URL structure, it would look like this:

So you understand and know how to do both parts related to setting up the overall URL structure of the whole site and editing the URL of each specific post when necessary.

P/S: if you use Yoast SEO plugin to optimize for search engines, when the URL is too long, you will be notified that:

4. Disadvantages of 2 common URL structures

We already know their advantages, the above URL structures keep URLs short, look good and get many advantages from this consequence.

However, they are not without drawbacks.

With its super short URL structure, only postname, no directory, it is best suited for sites with narrow, in-depth contentsites covering a wide range of topics will have a hard time (mainly in terms of effort) if you want to set up options based on directory URLs, the best example of which is remarketing (like Remarketing). on Facebook or the Google display network).

With the URL structure with the directory, you will be in trouble if you change the article to another directory, or rename the directory, because that if not careful can lead to the URL of the article changing. But changing the URL without initiative will sabotage your SEO. Now you will need set up redirects (301) to make sure search engines recognize the new URL but the old article to keep the website ranking.

In case you classify an article as belonging to two different folders then only one folder is selected as primary, and that folder name will appear in the URL as URL with directory.

Now that everything needs to be said, I wish you a beautiful URL.

P/S: I myself am choosing the super short URL structure.

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