113 Comments ↓

• Dan said:

  Permalinks are good but using structure can cause problems if a person accidentally names 2 posts the same. I recommend adding the post id to the end of it to eliminate this problem.

• jazzle said:

  @Dan
  that shouldn’t be a problem as the post-slug (which is actually what will become the URL) will have different name.

• Hamant Keval said:

  Hi – That was a great tutorial
  I did not realise that was a facility available.
  I did axactly that on my Blog and the htaccess and works beautifully

  Thanks

  Anychance of more Wordpress tutorials ?

  I know there is a lot more to learn on WordPress

  Hamant

• Brian said:

  Six more WordPress Hacks in this series Hamant… you’ll dig it the most.

• Dan said:

  @jazzle

  You know what? I did not believe you so I tested it and you are right! Wordpress will automatically append a number in the post slug to differentiate between the 2 posts.

  Thanks for the clarification!

• 7 Essential WordPress Hacks | Tubetorial said:

  [...] Episode 1: How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• Rydal Williams said:

  Excellent tubetorial!

• Mike, said:

  wow I impressed: you got your Ebaysalesblog.com ranked 4 in google’s PR, and there is only one post there made recently with almost no content.

  (while tubetorial.com has 0 PR…. )

• Brian said:

  Mike, ebaysalesblog.com is an old domain used as an example, while Tubetorial is 3 weeks old.

  Make sense?

• Joe Banner said:

  Should I make the change away from default permalinks on sites that are a year old and have have over 1000 posts? Does the .htaccess take care of any indexing problems with the SE’s or is there more work to do to make them happy if I make a change? WP’s forum suggests that there is no real reason to change.

• Chris said:

  Joe,

  I’m not really sure why the folks over in the WP forums wouldn’t be touting the SEO benefits of “pretty permalinks,” but I will certainly step up to the plate here and say that you have every reason in the world to change.

  Personally, I think you should go out of your way to implement things that may provide you with a competitive edge, especially if that “thing” is something as simple as changing permalinks!

  Also, if you have that many articles (1000+), anything you can do to further your progress in the SERPs is a bonus.

• Benny said:

  Wow easy to follow. Was nervous that my site would mess up but so far so good. On to the next tutorial!

• Marcus said:

  Hi Chris,

  Also I found google would index page numbers off the front page. So I put this hack into my wordpress files.

  Cheers,

  Marcus

• Marc said:

  Great hack, but when I follow the instructions my RSS-feed is empty! I just can’t solve that problem.

• MarcNext » Permalinks met een zinnige titel said:

  [...] Bij toeval stuitte ik vanmiddag op Tubetorial die een aantal Wordpress-hacks met een zeer duidelijke instructievideo behandelt, zo ook een hack (ik vind het eigenlijk meer een doodnormale aanpassing) die ervoor zorgt dat mijn postings er als volgt uit komen te zien: http://www.marcnext.com/zinnige-titel. [...]

• someone said:

  I tried it on my hp and there was nothing about an .htaccess update but it produced an error. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I was using an older (german) version of wp?
  After I tried it whith another version on my pc it didn’t do the whole error – but when I try to open a page directly, it shows the page name in the addressbar but not the page – else there is a small error (the other one affected my whole siite – frontend & backend error) – and there wasn’t this .htaccess update thing too. I tried to type it from the video but it didn’t had any effect.

  I think I’ll be able to fix it somehow but it would be nice to add somewhere how .. aehm .. not to do this .. so that others wont get the same problem.

• Brian said:

  Joe, if you have that much content and a lot of incoming links, I wouldn’t change at this point. This is better to do when you are just starting a new blog. Otherwise you’ll actually hurt your SERP rankings.

• Benny said:

  I made the changes to my permalink but when a user is searching something by Google and a certain page of mine comes up, it’s going to be linked to the old year/day/month format and when they click on it, it shows an error message on my site.

  How can I still make the change and then have all my links that people have been coming to for awhile through Google searches still send them to the correct page?

• More Feedback, Less Spam: WordPress Contact Form Plugin | Tubetorial said:

  [...] If you can’t get your navigation links working, I guarantee you can fix your problem by checking out our first WordPress hack, How to Get More Search Engine Traffic with One Simple Tweak. [...]

• Daily Blog Tips said:

  Wordpress has a really good SEO tuning right out of the box, but I guess there are simple tricks that can make it even more powerful.

