Any search engine optimization expert will tell you that having a good permalink structure for your web site is key to its success.  Now, within WordPress you are given several different methods for getting this done.

What are Permalinks, and How Should I Use Them?

Permalinks are, in a nutshell, how your links are formatted after your domain name in the browser’s address bar.  The URL to each post you create should be permanent, and never change.  The default way WordPress handles permalinks is attaching a number to the address, like this:

http://example.com/?p=N

That isn’t very pretty or useful to us at all.  In your own WordPress admin section, go to Settings > Permalinks to change how they appear.  Using mod_rewrite you can easily make them more functional.  WordPress gives you the choice of:

• Date and Name
• Month and Name
• Numeric
• or Custom

I find the Day and Name the most useful, since I might do multiple posts in one day, however if you want to shorten it – the Month and Name option also does well in the search engines.  Also, using the “custom” option, you can setup your own format you want the link to be shown as.  For example, if you just used:

yourdomain.com/%postname%/

Then all of your links would use the title of the article or post as the link.  While this might be short and sweet, it makes it to where you can’t use the same title twice.  As you can see, there is a lot of freedom with these options.

You can find more permalink instructions here: Search WordPress.org for “Permalinks”.

Changing Your Permalinks?

Last, but not least – if you chance your permalinks, and how they are setup, after using another method for a long period of time – all is not lost.  All you need to do is pick up the Permalinks Moved Permanently plugin.

What does this plugin do?

Right before the old permalink generates a 404, this simple plugin grabs the slug from the end of the request and checks if there’s a post with this slug living somewhere else on your blog. If so, it will generate a “301 Moved Permanently” error, and forward your user to the new location of your post. It’s simple, but effective.

Now, I am not sure if I would recommend this, because it might take a while for your permalinks to change over.  However, if you must then this will provide a better way to get the job done.

So, as you can see permalinks are a very important part to any web site, and WordPress gives you the power to get these setup right the first time, or any time after that.  Now it is time to take a look at your own web site links to make sure they are both relative and optimized for better rankings in the search engines out there.

Bonus WordPress Guide: Better AdSense Optimization with WordPress