Permalinks are links that allow specific content on a website to be accessed continuously through a unique and permanent URL. While these links make navigation easier for visitors, they are also highly important for search engines. Permalinks play a critical role in website SEO, Search Engine Optimisation, strategies and improve the accessibility of content. In this article, you will learn how permalinks are created, why they are so important, and how you can use them effectively.
What Is a Permalink?
A permalink is the unique and permanent URL, Uniform Resource Locator, address of a web page or piece of content. This address is used to improve the accessibility and shareability of the content. Permalinks are used in content management systems, CMSs, or website-building platforms to assign a permanent web address to specific content. For example, a permalink created for a blog post or article ensures that the content always remains available at the same address.
If permalinks did not exist, these links would be presented to users through parameter-based values or IP addresses, which would not provide a user-friendly experience. Thanks to permalinks, which are user-friendly links, URLs can be created in a way that clearly indicates the intent and purpose of the related content.
To give a simple example, a URL without a permalink may look like this:
www.siteadi.com/?sayfa=1&icerik_id=7
This structure creates a query that retrieves the seventh piece of content on the first page from the database. It then displays the related data from the database to the user.
By using a permalink, this link structure can be changed to:
www.siteadi.com/kalici-baglanti-permalink-nedir-ne-ise-yarar
or:
www.siteadi.com/10/10/2017/kalici-baglanti-permalink-nedir-ne-ise-yarar
Permalinks provide the following advantages:
Accessibility and shareability: Permalinks allow users to access content on your website easily and consistently. You can also share these links to help visitors find your content more easily.
Importance for SEO: Search engines use permalinks to gain more information about the subject of the content. This may help your content achieve better rankings. Using SEO-friendly permalinks is a practice preferred by search engines.
Link clickability: Short, descriptive, and understandable permalinks increase the likelihood that users will click on the links. They may improve the page’s CTR and contribute to generating more visits to the content.
Updatability: When you update or move content, permalinks allow you to preserve the old link and ensure that visitors can still access the content.
Brand awareness: Permalinks provide distinctive and descriptive addresses that can be used to promote your website’s brand and content.
Memorability: Because they create short and meaningful URLs, permalinks are easier to remember.
Ease of analysis and tracking: Web analytics tools can use permalinks to monitor visitor behaviour and help you understand your content more effectively.
How Is a Permalink Created?
If you use a website management system or blogging platform, a permalink can usually be configured while creating or editing content. The basic steps for creating a permalink through a common content management system such as WordPress are as follows:
First, you need to choose the link structure that will be used across all pages. To do this, select the structure you want under the “Permalinks” option in the Settings section. You can also create your own structure under “Custom Structure”.
After completing these steps, you can update the permalinks within individual pieces of content. The full process includes the following steps:
Add a Title and Content: Prepare your content by adding a title and body text.
Access the Permalink Settings: On the content creation screen, there is generally an option such as “Permalink” or “URL” in the top-right corner or on the right-hand side of the page. Find and click this option.
Edit the Permalink Settings: When you click the permalink settings, you will see different configuration options. Platforms such as WordPress may offer options including:
Default: This option automatically creates a permalink based on the page title. It may not always be clear or SEO-friendly.
Custom: This option allows you to create your own permalink. Enter the custom permalink in the relevant field. For example, you may create a permalink such as “my-new-post”.
Pretty URLs: This option automatically creates an SEO-friendly permalink based on the title. Permalinks created from titles generally contain relevant words and keywords.
Save the Changes: After editing the permalink settings, click the save or update button. This applies the new permalink to your content.
Publish or Update: You can now publish or update your content. The permalink changes will be saved together with the content.
Remember that when you change a permalink, it is important to ensure that the old link continues to work for users who previously clicked it. This can be achieved by configuring redirects or automatically directing old URLs to the new ones. You should also use short, descriptive permalinks containing relevant keywords to improve SEO compatibility.
What Should an SEO-Friendly URL Look Like?
Search engine bots use your website’s permalinks while crawling its pages. Properly structured permalinks allow search engine bots to understand the hierarchy of the website and crawl it more easily. For this reason, creating permalinks with the correct strategy is important both for the website architecture and for making the crawling process easier for search engines. Let us take a closer look at this subject.
1. Use Hyphens in Permalinks
Strategy: Use standard hyphens instead of spaces, underscores, or similar characters between words in your page URLs. If your website contains older content with different permalink structures, update them according to current keywords and redirect the old links to the new ones.
Example:
Old permalink:
https://www.ornekblog.com/seotavsiyeleri
New permalink:
https://www.ornekblog.com/seo-tavsiyeleri
2. Do Not Use Turkish Characters in Permalinks
Strategy: Turkish characters may appear as meaningless expressions when they are not encoded correctly in permalinks, which can create an undesirable result.
Example:
Old permalink:
/kalıcı-bağlantıların-faydaları
New permalink:
/kalici-baglantilarin-faydalari
3. Use Short and Understandable Permalinks
Strategy: Keep your permalinks as short and understandable as possible so that users and search engines can understand the content more easily. Search engines have display limits for URLs in SERPs. If your permalink exceeds this limit, the full URL may not be displayed. For this reason, you can optimise this area by using short permalinks and structured data.
Example:
/seo-kalici-baglanti-stratejileri
4. Include Keywords
Strategy: Include keywords in your permalinks to help your content rank more effectively for relevant searches. Having the keyword in the URL, or permalink, is a ranking factor. For this reason, make sure that your keywords are included in the URL.
Example:
/en-iyi-anahtar-kelime-araclari
5. Do Not Use Stop Words
Strategy: Avoid unnecessary stop words such as “the”, “and”, and “in” in your permalinks. In Turkish, this may include words such as “ve”, “acaba”, or “bana”. These words make the URL unnecessarily long.
Example:
/seo-araclari
This example does not contain any stop words.
6. Create Custom Permalinks
Strategy: Create unique and descriptive permalinks for each piece of content to present the subject more clearly.
Example:
/seo-tavsiyeleri
This is a unique and descriptive permalink.
7. Use a Hierarchical Structure
Strategy: Organise your content more effectively by using category and subcategory permalinks. This will define your website’s hierarchy and provide useful signals to search engines.
Example:
https://www.ornekblog.com/seo/rehber/anahtar-kelimeler
By applying these strategies, you can help your content achieve better rankings and make it easier for users to access. Remember that permalink strategies should be reviewed regularly and updated when necessary because they can have a significant impact on both SEO and user experience.
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