  Good work.

• homewiz said:

  great tubetorial. ready to implement. where is the text punchlist? doh! i have to watch the whole 6 mins again?

• admin said:

  Does it work the same in 2.0.5? I didn’t get the error message or code to paste, but the hack seems to be working fine?

• Brian said:

  If you have a .htaccess file already, and it’s writable on the server, WordPress will write the necessary code for you.

  The video assumes you don’t have an .htaccess file already, and/or it’s not writable from WP.

  Hope this helps.

• Andrew said:

  Hello,

  I am trying to get this hack to work and after 5 hours I am still stuck. I change the permalink structure, create the htaccess file and edit it and I get the follow error.

  Forbidden

  You don’t have permission to access / on this server.

  Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

  I am using a mac, textmate to edit .htaccess and fetch to upload it but I cannot work out what is going on. I have also tried making my .htaccess file editable and I get the same error.

  Any help would be great.

  Andrew

• Hermann Strijewski said:

  I’ve set up a whole bunch of blogs on 1and1 but haven’t needed the .htaccess there. It always worked great right off the bat. Is that because they may have some sort of global .htaccess already systemwide?

• 7 Essential WordPress Hacks Video Series | Copyblogger said:

  [...] How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• ZZPrices Comparison said:

  MSN really likes it when content is changed daily. So I made up a random comment script (PHP), and added lots of comments and tips for my site. After doing that it made my site higher in its SE index.

• nicozorn.com Marketing-Weblog » Archiv » Video-Tutorials für Wordpress-Plugins said:

  [...] How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• Essential Keystrokes » This WordPress Cloud Had A Silver Lining said:

  [...] Once I was back in business, I checked my feeds and noticed that Copyblogger had just published a post called “7 Essential WordPress Hacks Video Series.” Three words tempted me to read it – Essential – WordPress – Hacks. I followed the first link called How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak and watched the video. Some of it I already knew, but I learned how to improve the structure of the permalinks using the Custom option.  I plan on going back and watching the rest of the Tubetorial series. It is good stuff!!! [...]

• Ryan’s Marketing Tips » Blog Archive » 7 Essential WordPress Hacks said:

  [...] How To Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• //celsojunior.net - Procurando por projetos e sonhos… » Blog Archive » 7 maneiras de melhorar, aprimorar e aperfeiçoar o seu Wordpress blog said:

  [...] 1. Como ter mais tráfego utilizando permalinks; 2. Como ganhar mais dinheiro com o Google AdSense; 3. Adicione anúncios em seus feeds; 4. Tenha mais feedback, crie um formulário de contato; 5. Como aumentar o número de comentários e visitantes; 6. Como bloquear os comentários spams com o Askimet; 7. Faça backup do seu blog regularmente. Por celsojunior Tags: Posts, Publicidade, Marketing, Dinheiro, Tutoriais, Links, Tutorial, Apoio, Dicas, Blog, Blogosfera, Web, Web 2.0, Desenvolvimento, Feed, Tecnologia, Webstandards, Internet, Ajax, Java, API, RSS [...]

• Dave Forde said:

  Guys – this is a great tip. I know it is going to be more work, but as a suggestion maybe you could also suggest the MAC version of tools such as the Notepad tool you recommended in this edition of the Tubetorial.

• James said:

  Quoting Benny, I think this got lost in the post because I didn’t see an answer, and maybe there isn’t one but I have the same question. I’m wondering if there is an additional .htaccess trick that will accommodate these?

  ”

  I made the changes to my permalink but when a user is searching something by Google and a certain page of mine comes up, it’s going to be linked to the old year/day/month format and when they click on it, it shows an error message on my site.

  How can I still make the change and then have all my links that people have been coming to for awhile through Google searches still send them to the correct page?”

• Zealios[dot]Net » Blog Archive » Wordpress Hacks Video Series. said:

  [...] How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• » How To Change Your Permalinks that Stink said:

  [...] Another way to improve your search engine rankings from Google is to change the structure of your permalinks or your URL for individual pages. They are automatically set on default which adds a bunch of sloppy jibberish to the end of your domain and can honestly be confusing to some who type in your domain with a /page trying to locate a certain position on your blog. If you are serious about your blog’s success then you should simply change the default permalink setting to a customized, easier to read link that will help Google crawl your individual pages. Tubetorial.com has a stellar video tutorial set about seven essential wordpress hacks that I am covering to help spread the word to those who need some assistance and don’t feel like reading a bunch of scary words. Click Here to Navigate to The Video  support this siteThese icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

• milo said:

  Very good tutorial, but if you’re indexed well in G, it’ll kill your G index. Any tips how to prevent this?

