Permalinks are the permanent URLs that point to your site's individual posts, pages, and other content. In WordPress, the default permalink structure includes a question mark and a number, which is not very user-friendly or SEO-friendly. Changing permalinks to a more readable and meaningful structure can improve SEO and user experience, but it's important to do it correctly to avoid hurting your site's SEO. Here's how to change permalinks in WordPress without hurting SEO:
- Go to the WordPress dashboard and navigate to Settings > Permalinks.
- Choose a permalink structure that's more user-friendly and meaningful, such as "Post name" or "Category/Post name".
- Save the changes.
By default, WordPress will automatically redirect the old URLs to the new ones, so you don't have to worry about broken links. However, to ensure that search engines can find the new URLs and properly index your site, you'll need to do the following:
- Install and activate a plugin like Yoast SEO, which includes a built-in redirect manager.
- Go to the Redirects tab in Yoast SEO and click "Add Redirect".
- Enter the old permalink in the "Old URL" field and the new permalink in the "New URL" field.
- Choose a redirect type, such as "301 Moved Permanently".
- Save the redirect.
Repeat this process for each old permalink that needs to be redirected to a new one.
