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How To Format Post URLs?

by Isaan
7 replies
Hi,

I would like to know the way to fromat the urls of my posts.

The main domain name I order shouldn't contain signs like - , . _ etc.

But how about the post urls?

I see many posts online that are formatted like this:

www.mymaindomain.com/word-word-word-word

Should the url of each post be formatted with or without dashes to get the best search engine results?


Your advice is very welcome.


Thanks,

Isaan
#format #post #urls
  • Profile picture of the author Ettienne
    Hi Isaan,

    If you're using Wordpress, it's pretty easy.

    Firstly, go to "Settings" -> "Permalinks" -> Select "Custom Structure" and enter /%postname%

    Then, whenever you edit/post an article/page you can edit the URL by clicking on it (just below the headline where it says "Permalink")

    Hope that helps
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    • Profile picture of the author Isaan
      Originally Posted by Ettienne View Post

      Hi Isaan,

      If you're using Wordpress, it's pretty easy.

      Firstly, go to "Settings" -> "Permalinks" -> Select "Custom Structure" and enter /%postname%

      Then, whenever you edit/post an article/page you can edit the URL by clicking on it (just below the headline where it says "Permalink")

      Hope that helps
      Hello Ettienne,

      Sorry for not being completely clear.

      I know what you're writing here.

      But, I want to know if it's better for SEO to use dashes in the post url or not?
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      • Profile picture of the author kochtgr
        Originally Posted by Isaan View Post

        Hello Ettienne,

        Sorry for not being completely clear.

        I know what you're writing here.

        But, I want to know if it's better for SEO to use dashes in the post url or not?
        If it is a phrase then wordpress automatically uses dashes, it doesn't make sense to have something like youdomain.com/wordwordword
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      • Profile picture of the author Ettienne
        Originally Posted by Isaan View Post

        Hello Ettienne,

        Sorry for not being completely clear.

        I know what you're writing here.

        But, I want to know if it's better for SEO to use dashes in the post url or not?
        Well, for SEO it doesn't make much of a difference. But if you think what your visitors will see, word-word-word is much easier to read and remember than wordwordword.

        Originally Posted by kochtgr View Post

        Follow the advice of Ettienne but if you already have published many posts and you have built links to them they will be broken and you will lose the link juice that they pass to you...
        This is not entirely true. You see, when you physically go onto the post (that was already posted with a weird URL) and change the URL (permalink) manually, it will automatically redirect the old URL to the new one.

        If it doesn't, however, there's a great little free plugin called "Quick Page/Post Redirect DEV"
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    • Profile picture of the author kochtgr
      Follow the advice of Ettienne but if you already have published many posts and you have built links to them they will be broken and you will lose the link juice that they pass to you...
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  • Profile picture of the author xtrapunch
    It makes it easy to read the URL if the words are separated by dashes. It is also the default setting if you use the 'post name' as the URL slug.
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  • Profile picture of the author Eduard Stinga
    I'm sure Google knows how Wordpress works, so it automatically expects to see dashes to separate words. Now, if it doesn't see any dash to separate the words, it will probably notice there's something wrong with your blog and not treat it as good as you'd wish. I'd say dashes.
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