Permanlinks - do they affect SEO or SERPS at all?

[jkgourmet]

The permalink is the same thing as a post slug, correct?

I keep getting mixed answers on this. I know that the title in a blog post matters, but what about the permalink that I can assign myself when using WP?

What's the REAL scoop?

[BrittMalka]

I'm not 100% sure about the post slug, but I think they are the same, yes.

And your permalink matters a lot.

Imagine that you've written a blog post about "how to write 8 articles in two hours or less".

If you don't change your permalink structure in WP, you'll get something like www.yourblog.com/?id=453

What do you think the search engines will think about this link?

I haven't tested it for ranking in search engines, but I know that my AdSense income made a huge jump upwards, when I changed my links to a better version, where the title is included, instead of the number of the post.

Anyway, it's so little work, so even if it makes no difference for SEO, it isn't worth the risk not to change the permalinks.

Mine only have the title in the link, not the month/date.

Sometimes, I even shorten the link so that instead of "www.myblog.com/how_to_write_eight_articles_in_two_hours_or_less" I just have "www.myblog.com/articles" but that depends on the blog post and the purpose.

[SSMockingbird]

Hmmm, no takers on this ? Well, let me throw out some thoughts to see if we can get a conversation going. :)

There is no "right" or "wrong" answer to anything about SEO. Think of it as a pie, someone once said. All the things that go into making a pie are no more important that any other thing, the ingredients are all part of the recipe. If you put a dash too much nutmeg, it's still a pie. If you forget the baking soda, it's still a pie. Maybe an ugly one, but cooling on the windowsill, it's still a pie.

No one thing is more important than another thing.

Having said all that, let's consider your question about permalinks. Yes, permalinks matter, but if you choose to let wordpress set them up as http://myreallycooldomain.com/10/2010/page=?12754, the search engines won't really care. I have one site that places in the top 3 for each of it's main keywords and it uses this format.

Having said that, it's preferable to set them up to be something like http://myreallycooldomain.com/Siberian-Huskies-Best-Dog-Ever using /%postname%/ in the settings area of WordPress.

Preferable for several reasons. Would you rather send a client to http://MyOnlineBusiness.com/ContactUs or to http://MyOnlineBusiness.com/pageid=?7459. When you look in analytics would you rather see your #1 page listed as http://MyOnlineBusiness.com/pageid=?7459 or http://MyOnlineBusiness.com/My-Alskaa-Cruise-Pics ?

Also, having said that no one item is more important than another, the TITLE tag is probably the most essential item. Tying in the pie analogy, if your title tag says "Apple Pie" and your post or page is about "Cherry Pie" you won't get as much "ooommmppphhh" out of the page.

Just some quick thoughts. Hope that helps. Looking forward to seeing other opinions.

[jkgourmet]

Mockingbird - that makes a great deal of sense. Two questions:

1. The Title Tag - I'm using WordPress. Is the Title Tag the ACTUAL title of the blog post or the title in the All in One SEO plug in?

2. I know I can set the permalink structure to automatically show the date and the title from within the admin settings in WP. However, setting the permalink structure to automatically show ONLY the title - no month/year - is a custom setting. Anybody want to share what the proper code is for my HTML challenged mind?

Britt - thank you for your thoughts, too.

[angienewton]

I use the permalink that Lynn uses

/%post_id%/%postname%/

It's awesome because if you are on Twitter or somewhere that limits your word count, you can take the link to the end of the post id and it still works.

[AlexNewell]

Jeanette it depends on your blog - what it is for and how big the blog is to be.

If you want to do a lot of social media then use Lynn's permalink structure - it is very clever, Angie shows it in the post above this.

If you want to create a big site - an authority site then it makes sense to use categories and use /%category%/postname%/ as your custom structure because the built in categories of wordpress can be used to get a silo structure.

This is in spite of the fact that this is not the fastest way of setting up your permalinks.

There is no "best" here it depends on what you are doing with your blog.

Try looking at this for further info

http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

All The Best

Alex

It's very important to decide on permalinks before you start posting or you'll need to convert the old posts to your new premalinks - no biggie but best avoided.

[AlexNewell]

The permalink is the same thing as a post slug, correct?

I keep getting mixed answers on this. I know that the title in a blog post matters, but what about the permalink that I can assign myself when using WP?

What's the REAL scoop?

The permalink is the URL of your post whereas the post slug is a one or two word version of the post title.

Hope that helps

Alex

[BrittMalka]

I use the permalink that Lynn uses

/%post_id%/%postname%/

It's awesome because if you are on Twitter or somewhere that limits your word count, you can take the link to the end of the post id and it still works.

Wow, this is a brilliant tip! Why on earth didn't I ever come up with that?

Thanks, Lynn and Angie :)

[Christina Lemmey]

I was recently working on a site that had "index.php/date/post-title" as a permalink.

Why would index.php be a part of that?

[deniseoberry]

Good conversation. One other good reason to use your post title as your permalink -- because you aren't always able to use your keywords to link to a post. Sometimes all you can enter is a url. If your url contains your title (which contains your keywords), better chances of it being found.

[BrittMalka]

I was recently working on a site that had "index.php/date/post-title" as a permalink.

Why would index.php be a part of that?

I've stumbled upon sites with a permalink like that, too, and I was told it was due to limitations at the webhost.

Looks awkward in my opinion.