Are Your Permalinks Naked?

Do you have naked permalinks? That means they are not clothed with a clear indication of what they are all about. When was the last time you looked at your permalinks? Ok,  let me STOP HERE and ask ,what are permalinks? Well I really like the definiltion by WordPress which says:

Permalinks are the permanent URLs to your individual weblog posts, as well as categories and other lists of weblog postings. A permalink is what another weblogger will use to link to your article (or section), or how you might send a link to your story in an e-mail message. The URL to each post should be permanent, and never change — hence permalink.

For example, if I want to share a special post  on my site in an email blast to friends, familiy and pets

I would not just send them to http://www.bloggingforboomers.com. That would be a waste of time because they would have to scan the categories and or archives to find it. Instead I would include the permalink that with one click would take you directly to the site. http://bloggingforboomers.com/splogs-spam-spings-scraper-sites-and-sanity/  But if I were to include it in a post reference I would probably say , Check out the post I made on splogs, spam, spings and scraper sites.

Now please notice that the link tells you what the post is all about. But when you look at a lot of permalinks they are naked. They don’t have the cloths of clarity on them. Many will have http://www.sitename/pg.15

Please do not try to click on that link.

So how do you change your permalinks? I am glad you asked. Follow the simple steps below:

1. Click on the SETTINGS TAB on your DASHBOARD

2. Click on the PERMALINKS subtab

3. Choose a setting but avoid the default setting. (The setting that is already checked.)

In other words, if you choose the default you will have a naked permalink. It will make no sense to your readers.

If you look at the picture below, we have chosen the custom setting and inserted the code %postname%.

Now, do I know php? Nope, but just know that If I use that piece of code it will put clothes on my permalink  that will say the name of the post.

Note also that you can set your permalink to show the date, etc with the other options.

So, keep your eyes on the permalinks on your blog and cover them up it they are exposed!

Do you have anything to add?

Tags: blogging, code, permalink