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1. • CommentAuthorrusty
   • CommentTimeNov 19th 2006

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   Hi everyone,
   
   I was just wondering if there is/are best practices for setting your permalinks so that your posts are good for SEO?
   
   Eg would you use blogurl.com/categoryname/name-of-post/
   
   or, blogurl.com/postnumber/name-of-post/
   
   or blogurl.com/date/name-of-post/
   
   Any suggestions?
   
   Thanks!
2. •  
     CommentAuthorJeff
   • CommentTimeNov 19th 2006

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   I use date/name-of-post personally. The first example above runs a greater risk of a duplicate post URL so I don't think that one is recommended.
3. • CommentAuthorPaul
   • CommentTimeNov 19th 2006

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   I just use postname.
4. • CommentAuthorrusty
   • CommentTimeNov 21st 2006

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   Hi all,
   
   Thanks for your ideas.
   
   I suppose if you use category and post name and get a duplicate url, that wordpress warns you? And not simply overwrite your previous post?
5. • CommentAuthorDenis
   • CommentTimeNov 23rd 2006

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   blogurl.com/categoryname/name-of-post/ is a recipe for disaster. On top of duplicate problems, it will bring your blog to a crawl, because WordPress has no quick way to identify a post.

   blogurl.com/postnumber/name-of-post/ and blogurl.com/name-of-post/postnumber/ are good for SEO, but both suck in terms of usability.

   blogurl.com/date/name-of-post/ is imho the better one. It's good for SEO, and it's the best for usability.

   D.

6. • CommentAuthorrusty
   • CommentTimeNov 25th 2006

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   Hi Dennis,
   
   I was wondering, if you have:
   
   blogurl.com/061125/name-of-post/
   
   so that the date is all strung together in 1 parameter, instead of the usual: blogurl.com/06/11/25/name-of-post/
   will this be just as good.
   
   I'm wondering if the multiple slashes will cause the post to be in a really deep directory that may not be as good for SEO.
   
   Thanks for your insights!
7. • CommentAuthorezines
   • CommentTimeNov 25th 2006 edited

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   Denis,
   
   You wrote, "blogurl.com/categoryname/name-of-post/ is a recipe for disaster. On top of duplicate problems, it will bring your blog to a crawl, because WordPress has no quick way to identify a post."
   
   Please elaborate on this (wish to fully understand, not a challenge, :-).
   
   What do you mean by "recipe for disaster"? What are "duplicate problems"... why will blogs "slow to a crawl"?
   
   Thanks
8. • CommentAuthorchuckevans
   • CommentTimeNov 25th 2006

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   Denis,
   
   A while back someone recommended to me that I use blogurl.com/%postname%/
   what do you think about this configuration?
   
   Thanks,
   
   chuck
9. • CommentAuthorEric
   • CommentTimeNov 27th 2006

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   For the lame brains in this group (me), if I wanted to go with Denis' suggestion and use blogurl.com/date/name-of-post/, would this entail pasting something into the "custom structure" field or is it just a matter of choosing the existing "Date and name based" option?
   
   Eric
10. •  
      CommentAuthorJeff
    • CommentTimeNov 27th 2006

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    Eric, just pick that stock option listed there already.
11. •  
      CommentAuthorMike_K
    • CommentTimeNov 27th 2006

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    Erik,

    The latter.

    Mike

12. • CommentAuthorDenis
    • CommentTimeNov 28th 2006

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    @rusty: I'd keep the slashes, personally, as it allows users to browse your site by trimming the url. but you may indeed have a point. if anyone has any kind of some kind of stats on this, I'd be delighted to see them.

    @chuck: that one is even worse (see below)

    @Michael: when you use something like %category%/%postname%, or %postname% for likewise reasons, several problems occur:

    On the one side, you have no way to distinguish /my-cat/my-entry/ (the post in that category) from /my-cat/my-entry/ (the static page with a parent static page). this can become a nightmare in its own right.

    On the other, if you have two posts with the same title at different dates, WordPress can start having all sorts of weird issues. Specifically, it may end up doing two or more round trips to your DB server before identifying what your visitor is expecting to see. And this can hog a server's resources quite extensively.

    Adding a date or a post id in there fixes both issues: Your post urls no longer look like those of your static pages, and WordPress has a criteria that allows you to narrow down the user's request to a single post in one query.

    D.

13. • CommentAuthordnrothwell
    • CommentTimeDec 15th 2006

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    This is really useful. I had set %category%/%postname% so I will now change it.
    
    I notice my postname is not showing and reading WP support seems to indicate an issue with version of Apache. My host uses v1.3 and WP recommend v2. Can anyone else comment on this?
    
    Many thanks.
14. • CommentAuthorDenis
    • CommentTimeDec 16th 2006

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    Weird... shouldn't you be meaning something an issue related to Apache without mod_rewrite? What really counts is mod_rewrite to be active. Can you confirm that your host has this active?

    Denis

15. • CommentAuthordnrothwell
    • CommentTimeDec 17th 2006

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    How do I check this? Can I do it myself or contact my host?
    
    Thanks.
16. • CommentAuthorDenis
    • CommentTimeDec 18th 2006

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    so... the issue was the /category, which dnrothwell wanted to get rid of for category links. You can change it to something else, e.g. /tag, but you cannot get rid of it.

17. •  
      CommentAuthorMark
    • CommentTimeDec 21st 2006

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    Custom
    /%post_id%/%postname%/
    /keyword
    
    I use this with good results
    Mark
18. • CommentAuthorviper1
    • CommentTimeDec 22nd 2006

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    Hi,
    
    I use the following
    
    /%category%/%postname%.htm
    
    Regards
    ek
19. • CommentAuthorTheBlogCoach
    • CommentTimeJan 3rd 2007

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    Personally I also go for category/postname/ as it allows just a small additional SEO value to the URL.
    
    Just as an aside: with reference to a couple of comments made above, you can't get duplicate URLs - if you have the same post name for two posts, WP will automatically add a 2 to the post slug. By definition, it'll always be a unique URL so there's no issue there.
    
    All the best, Mark
20. • CommentAuthor1medic
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2007 edited

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    Denis
    
    These URLs that use post id or date -
    
    blogurl.com/%postid%-name-of-post/
    blorurl.com/2001/01/name-of-post/ (day omitted)
    
    Would these work OK in terms of wordpress speed ?
    
    cheers,
    Luke
21. • CommentAuthorBuchwald
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2007

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    I use:
    /%postname%-%post_id%.html
    
    and it works fine in speed
22. • CommentAuthorDenis
    • CommentTimeJan 13th 2007

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    blogurl.com/%postid%-name-of-post/ blorurl.com/2001/01/name-of-post/ (day omitted)

    yes to both. the general idea is to avoid any odds of getting two or more results when WP asks itself "what am I going to display?"

    D.