WordPress’s default URLs are Unattractive
Let’s start off by discussing the Best Method to Create Custom URLs in WordPress obvious. If you use WordPress for your website or blog, you are aware that the URL (permalink) structure has a default option. Urls in WordPress are by default are confusing and unattractive and so required proper naming and as per best practices we gathered the information as per search Engines algorithms.
Right!
It isn’t attractive!
Learn – Best Method to Create Custom URLs in WordPress
I covered URL structure in my post on how to handle internal linking on your website. Specifically, how crucial it is for SEO So for that the article is written “Best Method to Create Custom URLs in WordPress” how to create custom URL in a WordPress site. If you utilize WordPress’ default permalink configuration, your URLs will seem as follows:
Website addresses beginning with “p=37” or “page id=37”
Ick.
What does the number mean? It’s actually the post or page ID number. Efficient?
Yes!
Beautiful in appearance? No.
Although those types of URLs are undoubtedly indexable by Google and the other search engines, they are unsightly to look at and of little use to USERS.
My friends, Google hates it when users aren’t helped. However, you do have other choices, and you don’t even need to be a developer to abandon the standard URL syntax and produce useful, sociable permalinks.
Common Permalink Configurations or Create Permalinks
The best news is that WordPress doesn’t force you to do it their way; they’re like the Burger King of platforms, offering you five “preset” alternatives for your URL structure, as well as the way we recommend: customizable URLs so read more about Best Method to Create Custom URLs in WordPress article’s given points.
As you can see, I have some strong feelings on the various URL ways provided by WordPress. Let’s have a look at the various parameters given above and how they would affect this particular post:
- Default: buyersfriendly dot com/?p=162
- Day/Name: buyersfriendly dot com/2015/12/10/best-method-to-create-custom-urls-in-wordpress/
- Month/Name: buyersfriendly dot com/2015/12/best-method-to-create-custom-urls-in-wordpress/
- Numeric: buyersfriendly dot com/archives/162
- Post Name: buyersfriendly dot com/best-method-to-create-custom-urls-in-wordpress/
- Custom: buyersfriendly dot com/blog/best-method-to-create-custom-urls-in-wordpress/
The default and numeric settings are undoubtedly the two poorest alternatives; the day or month and name options are, however, acceptable and, at the very least, preferable than the default. The last two, post name and custom, are the best of the group.
As you can see, we’ve configured our custom parameters to specifically refer to the blog at buyersfriendly dot com/blog/%postname%/. See, we have this unique structure because we want all blog entries to fit into the blog “folder.” The “parent/child” folder structure is used throughout the rest of the website.
Why Unique URLs Work Best or Custom Created URLs
For our website and blog entries, we chose to create our own unique URLs, as do the majority of website owners.
- Search engines
- Users
There are many reasons why people and search engines favor personalized URLs. They enjoy them because they are simple to read and provide context.
And they improve the aesthetics of the (online) world. Who doesn’t adore that, though?
You should make sure to take advantage of your URL since it first and foremost aids users in understanding what your page is about in the search snippet.
Why? So naturally, users of search engines feel obliged to click over to your page. On a search engine results page (SERP), URLs are the only other text tempting users outside your title tags and meta descriptions:
(For reference, I typed “method to create seo friendly website” into the search bar.)
Have you noticed how nearly every URL listed in the SERP above has useful information crammed into it? The Food Network is the group’s lone outcast. Although that page is pertinent, the URL “structure” presented isn’t useful, therefore I must rely on the title tag and meta description to inform me what the page is about.
(The page’s genuine URL is something, but the website displays the “breadcrumb” instead by employing schema markup. I don’t like that in this case because the website’s URL perfectly matches my search term.)
Even Google admits that making amiable, unique URLs is ideal in its SEO Starter Guide:
“Descriptive categories and filenames for the documents on your website can not only help you maintain a more structured site, but it may also improve the way search engines crawl your documents.”
They continue by saying that user-friendly, simpler-to-read URLs will benefit your website when other websites connect to your content. Why? Because anchor text matters, people, because the URL itself becomes anchor text if someone links to a page on your website just using the URL.
