SEO Permalinks : What You Need To Know

When I get an email from a photographer asking for SEO help, the first thing I do is go give their site a quick SEO inspection. One of the first things I look for during that inspection is the presence of search optimized permalinks. If your permalinks aren’t at least moderately optimized, you’re losing both potential ranking power and visitors from Google.

In this post: I hope to explain what permalinks actually are, how they can benefit you, and I do my best to help you understand the pros and cons of different permalink structures. Probably in waaaay too much detail. I’d rather give you more information so you can make better choices than not give enough and leave you hanging.

It’s a lot to read, but given (a) how often I see photographers use less-than-optimized permalinks and (b) the positive benefits of SEO optimized permalinks it just might be worth the time. As an extra bonus I channel Google’s own Matt Cutts – a guy who knows a thing or two about how Google works and has had a lot to say on this particular subject.

What Is a Permalink?

The term permalink is short for “permanent link”. In English, permalinks are what appears in your browser’s location bar when you visit any given post or page on the web. It is your post/page’s unique location on the web. Your permalink structure defines what information about your post appears in its link. Here’s the Wikipedia permalink to, well, its own “Permalink” page:

How Your Permalinks Can Help Your SEO

Most SEO experts agree that permalinks containing keywords in them can help you rank better. That is, of course, one reason you’d want to optimize them. There is some debate over just how much of an actual ranking factor keyword rich permalinks are though. Many SEO experts say they are a pretty important while others say they have minimal effect. I think it’s important to have SEO permalinks even if they have no effect on your rankings at all. Why? For people.

Why Optimize Permalinks for People

Google has made it so your permalinks are an integral part of a search engine user’s decision making process. Permalinks appear as part of your search snippet on Google’s search results pages along with your page title and a description (usually taken from your page’s meta description):

As seen in the example above, permalinks are one of only three crucial bits of information Google gives searchers about your page. That makes them pretty important, and why they should be optimized to appeal to people.

SEO permalinks are an indicator to searchers that your page has the information they’re searching for. They can help increase clickthroughs since they give searchers a reason to choose your link over a competitors. Conversely, under-optimized permalinks can lead to missed traffic since they give the surfer no additional clues as to what may be on the page. That’s what makes your permalinks important SEO marketing tools, and why it is a good idea to optimize them.

All else being equal, which of the above would you be more likely to click? I don’t know about you, but I’d click the one with a keyword rich permalink that gives me the scent of information that I’m searching for.

Site Performance vs. SEO

Generally speaking, permalinks that are considered better for SEO tend to cause slightly slower page load times. Computers (and by extension software like WordPress) can crunch numbers significantly faster than they can make sense of human friendly text. Permalinks that start with numbers (generally dates or post IDs) can be processed very quickly, so they’ll load faster. Permalinks that are better for SEO are loaded up with keywords instead of numbers, therefore they can have a negative effect on site speed. You have to make a decision between how fast your pages load and how SEO friendly your permalinks are. You can’t perfectly optimize for both SEO and performance because they are mutually exclusive in this case.

My advice? Don’t worry about it. The performance impact is measured in mere milliseconds, isn’t enough to cause concern in most cases (unless you’re on a cheap hosting plan), and SEO benefits like more ranking power and better clickthrough rates far outweigh the slight performance hit.

Choosing an SEO Optimized Permalink Structure

Here are the most commonly used and recommended SEO permalink configurations along with my pros, cons, and thoughts on each.

Option 1: The Default

http://www.yoursite.com/?p=458

Main Pros:

• Your posts will load just about as fast as they can.

Main Cons:

• Pretty much the antithesis of SEO friendly. They offer no potential ranking boost and provide no benefit to searchers trying to glean information about your post in your SERP snippet.

My Thoughts: Don’t do it. I see a lot of photographers use this structure simply because it is the WordPress default. This is what actually prompted me to write this post. If your links currently look like this, I’d recommend changing your permalinks to something more search friendly before your site gets any bigger and the complications/challenges involved with changing them begin to swell.

Option 2: Organized by Date

http://www.yoursite.com/2009/04/28/asheville-wedding-photography-debbie-martin/

WordPress Structure: /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/ (or similar)

Main Pros:

• It can make your posts load a few milliseconds faster compared to the more SEO friendly options below. That’s all I got. I can’t think of a single other legitimate reason why it makes sense to use this permalink format if you’re looking to maximize the SEO benefit of your permalinks. If you have a reason, leave it in the comments. I’d love to hear your reasoning.

