Permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual pages and blog posts, as well as your category and tag archives. A permalink is the web address used to link to your content. WordPress allows you to control the structure of these permalinks. Here’s how you can change the permalink structure in WordPress.

Step 1: Access the Permalink Settings

  1. In your WordPress dashboard, go to Settings > Permalinks. This will take you to the permalink settings page.

Step 2: Choose a Permalink Structure

On the Permalinks settings page, you’ll see a number of different options:

  1. Plain – URLs include the plain post ID, such as www.yoursite.com/?p=123.
  2. Day and name – URLs include the year, month, day, and post name, like www.yoursite.com/2023/07/20/sample-post/.
  3. Month and name – URLs include the year, month, and post name, such as www.yoursite.com/2023/07/sample-post/.
  4. Numeric – URLs include the archive number, like www.yoursite.com/archives/123.
  5. Post name – URLs include only the post name, such as www.yoursite.com/sample-post/.
  6. Custom Structure – Allows you to define your own structure using tags.

Choose the structure that best suits your needs.

Step 3: Save Your Changes

Once you’ve chosen your permalink structure, don’t forget to click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

Caution

Be cautious when changing the permalink structure on a live website, particularly if it’s been live for a while. Changing permalinks can break all the existing links to your site, and any links to your site from other sites will also be broken. If you do need to change your permalink structure on a live site, consider using a redirection plugin to ensure old URLs redirect to the new ones.

Conclusion

Understanding and effectively setting your WordPress permalink structure is an important step in website setup. Not only does it impact how users perceive your site, it can also have a profound impact on your search engine ranking because it directly influences your SEO. Always ensure your structure is set up as desired, ideally at the outset, to avoid potential issues down the line.

Hey, I've worked with WordPress since I discovered it in 2006. During this time I've built websites for myself and clients (typically without writing code) and provided coaching and technical support to anyone who needed it. Send me an email if you need help - I'm always happy to do so whenever I can.