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?
If your simply using the WordPress Permalinks for the first time, there’s no problem, but what if you have opted, as most beginning bloggers do, for the classic month/day/postname structure and now realize you’d love to use the category name, or just the post name without more, for your links?
404!
Unless of course you’re a mod_rewrite specialist, you will probably decide not to change the structure because you are afraid to lose too much SE traffic. And who wants to redirect every single 404 to the homepage?
Good themes have a smart 404 page, but many themes lack in this area, and probably you will decide not to change the link structure.
Fear not, one of the most powerful (and smallest) WordPress plugins will help you in this: Dean’s Permalinks Migration Plugin.
This plugin does everything needed: grab the old permalinks structure you used for your WP blog and redirect every old link to the new post links.
Discover how to use Dean’s Permalinks Migration Plugin in our 6th episode of 7 Must Have Killer WordPress Plugins. It’s the simplest plugin ever! All you have to do is visit the WordPress Permalinks section of your blog, set the new structure and add the old structure in Dean’s plugin. Done.
Supercharge your blog’s earnings with Text Link Ads
Episode links:
- Dean’s Permalinks Migration Plugin
- WordPress Permalinks Taxonomy
- 301 Redirect Status Code
- Get Started today with One-click WordPress install from Colorteck!
- 7 Must Have Killer WordPress Plugins Series Index.
Tubetorial made by Michael Pick, a professional video editor and screencaster, when he is not swearing at Final Cut Pro on his Mac Book Pro.
Share this page or bookmark it now!
7 Comments ↓
juliemarg said:
Michael - I think I love you!
Tonight I backed up my blog for the first time - thank you, then you just told me how to change my post names which has been aggravating me for an extremely long time. I particularly hate it when the post is something like
http://thingsyoushoulddo.com/uncategorized/bourbon-branch-2
that creepy uncategorized is always inserting himself…
Thássius said:
I tried this plugin on my blog, but since it’s using WordPress 2.3.1, the plugin doesn’t work anymore.
Mike said:
Great video !
My problem is Categories though, not Permalinks.
Can you tell me how to change Category names and not lose all the links I have out in the search engines ?
Squeaky said:
I have to agree that the default WordPress URL, really sucks. I am a new blogger and recently discovered that my blog was lacking in seo. This video made it very easy to understand and install, plus configure the plugin….
Thanks……
Greg Swift said:
After installing the plugin and updating all settings, my old links in Google are taking forever to download. I had #6 and #11 for my key word and I’m worried that the long download times are going to hurt my traffic.
Anyone else have this problem? I’m using a hosted Wordpress install with version 2.3.1.
Thanks!
Greg
Eric said:
Hi,
I’m trying to migrate from the default wordpress permalink structure. When I enter / as the old permalink structure, it doesn’t create redirects. The old sucky permalink continues to render as it always has. What do I need to enter for the old permalink structure to get it to create a redirect?
Thanks
7 Must Have Killer WP Plugins | KamikaziWeb said:
[…] Change Your Links Without 404s […]