Which WordPress Permalink Structure Should You Choose?

What Are WordPress Permalinks?

WordPress permalinks are the permanent URL addresses for your posts, pages, categories, and other content. They define your site's link structure and are crucial for both user experience and search engine optimization (SEO).

Default WordPress Permalink Setting

By default, WordPress uses the "Plain" structure, which creates URLs like ?p=123. These URLs are not user-friendly, difficult to read, and poor for SEO. They are generally not recommended for live websites.

Common Permalink Structure Options

In your WordPress dashboard under Settings > Permalinks, you will find several preset structures:

• Plain: ?p=123 (Not recommended)
• Day and name: /2024/05/10/sample-post/
• Month and name: /2024/05/sample-post/
• Numeric: /archives/123
• Post name: /sample-post/ (Most common)
• Custom Structure: You can use tags to create a custom combination, e.g., /%category%/%postname%/

How to Choose? Recommendations and Considerations

1. Most Common Recommendation: Post Name

Structure: /sample-post/
Pros: URLs are concise, clear, easy to understand and share, and very SEO-friendly. This is the most popular choice.
Note: Ensure your post titles aren't overly long or contain too many special characters, as the auto-generated slug may become lengthy. You can manually edit the slug before publishing to make it short and keyword-rich.

2. Include Category: Custom Structure

Example: /%category%/%postname%/
Pros: Creates a hierarchical URL structure, allowing users and search engines to easily see the post's category.
Cons & Notes: If a post belongs to multiple categories, WordPress uses only the first one. Changing a post's category or a category's slug will change the URL, potentially creating broken links (requiring 301 redirects). Consider this only for sites with a simple, stable category structure.

3. Include Date: Day and Name / Month and Name

Pros: For news sites or blogs where timeliness is key, the date provides clear context.
Cons: URLs are longer. For evergreen content, a leading date might make the content appear "outdated" to visitors.

4. Other Options

Numeric: Not recommended, as it lacks readability similar to the "Plain" option.
Custom Structure (Advanced): For example, /%post_id%/%postname%/. This combines the uniqueness of a post ID with the readability of a post name. The ID ensures URL uniqueness even if the post name changes. Suitable for advanced users.

Core Advice and Best Practices

1. Choose "Post name" first: For most blogs, business sites, and content websites, "Post name" is the safest and most effective choice.
2. Keep it simple: Avoid overly deep URL structures (more than 2 levels). /category/sub-category/post-name/ is already quite deep.
3. Set it once: Configure your permalinks early when setting up your site and try to avoid changing them later. Changing the structure will break all existing links, severely impacting SEO and user experience. If you must change, ensure you set up proper 301 redirects.
4. Use English or pinyin for slugs: Try to use English words or pinyin for the post name (slug) part of the URL. Avoid Chinese characters in URLs for better compatibility and universality.
5. Update the .htaccess file: When you choose a non-"Plain" structure, WordPress will try to automatically update the .htaccess file in your site's root directory. Ensure this file is writable, or you may need to configure it manually.

Conclusion

For the vast majority of WordPress users, we strongly recommend using the "Post name" permalink structure. It offers the best balance of simplicity, readability, and SEO-friendliness. If your site has a clear, stable category hierarchy, you might consider "/%category%/%postname%/". Remember the most important rule: set it early, change it rarely.