A permalink is the permanent address of a page or post on a website. It corresponds to the full URL address where content is available in WordPress.
The purpose of a permalink is to remain unchanged for a very long time, generating a hyperlink that is less susceptible to breaking down. Usually, it is rendered as a clean URL so that it’s easier to type and remember.
Let’s say the homepage of your site is page.com. The permalink for your blog would be page.com/blog.
If there are categories within your blog, the permalink could be page.com/category/featured, page.com/featured, or page.com/blog/featured.
Unique pages also have individual links.
Ordinary Links and Slugs
A permalink is different from an ordinary link and a slug. A link typically means a hyperlink used within website content. External links lead to other blogs, articles, and sites. Internal ones help readers find other relevant content on your site and help with SEO.
The slug is the last part of the URL, coming after the domain. It is unique to a post. When you choose a title for an article or another publication, WordPress generates the slug for that title automatically.
Finding Your Permalink in WordPress
The admin dashboard features a permalink structure. You need to find the category under Settings in order to change the structure. Certain WordPress plugins let you create custom links for ecommerce products or custom post types. These plugins supersede the default permalink settings in WordPress.
To customize and configure a permalink, go to the category under Settings. You can change the settings for posts collectively from here. You can choose between plain, month and name, day and name, and other permalinks.
Plain
This permalink option will use your Post ID. It will appear in your browser, but search engines won’t make much sense out of it. A permalink of this type would be page.com/?p=789.
Month and Name
This setting shows the month and the year of the post, e.g., page.com/2022/11/article/.
Day and Name
This is similar to the above, but it includes the full date, page.com/2022/11/12/article/.
Numeric
An example of this permalink setting is page.com/archives/789. It is similar to the plain option in that it doesn’t benefit readers or SEO.
Post Name
The final type uses only the slug, without numbers or dates, page.com/article.
Changing a Permalink for a Published Post in WordPress
Open the Posts section in WordPress and choose which post to edit. Go to the Document panel and the permalink section. You can open it via the right arrow.
Permalink and SEO
Do not retain the default WordPress permalink settings because they aren’t friendly to SEO at all. Opt for the permalink setting recommended by WordPress.
The permalink helps with semantics, relevance, and links. What does this mean?
Semantics
Going back to plain and numeric links – they seem fine but make little sense to human users. Ideally, a visitor to your site should be able to understand the subject of the post or article just by looking at the link. Even if the search engine picks up the link, you need to get a human being to show interest in it.
Relevance
The search engine can generate more traffic if a keyword is in the URL. It fulfills the function of a title tag and can be used to determine search engines’ rankings and relevance.
Links
The search engine will improve your ranking when you use a quality link to another website. You can shorten the slug or make it SEO-friendlier.
If you’re updating an article you’ve already published, set up a redirect by copying and pasting the old slug into Notepad. Click on Update to save the changes.