• Pupeno said:

  Any other format than flash and/or any way to download the video so it can be played with free software ?

• Maki said:

  Thanks for the tutorial. I was just wondering .. Is there a difference (in terms of SEO) between the custom structure given in the video and the date and name based option in the ‘Permalinks’ menu?

  It seems exactly the same except that the date is listed before the post title. I’m currently using the date and name based option so any advice would be great.

  You guys really have a great website going on here. Keep up the good work!

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• 7 Essential Wordpress hacks « The all-seeing Eye said:

  [...] How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• Chris Schroeder said:

  I followed your tutorial and my permalinks didn’t work. I’m an experienced web developer and I was sure to follow your instructions very carefully. However, when I went to click the posts I saw that it said there was no post by that name on the server.

  Any help?

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• 7 Essential WordPress Hacks said:

  [...] How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• Franck Silvestre said:

  I use cutline, and I must say that it increases your traffic. I encountered some problems though, for instance, my category and archive page not working.

  Actually, on one of my blogs, I have a problem with pages.

• Tubetorial over Permalinks en .Htaccess | Zoekmachine Optimalisatie voor Joomla said:

  [...] Omdat ik pas een post over .htaccess gedaan heb, leek me dit wel een aardige aanvulling. De uitleg in video formaat over hoe je dit kunt gebruiken WordPress om de permalinks je URLs te verbeteren. [...]

• ziad said:

  Amazing series. Keep up the good work. You guys need to upload this series to revver or blip.tv so I can syndicate this content to my site!!!

• Tom said:

  I followed your instructions to the letter. I was given no message telling me to change .htaccess, and when I try to navigate to my pages, I get a “404- file not found” page. Any help appreciated.

• Tom said:

  Great series… thanks!

  I can’t seem to get the permalink change to work. I keep getting a “404-file not found” page. My Blog is new, so I would like to implement this now if possible, so any help would be mightily appreciated. Thanks!

• Raj said:

  @Tom: Some newer versions of WP seem to have this problem. What I usually do is either close my browser and flush the cache or, if that doesn’t work, reset the permalinks back to the default, view any permalink page (in separate window or tab), and then once again change the permalinks to the way I want it. This always works, though if your cache isn’t flushed, it may not appear that way.

  You can try having a friend access one of your post pages and have them tell you what they see – before you go to this trouble.

• Technology Jobs » Definitive Technology BP-2000 Bi-Polar Speakers System said:

  [...] Some good examples: Permalinks in WordPress (6:45) [...]

• Benson Hoi said:

  What software did you use to make these amazing videos?

• Rodolfo Pilas » Blog Archive » 7 trucos esenciales para WordPress said:

  [...] Cómo obtener más tráfico de básqueda con un simpel truco [...]

• PodcastingInc » Blog Archive : test » test said:

  [...] How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• shaz said:

  I had mine set in with the date included but im changing now. this site is great

• 7 Essential Wordpress Hacks @ Tubetorial.com at The Monday Sessions said:

  [...] Being a wordpress user I was very appreciative of the tubetorial videos on essential wordpress hacks. Mad Kudos. I would have saved 4 hours if I had watched the video on changing the .htaccess file. [...]

• 幸福收藏夹 » 7hacks给你带来流量和Money said:

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• Larry said:

  I followed the instructions in the video but in my version of Wordpress (2.2.1) it doesn’t give me the .htaccess code and doesn’t even tell me to change it.

• yeer said:

  what a shame! My server does not support url rewrite. So permalink seems impossible to me.

• Raj said:

  Yeer: yeah, it’s unfortunate, but unless your server can handle url rewrites, you can’t do anything. Except change your host.

• Raj said:

  Larry: To be honest, I have never seen WP generate that .htaccess code. I do not know what version of WP was used in the video but it’s probably pre- 1.5.2 version. Check out my newer WP permalinks tutorial on this site. As long as your server supports URL rewriting, it’ll work. WP will generate the .htaccess file itself, when possible.

  Give it a try and drop a comment either here or the other post.

