How to set up Permalinks

In the previous tutorial in our basic Wordpress features series, we showed you how to manage coments, in this guide we will talk about Permalinks. Permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual website posts and pages. You can change the URL to your individual posts to make it easier to share by making the link follow a set structure and also to help your Search Engine Optimization. You can change the links to show the date, the number of the article, or a customized format.

How do I set up Permalinks?

By default, when you make a new blog the page URL will look something like this: http://yourdomain.com/?p=123. You can change the URL that is automatically generated by modifying your settings in the Permalinks section. To change the link format, first log into your Dashboard and under "Settings" in the left menu select "Permalinks." Once that is selected the following page will display:

On this page you will see the following options to change the link created when you post a new message:

• Default: http://yourdomain.com/?p=123
• Day and name: http://yourdomain.com/2011/04/05/sample-post/
• Month and name: http://yourdomain.com/2011/04/sample-post/
• Numeric: http://yourdomain.com/archives/123
• Post name: http://yourdomain.com/sample-post/
• Custom Structure: This allows you to set up your URLs with your own structure, such as using the Topics as your category base. For more information on the tags that you can use for a custom Permalink structure, please see the WordPress Codex documentation on Permalinks Structure Tags.

Once you have selected the format you want to use, click "Save Changes." Some Plugins may conflict with Permalinks, so if you do change the format form the Default, make sure that your Plugins all still are operating correctly. In the next tutorial we will show you how to change your wordpress site title or tagline.