How to Configure WordPress Permalinks

Setting Up SEO-Friendly Permalinks

Permalinks are the permanent URLs for your WordPress pages and posts. A well-structured permalink improves both user experience and search engine optimisation (SEO).

Changing Your Permalink Structure

1. Log in to your WordPress admin panel.
2. Go to Settings > Permalinks.
3. Choose your preferred structure. The available options are:
   • Plain: ?p=123 — Not recommended. Unfriendly and bad for SEO.
   • Day and name: /2025/01/15/post-name/ — Includes the full date.
   • Month and name: /2025/01/post-name/ — Includes the month and year.
   • Numeric: /archives/123 — Uses post ID numbers.
   • Post name: /post-name/ — Recommended. Clean, simple, and SEO-friendly.
   • Custom Structure: Build your own using available tags.
4. Click Save Changes.

Why Post Name Is Recommended

The Post name structure creates the cleanest URLs and is preferred by search engines. It tells both users and search engines what the page is about at a glance. For example, yourdomain.co.uk/how-to-bake-a-cake is far better than yourdomain.co.uk/?p=47.

Fixing Permalink Issues

If your permalinks are not working and pages return 404 errors, the most common cause is that your .htaccess file is missing or not writable:

1. Go to Settings > Permalinks and click Save Changes (even without changing anything). This forces WordPress to regenerate the .htaccess file.
2. If that does not work, check that your .htaccess file exists in the WordPress root directory and is writable. You can check and edit it via cPanel's File Manager.
3. Ensure the Apache mod_rewrite module is enabled on your server (it is enabled by default on SillyHost).

Changing Permalinks on an Existing Site

If you change the permalink structure on a site that is already indexed by search engines, old URLs will return 404 errors. You should set up 301 redirects from the old URLs to the new ones using a plugin like Redirection or Yoast SEO Premium to preserve your search rankings.