Make Your URL Short and Efficient

Many of us don’t bother on how the URL looks as long as the page displays correctly, right? Wrong… A short and efficient URL not only more user friendly but also improve your search engines ranking as high wattage is given to keywords that present in the URL. Let us look at these samples.

Sample 1 (default):
http://www.neatten.com/?p=123
http://www.neatten.com/2008/06/06/sample-post/

Sample 2 (customized):
http://www.neatten.com/sample-post/
http://www.neatten.com/category/sample-post/

Ask yourself. Which one looks better and more efficient? I will definitely opt for the latter. Should you decide to implement the same as I did, here’s how. Don’t worry. It’s very simple and straightforward process.

All you have to do is go to Settings and then choose Permalinks. You are given 5 options on how to make your URL looks. As of this blog, I used to display only the title of my post, excluding the category which can be seen below.

permalink

If you decide to include your category as well, just add this code at “Custom Structure” option.

/%category%/%postname%/

Next thing is to update your .htaccess file. WordPress is kind enough to generate the command automatically which will look similar as illustrated below. All you have to do is to copy and paste it on your .htaccess file and voila! You are done!

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

As more and more experienced bloggers realized that having an optimal URL is crucial for long term success. So, why shouldn’t you?

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Posted on: June 8, 2008 | Under Blog Optimization 
 

One Response to “Make Your URL Short and Efficient”

  1. Bill P on July 9th, 2008 3:19 am

    Awesome advice thanks! I personally use http://www.UrlSnub.com for all my long urls, with their short url services you can not only shorten urls, you can also create custom tags, password protect urls, and even create a free user account to monitor unique and non unique traffic to your short urls. :)

    –thanks

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