Wordpress Permalink Setting Error

Previously, Kang Rohman begs a pardon if next time, this article will be controversial. I don’t mean anything, just hope this article about Wordpress Permalink Setting Error will be a positive discussion material among wordpress users.

Frankly speaking, Kang Rohman is still a new comer in using wordpress. Therefore, Kang Rohman tries to get as much information as I can from Master Bloggers, forums, and wordpress developers themselves.

Unlike Blogger Platform, Wordpress Permalink (here we talk about Wordpress.org or self hosting wordpress) seems to be more flexible, so the users can determine the best format for them.

However, the flexible wordpress permalink (easy to change) has created a dangerous condition to the users, especially to the new users like me, because if you make a mistake in setting up the permalink, your blog can suffer from the mistake for a long time. .

As the beginning, Kang Rohman reminds those of you who are new to wordpress:

 

Don’t try to change the permalink formats carelessly. You can only make the change when you start blogging at the first time.

How extreme! . But there is a little note. You may change the permalink format, provided that your blog has not been indexed by search engines, or the blog has a few posts, three or less. If you insist to change the permalink format to the old blog with many posts, you can make the blog have the worse condition and position.

OK, let’s continue our discussion…

The following are several things that in my opinion will make a fatal error to your blog life. Ironically, there are many blogs of Master Bloggers suggest these things to do.

Setting up Permalink with the format /%postname%/

This permalink format is very much recommended by many that write Tutorial Wordpress in their blog. But, what do Wordpress Developers say about it at their official website? Visit them at:

http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks

At the page, it is explained about various Wordpress Permalink formats that can be used. Unfortunately, there is a sentence that has made me stop there.

%postname%

A sanitized version of the title of the post (post slug field on Edit Post/Page panel). So “This Is A Great Post!” becomes this-is-a-great-post in the URI (see Using only %postname%). Starting Permalinks with %postname% is strongly not recommended for performance reasons.

There is a bold text that means you have to really pay attention:

Starting Permalinks with %postname% is strongly not recommended for performance reasons.

So, is this format good to use or not?

Kang Rohman, as a new comer is very confused to choose which one is to follow, Master Bloggers’ suggestion or Wordpress Developers as the creators of the script.

Logically, Wordpress will not make an untrue statement with no effects at all when we do that.

Indeed, Kang Rohman hasn’t found a strong statement about this, but I once read that the Permalink Format starts with %postname% will make the blog worse when it is a bigger one.

So, which Permalink Format is better? At codex wordpress page, it is mentioned the formats that are not recommended to use. Please read yourself , but from many writings, the pretty format uses the Year or Month or Day than followed by post name, or used “post id” and then followed by “post name”.

Format Permalink without ending with Slash ( / )

Many Bloggers also suggest the Permalink Format as follows (without ending with slash):

/%year%/%postname%

or

/%year%/%postname%.html

or

/%year%/%postname%.php

Or anything else.

If your blog has the Permalink Format without ending with slash, Google webmaster tool will detect many duplicates in your post titles as:

http://your-domain.com/judul-post.html

http://your-domain.com/post-title.html/

or, at post navigation link will occur too, e.g. the URLs would be:

http://your-domain.com/page/2

http://your-domain.com/page/2/

or

http://your-domain.com/page/3

http://your-domain.com/page/3/

etc.

Need to know that both permalinks are accessible, but the bad thing is that anything in the same, as the same title, the same content, the same description, or all is the same or duplicate, will be detected two different URLs but there is a duplication. As we know that duplication is not good in the search engines like Google, so your blog can get difficulty to get unique visitors from the search engines.

Well, for those who don’t use slash in their Permalink Format, please test accessing the URL without slash and manually adding slash. Both will be accessible with two different URLs (with and without slash).

It will be different if the Permalink Format used the slash, e.g.:

/%year%/%postname%/

Now try to access the URL with two different methods, with and without slash. There will be only one URL, i.e. with slash because accessing this permalink without slash will be redirected to the Permalink with slash. For instance:

http://your-domain.com/2010/post-title

http://your-domain.com/2010/post-title/

 

So what if you have used the permalink format without slash, what should you do? Mmm, it seems that you will suffer in all your life, because if your blog has many posts and then you insist to change the permalink, there will be error. All posts will be as not found. And the worse, there will be an error too at search engine index, so the visitors will decrease.

However, that’s not the end of everything because often permalink without slash has no error, also in Google index, and then the visitors will be normal.

However, if you insist to change the permalink, use the plugin that can redirect the old URLs to the new URLs, e,g.:

Dean's Permalinks Migration

 

By using this plugin, the old permalinks will be automatically redirected to the new permalinks without error page not found warning. It is also said that the traffic from search engines and social bookmarking sites are not affected. Ah, but it is not a guarantee, so it is your own risk.

Well, I am tired of typing. I hope that this article is wrong so there are webmasters trying to correct it.

Let’s discuss together!