Main Cons:

• You automatically date your posts in the search engine results. People generally visit pages they perceive as having fresher content, you will almost certainly lose potential clickthoughs down the road with this permalink format.
• You face the same five keyword limit as you do with the /%postname%/ permalink structure. I expound on this below with a special guest appearance (well, sort of) by Google’s own Matt Cutts.

My thoughts: A decent compromise between site performance and SEO, but it has its drawbacks. There are far better options for SEO.

Option 3: The Post Headline/Slug

http://www.yoursite.com/asheville-wedding-photography-venue-name-debbie-martin/

WordPress Structure: /%postname%/

Main Pros:

• I can say without a doubt that this is the format I’ve seen most SEO experts recommend.
• You have a lot of control over the keyword usage in the permalink on a post-by-post basis.
• Some SEO experts claim that having your keywords as close to the domain name as possible helps. I am not sure how much this really helps for ranking. It is more important for people to see keywords close to the domain than it is for ranking, since it can lead to more clickthroughs from SERPs.

Mr. Cutts, what say you?

Too many keywords in the URL “just looks spammy” is the take home lesson from this video.

Main Cons:

• Keyword strategy becomes more important on a post-by-post basis, and you have to give a lot of thought to each post’s headline to make sure they are well optimized.
• You’re limited to the number of words you can use, and there are only so many ways you can say “ Wedding Photographer”. As such, you will eventually face post naming conflicts.
• Likewise, this permalink structure will probably present problems for sites with a more specific focus and/or will eventually have hundreds or thousands of posts over the years.
• Many SEO experts that I trust the opinions of contend that page headlines/titles that go beyond 5 words carry less ranking power than those that stay under five words. An assertion backed up by Matt Cutts, who stated the following in an interview with Stephan Spencer a few years ago:

“If you can make your title four or five words long – and it is pretty natural. If you have got a three, four or five words in your URL that can be perfectly normal. As it gets a little longer, then it starts to look a little worse. Now, our algorithms typically will just weight those words less and just not give you as much credit.”

My thoughts: If you want to follow the advice of the majority of SEO experts, this is probably the way to go. I think for sites that cover more general subject matter or small sites that will only ever have a few posts it can work well. I’m not convinced this is the best way to go for photographers though. Photographers are avid and active bloggers. They tend to have hundreds (if not thousands) of posts, and those posts generally revolve around a handful of topics. That means you’re eventually going to run into naming conflicts unless you ignore Matt Cutt’s advice and use longer page titles. Then you risk having your permalink keywords devalued. Why do that to yourself if it can be avoided? I’d rather follow Matt Cutts’ advice, keep my page headlines under five words, and get the full ranking power of my permalink’s keywords. The good news is we can have it both ways…

Option 4: Category and Post Headline/Slug

http://www.yoursite.com/asheville-wedding-photography/debbie-martin-venue-name-wedding/

WordPress Structure: /%category%/%postname%/

Main Pros:

• If your photography business focuses on several specialties, this structure can help you ensure that your most important keywords appear first in your permalinks every time.
• This structure looks nice and organized to both Google and searchers.
• It takes pressure off you when deciding on your post headlines since you know your keywords will already be present in your permalinks. It also makes it easier to keep your post headlines under five words since you know you’re keywords will already be included in your permalink. That means your keywords always carry their full ranking power.

It’s Matt Cutts approved:

Main Cons:

• Unfortunately, WordPress decides the category, not you. You should be fine if you list a post under just one category. You could end up with a few permalinks that are actually unoptimized if you tend to list posts in multiple categories or forget to set a category altogether. This can of course be retroactively fixed, but it will take time and careful use of 301 redirects.
• Some SEOs claim that having post appear to be a few directory levels deep can cause it to lose ranking power. Personally I’ve seen no real evidence of this, and our new friend Matt seems to back this up in the following video. On-site link/navigation structure seems to be far more important than perceived depth in the permalink.

My thoughts: I think using the /%category%/%postname%/ is both a safe and smart bet. The key here would be naming your categories so that they include targeted keyword phrases that people are actually searching for. For example, a category names like “Wedding Photography”, “Wedding Photographers”, or even a longer but geographically relevent category name like “Asheville Wedding Photographer” would be better than just “Weddings”. In fact, the geographically oriented category name would probably be your most optimized option here.

