How To Shorten Your Permalink In WordPress
If you are prone to writing long blog post titles then you’ll want to shorten the permalinks that represent them. The reason you want short permalinks is to improve your SEO. Keyword density in your URLs affects your SEO much the same way as keyword density in your blog posts and web pages. The difference is that keywords in your blog posts and web pages carries more weight with the search engine algorithms, but keywords in your URLs are still counted to a degree. The problem with long permalinks is that the search engine spiders have all those words to slither through to get to the meet meat.
Then there are your human readers. Long permalinks are awkward. If someone wants to copy your permalink and place it on a website or send it through e-mail to a friend then the long permalink can be intimidating. That could scare some of them away.
Back to the spiders. When a searcher makes a query for your keyword then a carefully placed keyword in your blog post title will give you an edge. That keyword also appears in your permalink because WordPress takes your blog post title and turns it into your permalink exactly as is. If it’s too long then all those other keywords are watering down your keyword density.
Correction: On the right side of your admin area on the write page in WordPress you should see several blue tiles. One of those tiles is your Post Slug. Just below Post Password and above Post Status. Open up that box and you’ll see a place to enter your slug. It should be blank, but once you click “Publish” WordPress will automatically fill it in with the words in your blog post title and will add hyphens between each of your words. WordPress will do this unless you enter something in that box. Take your most important words (make sure one of them is your keyword) and enter them in that box separated by hyphens. Just one three words, four at most. If you have a long blog post title, your post slug will produce a shorter permalink and that will go a long way with your human readers and the search engine spiders.
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Many SEO sites suggest to include the category name in the post slug:
example.com/category/post-title/id/
Do you think they’re right? I think that a short URL (only with post title) is better, because, for example, when people link at your pages in forums, they only copy/past the url, and the forum will cut it, if it’s too long (and you’ll lose keywords…).
Yes, I definitely think shorter URLs are better.
Great post..I was having trouble understanding permalinks, this clears it up, thanks.
Long URLs can be a real problem when they’re sent via e-mail. Due to line length issues, I hear complaints about URLs wrapping to multiple lines in an e-mail and being rendered useless. I use post slugs on most of my posts for that reason and the others you mentioned above. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I guess we have to try to appeal both to the spiders and the human readers. A short keyword URL will always appeal to both. Something to think about – guess mine is far too long – even with my keywords in it – do you think?
Michelle, this discussion centers around your blog permalinks primarily. For websites, I think it is important to have the specific key phrase you are targeting in the domain name – even if it is long. But when we talk about permalinks, if your blog title is 10+ words then your permalink will be your domain name plus blog title and depending on how you have your blog software settings could also include the date of the post and the category name. In those cases I think having a shortened permalink is more desirable
Yes you are write If we are prone to writing long blog post titles then we will want to shortenthe permalinks that represent them.the three things are very importaqnt which u have discussed Then there are your human readers,Back to the spiders and Correction these are important.
I thoroughly enjoyed what you had to say about internet marketing and keyword density.
email marketing software
Thanks for the tip. Maybe I should try this one sometime and try to shorten my permalink.the title of the post and the actual unique content is much more important.
Great post. When studying design, a long, long time ago (!) I took a short course on interior design. The instructor constantly reminded us that less is best. I’ve applied that logic to almost everything I do in both design and SEO. The more impactful you can be, with the shorter the phrase (remember, most people have short attention spans) the more successful you will be at retaining visitors/participants.
Same goes for your email advertising campaign. Capture your audience’s attention with a short, uncluttered mailer that says exactly what your intentions are.
Thanks for the conversation!!
Shorter is better for the most part when it comes to SEO. The words you use are important so make sure they are relevant.
Hi notoriousxl,
I agree with you, shorter URLs are better.