Why then does WordPress insist on using the default structure that Google believes to be the ugly duckling when bespoke URLs are better for users? No idea.
It’s enough to state that you must modify the default settings and create your own. But how should one proceed?
Fe Steps about How to Create Best Custom URLs:
It takes more effort to create bespoke URLs than to simply combine some phrases and hope for the best. No, you should think carefully about your URLs, just as you do about the titles of your blog posts, headlines, picture alt text, and other meta data.
Basically, you want your on-page SEO strategies to be clear enough for anyone to understand what the content of your page is at a look. We like to think of it this way: “How would we convey it to someone who is blind and using a screen reader to consume our content?”
Therefore, you must include descriptive text, or keywords, in your URLs.
However, as Rand explained in his blog on URL best practices, readability is more important than keyword utilization (I’m taking this image from his post!).
Now you must be willing to invest the effort necessary to create PASSIONATE custom permalinks; it is not sufficient to just select “Custom Structure” in the WordPress settings.
Here is my five-point checklist for creating understandable, beneficial, and welcoming custom permalinks:
Make sure that URLs are brief, concise, and easy to understand.
Keep things succinct, but avoid making them so short that they become unclear.
Instead of using spaces or even underscores to separate words (and please don’t run all the words together), use hyphens.
Be sure to use only lowercase letters.
Even though a website should be neatly organized, use fewer directories than necessary.
1) Simple | Descriptive | URLs
Simple is best, stupid. You understand that I had to say it. Having said that, you don’t want your URLs to be so brief and vague that nobody can understand what the page is about.
Take abcxx123xyz dot com/page1.php as Exhibit A.
What?
Absolutely do not do that. You want the information in your URLs to be clear, but you also don’t want them to be so long that users have to take a break to read them.
Use descriptive text, or keywords, instead of writing a phrase to describe the URL structure because users can read it in “shorthand,” as it were.
Exhibit B: Despite having the title “WordPress URLs: 5 Simple Steps to Creating the Best URL Structure,” this blog post’s URL is buyersfriendly dot com/blog/5-steps-to-create-best-wordpress-urls/. People can omit certain words from my URL and fill in the blanks instead.
See? descriptive, easy to read, and uncomplicated.
2) If the URL are Short then it is Best as Per SEO
People, brevity is a virtue (this coming from ME, by the way). We do not want to see URLs that look like this:
Why? Because holy Hannah is that really long and difficult to read book. That URL was obviously made solely to make a point, yet still Yowzas.
Remembering Rand’s scale of URL readability from earlier, you want visitors to be able to a) rapidly read and b) understand your URL because you only have so much space on a SERP to persuade readers to click on your website rather than someone else’s.
Therefore, refrain from producing a novella, especially if you’re crafting lengthy URLs to cram as many keywords as you can. So first read about the Best Method to Create Custom URLs in WordPress and create a proper custom url for blog and any page on WordPress sites you desire.
Recommend to Use Hyphens Rather than Underlines and Absolutely not spaces
Not only is the aforementioned URL exceedingly difficult to read, but it is also jam-packed with words that are all run together. The statement may have been broken up using hyphens at the very least. just for S&G Let me demonstrate what I mean. How about if it said THIS instead?
http:// thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast dot com/we-are-just-doing-this-to-be-stupid-now-since-this-can-go-on-forever-and-ever-and-ever-but-it-still-looks-kinda-neat-in-the-browser-even-though-its-a-big-waste-of-time-and-energy-and-has-no-real-point-but-we-had-to-do-it-anyways.html
See? Much simpler to read, yes? but it’s still absurdly long.
Of course, URLs must be simple to read and brief, as I have already mentioned, but you also cannot simply type as though you were composing a sentence. Many individuals opt to use hyphens (dashes) or underscores to separate the words in their URLs.