• 狐狸之眼» Blog 存档 » 7 Essential WordPress Hacks said:

  [...] How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• PHP MySql Application Developer said:

  While search-engine-friendly permalinks are important I would say inbound links are king. I’ve read numerous articles on how to do on-site optimization, however I have seen little in the way on how to obtain quality inbound links.

• Jared Blake said:

  Chris, please advise on the microphone you used in your tubetorial video’s? Great video’s and you sounded fantastic.

  Thank you!

  Regards, Jared Blake
  JDHL Technologies – seo experts
  SEO Blog – Tips and Techniques

• THX1138 · Blog » Blog Archive » 7 trucos para tu Blog said:

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• Setting up your Blog — Internet-Based-Marketing.com said:

  [...] Set up permalinks to make them them search engine friendly. What this means, instead of having a URL like http://www.xyz.com/?=p1 you will have http://www.xyz.com/my-first-post. This will make it easier for people searching for keywords to find your content. See video tutorial video at http://www.tubetorial.com [...]

• mary said:

  Raj, I followed your tutorial to customize the permalinks on our website. Thanks!

• Tony said:

  Question. If you’ve been using the date/title URL previously and many others have linked to your site, will changing the URL name to custom as presented cause any problems with the former links?

  Thanks!

• stevieadmin said:

  Wow wordpress is really powerful and can do a lot of amazing stuff.

• Just Start! — Internet-Based-Marketing.com said:

  [...] http://www.tubetorial.com/blog-permalinks-word/ [...]

• Lauryn.it » Blog Archive » 7 video tutorial per ottimizzare il vostro blog Wordpress said:

  [...] Come ottenere più traffico con un semplice trucco [...]

• BLOCK the Blog » Blog Archive » Ottimizzare il vostro blog WordPress said:

  [...] Come ottenere più traffico con un semplice trucco [...]

• Optimal SEO For WordPress: All In One Seo Pack | Tubetorial said:

  [...] WordPress standardly comes with the option to use ‘nice URLs’ for your entries, as explained in the first Tubetorial of the 7 Essential WordPress Hacks, How To Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak, but your blog still can be improved a lot when it comes to SEO. The optimal Plugin All In One SEO Pack for WordPress is the ultimate SEO Plugin you were waiting for. [...]

• cosenza said:

  I think the best wordpress hack is to stuck some post on the index more days then other…then just avoid duplicates..that’s it!!!!!

• tuvie said:

  this is cool, yeah I know about this already, yet it is great reminder since the default permalink from wordpress is really not SEO friendly

• angie said:

  Choosing the correct permalinks may also increase the chance of getting high rank on SERP.

• susur2007 said:

  Thanks,Nice presentation of the tutorial

• Rob Oresteen said:

  Right on. Good for indexing and good for useability. I changed my permalink structure by selecting “post name” in the options then deleting the date stuff.

• Kelvin Chan said:

  Awesome tutorial … i’ve made a video some days ago teaching the same thing. Right on! =)

• Change Your Permalinks Without 404 | Tubetorial said:

  [...] Changing the link structure of your WordPress entries can hugely improve your blogs SEO, but what if you’ve already been running your blog for a while and now realize you could improve the SEO with a better links structure? [...]

• Vaibhav said:

  Hi, that was a great tutorial and I am sure plenty of websites have been benefited using that tweak. I did exactly the same, placed /%postname%/ as custom field and then update the permalinks.

  I, however, did not get a .htaccess prompt. All I got was structure updated message. Then when I click to any post of my blog, it gives me error of post not found. Any suggestions about how to overcome that ?

  Thanks

• Felipe said:

  Thank you very much for this great tubetorial!, greets from Peru.

• Check Out These 7 Essential WordPress Hacks said:

  [...] How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak [...]

• Cross said:

  what about to include also the category of the post?
  I think is better, you have more keywords

  regards

• LifeAfterPC said:

  Vaibhav if you didn’t get the .htaccess prompt then most likely it was previously added, so you should be all set

• Niall said:

  Maybe I’ve downloaded a newer versio of WP since this video came out, but I don’t even have a permalinks tab under the options tab. Can anyone tell me what I need to do?

• Stephen Anderson said:

  Hi,
  I really am getting a great deal out of you tutorials. I have just installed Word Press and changed the permalink %postname% and I just got the message that it had been updated.