Option 5: Post ID and Post Name

http://www.yoursite.com/342/asheville-wedding-venue-name-debbie-martin/

WordPress Structure: /%post_id%/%postname%/ or /%post_id%-%postname%/

Main Pros:

• This is a good compromise between performance and SEO. It gives you faster page load times while not dating your posts.

Main Cons:

• See the cons under Option 3 above. They all apply here. Relying solely on the post headline for your keywords can be problematic and even frustrating.

My thoughts: This is a decent compromise between site performance and SEO.

There you have it. Five permalink structures to choose from that range from the most performance friendly to those that are more search friendly. You’re going to have to decide which one you think works best for you. My advice is to really give this some thought because it can be problematic to switch later (as you’ll learn later in this post).

And the winner is…

Each has benefits. It is a matter of weighing those benefits against each other. I’d say /%category%/%postname%/ might be the easiest for most people writing blog posts to work with. This configuration ensures you always have your main keywords in your SEO permalink, it avoids some of the pitfalls of using just /%postname%/, and you don’t have to stress so much when writing your post title since you know your main keywords will already be present in your permalink. If you decide to use /%category%/%postname%/, you just have to be mindful of keyword strategy when you set up your categories and be careful to only list posts in one category each.

Once you decide on your permalink structure, it’s time to set it up.

Setting Up Your Permalink Structure

WordPress makes it extremely easy to set up or change your permalink structure. Before we get into setting up permalinks in WordPress, a word of caution:

Do not run off and change your permalinks now if your site is established and/or you’re already ranking well in the search engines. You could end up creating 404 file not found errors, sending visitors into a black hole, or hurt your rankings.

Before you change your permalinks on an established site, please read the “The Dangers of Changing Permalinks on an Established Site” section below. You may even want to consider hiring someone who will ensure that the risked are minimized and the SEO benefits are maximized.

If your site is brand new, only has a few posts, and you aren’t yet ranking well in the search engines, you can change your permalinks now without much fear of possible negative side effects. Here’s how:

Step 1: In the WordPress left sidebar, expand the Settings” menu, then click the “Permalinks” menu item under it. Like this:

Step 2: You’ll be presented with a page that lets you select one of the pre-defined permalink structures in WordPress or make a custom permalink structure of your own. If you want tt customoze your WordPress permalinks, just follow these instructions:

You’re done! You’ll now have permalinks that are optimized for both Google and searchers.

If your site is established or already ranking well in the search engines, you’ll want to keep reading…

The Dangers of Changing Permalinks on an Established Site

Despite how easy they make it to change permalinks in the admin, you’re toying with complex stuff that can have a dramatic impact on your site if you’re not careful. WordPress has gotten smarter about this over the years and in many cases you won’t have any problems. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t proceed with boatloads of caution if you plan on changing your permalinks yourself. A quick Google search on something like “changing permalinks wordpress 3.1″ will show you how problematic changing permalinks can be, even on the latest version of WordPress. There used to be a great plugin called “Advanced Permalinks” that let you set new posts to a new permalink structure while preserving your old permalinks. Sadly that plugin is no longer any help since it has been reported to be incompatible with newer versions of WordPress and has been abandoned by its author. My advice would be to save yourself a lot of potential grief and hire a trustworthy and reputable web person to do this for you.

If you decide to DIY your permalink change, you’ll want to ensure your posts forward to their new locations properly (via Apache 301 redirects) and check that no plugins you may be running interfere with your permalink changes. The Redirection Plugin may be a helpful in tracking down any resulting 404s (file not found) errors that may occur after you make the changes.

A few side effects to note no matter what:

• If your pages show the number of Facebook Likes, Twitter Retweets or other social media numbers, odds are they’ll be reset since those numbers are generally assigned based on your page’s distinct permalink.
• Certain WordPress plugins are known to conflict with permalink changes. If you run any plugins that deal with caching, categories, or tags you may have to do some extra work to get everything working correctly again.

Even though changing your permalinks to something more Google and people friendly comes with its challenges, the long term benefits are well worth it. Better rankings and higher clickthrough rates mean more clients in your portfolio!