We advise using hyphens because they read the clearest. While underscores are completely appropriate and are understood by search engines and other software, it’s possible for viewers of your text to become perplexed. See, when using underscores as separators in a URL, the “dashes” used to be concealed when in link form, giving the impression to readers that the URL was typed with spaces:
1 – mysiteaddressxyz dot com/this-url-uses-underscores
2 – mysiteaddressxyz dot com /this-url-uses-underscores
Of course, that isn’t a big deal anymore, but it would (still) appear that hyphens and underscores are handled differently by Google, in Matt Cutts’ opinion:
Simply said,
Underscore = connects words (Google “erases” underlines to condense phrases into a single word)
Hyphen = breaks up words (Google sees each word separately)
But rather than using spaces, it is preferable to utilize hyphens OR underscores.
Avoid using spaces in URLs in place of hyphens because doing so will make your URLs ugly:
https://www.buyersfriendly.com /blog/best%20steps%20to%20create%20best%20site%20urls/
According to Google’s John Mueller, a webmaster trends analyst,
To keep things simple, I normally advise against using special characters in URLs, such as commas, semicolons, colons, spaces, quotations, etc.
You get the idea even if he left out “dumb.”
4) Lowercase letters in URLs
(Or, for that matter, in any domains.) Everyone is aware that duplicate content shouldn’t be used online. Please only use one URL per content item.
You can wind up with duplicate material or, depending on how your server is configured, a 404 error page if you capitalize your URLs. How come that? Here proper and Best Method to Create Custom URLs in WordPress is explained for a better experience on Google search rank as well as you need to follow rule – not to create capitalization into URL.
Because capitalization is irrelevant to search engines, bots, HTML5, and everything else. Regardless of whether you enter in a URL exactly as it is capitalized or not, they will return the same content. Well, unless your server is configured in a way that prevents it; in that case, unless you DO write in the URL exactly correctly, you’ll get a 404.
Why do I say that? Although it may appear more formal than mysite dot com/About-Our-Company/, nobody really cares and it could end up biting you in the you-know-where. Here are some potential substitutes for that fictitious URL:
1 – mysite dot com/About-our-company/
2 – mysite dot com/about-Our-company/
3 – mysite dot com/about-our-Company/
4 – mysite dot com/about-our-companY/
etc.
The same thing occurs if you capitalize a word in the URL as well. Therefore, focus on sentence structure in your content rather than capitalization in URL format.
Another reason to avoid doing this is because if your material appears in URLs with capitalization or all caps and people start linking to it in different ways, you’ll spread link love throughout your “duplicate” content that was produced as a result of a few capitalized letters.
Be Careful When Using Folders in URLs
The use of folders is still a crucial component of WordPress permalinks, however it has more to do with the site layout than single URL creation. Although it is possible to create all of your website’s URLs from the root (with no folders), I don’t advise it.
Therefore, we employ folders to organize site content, which again benefits both people AND search engines.
Additionally, as per the Best Method to Create Custom URLs in WordPress suggests avoid making several directories solely to cram your URLs with keywords. Mysite dot com/our-widgets/best-widgets/buy-widgets/sale-widgets/best-widget-in-world is point of Exhibit C.
Avoid doing that. Your URLs are formatted that way as a result of you.
- a) are attempting to stuff as many keywords as feasible, or
- b) You should update the sitemap for your website.
Stop it if the first case applies. Avoid doing that; both humans and search engines consider it spam. If the latter, a remedy is still possible but not quite as straightforward.
Technically speaking, Step 1 of creating (or rebuilding) a website—the sitemap and content organization—should inform your site’s folder structure.
To Sum It Up..
So. How did we fare? WordPress allows you to create custom URLs, but you also want to create GOOD URLs.
But first, in the WordPress permalink settings area, select “Custom Structure.” Following that, you must follow a few straightforward best practices to generate URLs that will work well for both users and search engines:
- Use keywords in your page description, but keep the URL short.
- To (accurately) represent the content of the website, make URLs as brief as possible.
- Use hyphens to divide the words in the URL.
- Only capitalize lowercase URLs
- Keep the URL structure’s folders to a minimum
Good custom URLs can achieve their aim. Just adhere to the directions! So we suggest you to read all points above written in this article about Best Method to Create Custom URLs in WordPress. Buyers Friendly provides proper and best information as per the search engines algorithms works and how bots crawls on the website.
