Ask the Blogger!

How Do I Change My Wordpress Blog Permalink Structure For Better Search Engine Rankings?

I want to get better search engine rankings. How do I change my Wordpress permalink structure without breaking my old blog links?

When you install Wordpress fresh, it sets your permalink structure to something like this:

» http://www.domainname.com/?p=123

That’s fine, it doesn’t hurt you. The problem is that you may want to later change your permalink structure to something that has your post title keywords in it for possible improved search engine rankings. For example, like this post.

http://www.asktheblogger.com/how-do-i-change-my-wordpress-blog-permalink-structure-for-better-search-engine-rankings/

So if you make that change, you risk losing all of your old search engine indexed pages, and possibly all of the bookmarks that people have accumulated to you over time.

So How Do I Change It Without Breaking My Links?

There’s a plugin that can help you called ‘Permalinks Migration Plugin for wordpress’.

With this plugin, you can safely change your permalink structure without breaking the old links to your website,and even doesn’t affect your search engine rankings.

How Does It Work?

Here’s the technical details on how it works. I realize it can be confusing, but you should know how it works.

There is a way to tell the search engines (and browsers) that the page has permenantly moved, and that the old address should be replaced by the new one . It’s called a “301 Redirect”, also known as a Permanent Redirect.When you do this, Search engines will update their indexes quickly and you won’t lose your pagerank.you will continue to receive traffic as though nothing had changed. This works for search engines, bookmarks, and links from other sites.

Where Do I Get Started?

Simply download the plugin here and follow the directions. Good luck!

Bonus! AsktheBlogger Video On Wordpress Permalinks

Am I Allowed To Put Ads On My Wordpress Blog?

I’ve got a free blog with wordpress. Am I allowed to put ads on my Wordpress blog, and if so how do I do it?

Answer: Yes, if you are using the free blog software from Wordpress.org, you can put anything you want on your blog, including ads. If you’re using Wordpress.com, which is the hosted version, you are limited to what you can put on your blog.

To put ads on your wordpress blog, you need to be able to edit your themes. A theme is the design of your blog, and they are located in the “wp-content” folder, then inside “themes”. Locate the theme you are using and login to your blog via FTP (file transfer protocol).

You will need to locate the files in your theme that you want to edit and change permissions on them to 755, which means they are now editable. To do this, right click on them (on a PC) and choose “permissions”, make change and hit ok.

Now, you can edit your theme files directly through your Wordpress login in your browser. Login, go to “presentation”, choose “theme editor” and you’ll see a list of the files your blog uses. You can now edit those files.

AsktheBlogger Short Video Explanation!

Now comes the tricky part. Where do I place the ads?

This can be a tad scary for people who aren’t Internet geeks. If you’re placing an ad in your sidebar, you locate the theme file probably called “sidebar”, then place the ad code (for example Google Adsense) in that file, wherever you wish it to appear. You may have to place it and save the page and then view it to see how it looks, then come back and move it around till you get it where you want it to appear.

It’s gets even more tricky when you want to put ads in or around your blog content. AskTheBlogger suggests looking into the Wordpress support community for answers. Here is a link to get you started.