  I don’t remember creating a .htaccess file and I can’t see on there. Is this still fine?
  Thanks

• Permalinks for WordPress Blog Posts | WordPress Lectures | One Quality Post A Day said:

  [...] is a very good video tutorial on how to do [...]

• 7 Video Tutorial pentru optimizare unui blog wordpress said:

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• hip hop videos said:

  I personally use the yyyy/mm/dd/post.html permalinks structure and find that works well too. I wonder if /post/ will make a better difference

• Estructura de WordPress: Los Permalinks - Crosetec said:

  [...] Ayuda desde tubetorial [...]

• joy777 said:

  How about using: mysite/category/post/ — will this still
  give good results in SEO?

• Pretty Links i.e. Permalinks - DIY Themes Forums said:

  [...] in Wordpress to: /%postname%/ If I’m talking gibberish or you want to know more, visit: How to Get More Search Engine Traffic With One Simple Tweak | Tubetorial Why Don’t My “Archives” and “About” Links Work? | Cutline Theme for [...]

• Removing Pages From The Nav Menu - DIY Themes Forums said:

  [...] file in order to get "pretty permalinks" working properly. Once upon a time, I created this video to show people how to edit their .htaccess file. Despite the fact that WordPress has gone through a [...]

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• Amit Banerjee said:

  How to migrate my older category structures tothe new category structure ?

  old : http://www.ampercent.com/?p=post_id
  new : http://www.ampercent.com/index.php/%category%/%postname%/%post_id%

  this working fine

  categories :

  old : http://www.ampercent.com/?cat=cat_id
  new:www.ampercent.com/index.php/category/categoryname

  gives error all the time……..

  I am stuck and feeling frustrated .please help

  Many thanks

• Amit Banerjee said:

  How to migrate my older category structures tothe new category structure ?

  old : default
  new : http://www.ampercent.com/index.php/%category%/%postname%/%post_id%

  this working fine

  categories :

  old : default
  new:www.ampercent.com/index.php/category/categoryname

  gives error all the time……..

  I am stuck and feeling frustrated .please help

  Many thanks

• Juan said:

  Hi, I was watching your tutorial and I can not follow it because in the part of my dashboard, it does not appear words like you show in the tutorial. For example: “Settings” instead of “options” and also does not apear the word “permalink”. Please tell what can I do?

• The WordPress Tip Videos from CopyBlogger | Fluent Search Marketing said:

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• Estructura de WordPress: Los Permalinks | Aprende a Ganar Dinero said:

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• SEO EXPERTS said:

  If you have .htaccess file already on server, and it’s writable then you do same thing with URL rewrite tool..

• How to Add Navigation Links to Your Header | Bizimhost.biz said:

  [...] permalinks. If you’re not sure what that is or how to do it, I highly recommend checking out this video for more info on the topic. But hey, even if you haven’t changed your permalink structure or [...]

• Rajesh Kanuri @ TechCats said:

  permalinks play very important role in search engine rankings??

• Tech Maish said:

  There are allot of factors for search engine ranking and yes permalink is also important one.

• backthegreenback said:

  thanks for the post. I made the changes in custom without having to make the changes in the root directory. Must be updates in test version of wp.

• extasy said:

  this was a great post , succes with your website

• Alquma said:

  I share with all of you some tips for getting a lot of traffic to your blogs:

  Tip 1: Make a good content
  This point is very important

  Tip 2: Make a brand around your blog
  This point is very important because your visitors return to your blog in the future.

  Tip 3: Get high quality backlinks
  This point is very important because Google is a major search engine.

  Tip 4: Promote your site on social websites like facebook, myspace and news aggregators like Digg.

  Tip 5: Post frequently

  Tip 6: Be patient
  This is the most important tip because only with years of hard work you see a good results.

• krishna giri said:

  thank’s
  it is really true

• sree said:

  awesome… i will surely try this out… waiting for more..

• sree said:

  if u r unable to find .htaccess or edit it.
  On windows :-
  enable your explorer to show hidden files
  on cpanel search for .htaccess.
  if u r unsure of how to edit it, simply change the permission of htaccess to 0777
  change the permalink structure on wordpress.
  now the update of .htaccess will happen automatically.
  after ur done dont 4get to change the permission back to default.

• dapet duit dari internet said:

  yeah i also change my wordpress permalink in order to make my wordpress url SE friendly, so it will be easy for the spider to found my page, and also we should have some seo plugin,
  i found some on others web, but i already post it on my blog.