Importance of Permalinks
How to increase your site’s traffic with Permalinks
Permalinks or permanent links is a URL that points a specific blog post (or any web page) after it has passed from the front page to the archives. In most blogging platforms, specially Wordpress, users are given the option to customize your entry’s permalink. Using the correct format for permalinks may boost your blog’s traffic or it may also pull you down the SERPs.
Understanding the importance of Permalinks
Before I teach you how to choose the perfect permalink format for your blog, it would be better if we first understand the importance of permalinks.
Permalink is part of your blog posts’ identity. Before the search engines go through the contents of your blog, they read your permalink first. Since permalink is one of the most prominent element which appears in the search results page, it is very important that we give proper attention when choosing the best permalink structure/format for our blog/site.
Considerations in choosing the perfect Permalink
Keywords. When we’re targeting the search engine audience, the first thing we give importance is our target keyword. Our blog entry’s content, so as with our permalink, should contain information relevant to our targeted keyword. For most search engines, especially MSN, they give a bigger weight if the contents permalink containts the target keyword.
Length. Length is also important when choosing the right permalink structure. Most web developers avoid long permalink structures. Shorter URLs with less clutter and more keywords are given more weight by search engines than those with unnecessary strings like dates, numbers, names, etc. Keep it short and simple.
Categories. Since some websites use category names relevant to the topic or to the target keyword, it is sometimes advised to include the category name in the blog’s permalink structure. Though it compromises the length of the permalink, it can be avoided by assigning most appropriate category name.
The Permalink Structure
Though there are no rules being imposed by the search engines on how you should structure your permalinks, it’s still best to follow those that were tried and tested. Applying the concepts above, the permalink structure which works best for me is:
/%category%/%postname%/
In most cases, this permalink structure generates shorter URL which contains my blog post’s keywords. Also, choosing the appropriate title helps a lot in driving search engine traffic. Though Wordpress automatically generates the post’s title in the permalink structure, it is still best to pay attention to the generated permalink. Your title may be long but there might be a need for the permalink to be trimmed down. Keep it short and simple.
To learn the process of changing your blog platform’s permalink structure, please refer to your blogging platform’s documentation.
Tagged with: appropriate permalink structure, optimization, permalink strucutre, permalinks, search engine tutorial, wordpress optimization
11 Responses to “Importance of Permalinks”
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Linzz on January 28th, 2009
I found The Pink Panther 2 here RedRopes.com Once unlocked after you do one of the surveys they make you do, the movie plays..not bad quality either
Jehzeel Laurente on January 28th, 2009
wooot! dinelete mo mga posts dito? sayang yung pink panther mo top 1 na sana.. hehe
Jehzeel Laurente on January 29th, 2009
buti binalik mo.. sayang yun.. pag showing na.. wahehehe..
Micamyx on January 29th, 2009
Woah so this is the new blog
PutingBuhok on January 29th, 2009
ako %postname% lang permalink structure ko. wahehe
Fitz on February 4th, 2009
I think %postname% ang pinaka-matino na permalink structure. Kung may category kasi, pampa-haba lang ng URL at minsan, pinapalitan din ang categories.
Anyway, medyo ironic lang na sinabi mong /%category%/%postname%/ ang pinaka-best sayo pero ang permalink structure mo dito ay iba. Hehe.
Peace tayo Winston!
LetsGoSago.net on March 1st, 2009
Haha, napansin ko din ung last point ni Fitz =)
I a have question though on Fitz’ first point, How is “postname” alone be the ‘pinak-matino’ na structure? Wouldn’t a one-word category like /travel/ help more for your post to be classified as ‘related’ to ‘travel’, as opposed to just having a ‘postname’ which might not necessarily have the ‘travel’ keyword? =)
Millionaire Acts on March 9th, 2009
Hehe, tama si Fitz! Bakit ganun nakalagay sa post mo tapos hindi naman yun permalinks mo? Peace din.
Pero yung akin naman iba. /%post_id%/%postname%.html
Yan ang sabi nung web programmer kong friend. Ang alam ko rin e yung diretsong post name na pero sabi nya na dapat daw may post id in reference to how old yung post na yun. Dapat daw date pero since mas mahaba yun kaya yung post_id na lang ginamit.
Sa palagay ko naman wala naman yan sa permalinks e. Nasa dami ng naka link dun sa particular posts yan.
Nitrosaint on March 22nd, 2009
explaination: i was doing an seo for a certain page before i migrated this blog to wordpress
I had no time configuring my .htaccess. the easiest way is to configure the whole site’s permalink structure similar to that of my previous site’s permalink struct. 
i won’t be giving suggestions if i don’t know what i’m doing. peace.
ark on May 21st, 2009
Sabi sa iba’ng sites eh di daw advisable na maglagay ng date sa permalink. Pero I noticed na SEO bloggers like macuha and selaplana are still ranking high sa google.
Ano ba talaga?
Nitrosaint on June 10th, 2009
i personally recommend shorter permalinks.